ThereE are times when I have the greatest sympathy for MPs.

And for councillors.

All parties and none.

I mean in terms of the endless abuse and vilification.

It must take its toll, as many MPs have made clear.

As all wars there is always history and precipitating causes.

As matters stand now and for months we have an East West wall of steel.

In the West day and night saturation propaganda. Putin is evil. Russia is evil.

We in the righteous West - USA, UK, and EU - have never launched wars leading to mass destruction of countries. Mass destruction of life. This has never happened.

Post 9/11 Afghanistan was not invaded by US and UK with the loss over 20 years of 140,000 Afghan lives.

Iraq “shock and awe” “weapons of mass destruction” 2003 never happened, with the loss of 160,000 Iraqi civilian lives.

And don’t talk about the US 1960s carpet bombing Vietnam for seven years. Napalm - jellied petroleum. Agent orange chemical warfare for a decade.

Two millions Vietnamese dead. Men, women, and children.

And ten years before that Korea bombed into oblivion by the US air-force. Three million Koreans dead. I don’t defend President Putin. I condemn war.

All war and the insanity that drives mankind to war.

The fact stands, as made by serious world diplomats (US Henry Kissinger and many more), President Putin apart no Russian president will ever accept US NATO nuclear strike forces, on their borders, in a pro-NATO deeply hostile Ukraine.

Anymore than the US in 1962 would accept nuclear missiles in Cuba 90 miles from the US. That then within hours of leading to nuclear war.

That matter stands as the largest driving force of this war.

Now a raging proxy war between Russia and the West. Costing tens of thousands of lives.

And we pump in more weapons. Billions of dollars of weapons.

One message to the world: no to war.

No to fuelling wars.

Yes to UN led international ceasefire, negotiations, and a peace treaty.

Or do we end in the very near future with a nuclear war and oblivion.

“Only the dead know the price of war”: 450 BC.

JEFF WILLIAMS

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