If you want peace, it is said, you must prepare for war. Sadly, it looks increasingly as if those who prepare for war eventually get one. With the imminent deployment of British troops on the ground in Ukraine and British ships in the Black Sea Grant Shapps will move us a significant step towards full scale involvement in a war which is absolutely none of our concern.
The mainstream media report this with studied equanimity and parrot the UK government line that we will be advising and training troops there on the one hand and, on the other, making sure that the Black Sea remains open to international shipping. Only non-legacy media outlets such as GB News and our own Unity News Network seem capable of expressing any concern that this is an escalation and, almost unavoidably, will drag British troops into combat.
Two questions arise. First, if Ukraine is doing as well as is claimed in repelling the Russian invasion, why does it need any further advice? If we are to help ensure that the Black Sea remains open, how else are we to do that than by force if the Russians decide that they want to mount blockades on Ukrainian ports? Only an ignoramus could ignore the distinct possibility that British troops may be fired on in Ukraine or that our ships may come under fire in the Black Sea. Only the severely deluded could convince themselves that we will not return fire.
And this will be no mere firefight or skirmish; we are part of NATO and forces from other NATO members could be mobilised to defend us. I imagine demented Joe Biden would be easily convinced to sign the orders for US forces to head to the Mediterranean. Russia, sensing the possibility of overwhelming force has the means at its disposal to stem it and we know what that could mean. Nothing short of nuclear war and the start of World War III.
Parallels are being drawn with the way the USA became involved in Vietnam; it was exactly like this. And it took them twenty years to disentangle themselves from that and also to be defeated. The results are visible—and I will pay them a visit next week as I always do on my annual visit to Washington DC—on the Vietnam War memorial near the Washington Mall.
I visited our National Memorial Arboretum late last year to see the names of fallen soldiers who served with my son and my son-in-law. I still have serving family members, including one of my own children. There is still plenty of blank stone waiting to be carved. If our leaders are not careful and desist from the bloody path down which they seem to be taking us, we could soon see much of the blank stone at the arboretum filled with names. If one of those names is my daughter or my son-in-law then I’ll know who to hold responsible, Mr Shapps.
Roger Watson is a retired academic nurse who lives in the UK.
He is currently engaged in a range of professional consultancies in the UK, Europe and China. He writes regularly for several outlets including The Daily Sceptic, The European Conservative, Country Squire Magazine and The New Conservative.
