Keep Fueling the Fire

I don’t know if you have realised, but there is a war raging, just two hours from here. There are guns, granades, rockets, tanks, warplanes and warships. There is killing, torture and rape. Mostly sanctioned by states and statesmen and leaders and even churches. They kill each other according to some dim-witted rules of engagement, drafted by criminal nutjobs decades ago in Geneva.

I don’t know if you have realised, but it isn’t something isolated that only concerns some crazed states in our backyards called Russia and Ukraine. It is an European war that is about to creep towards our own (still standing) homes. I’m not talking about raising inflation and energy crises. I’m talking about the risk of getting seriously involved in a way the people in the West won’t dare to imagine. We seem to have forgotten.

I don’t know if you have realised, but it’s us – you and me – who pay for the weapons that kill people like ourselves. Young Russians, who believe in earnest that they were fighting Nazis, are people too! And with every round the Ukrainians are shooting at them, ten times the amount is been thrown back at them, and kill or cripple innocent civilians, adults, youths, children and babies. People like you and me. It is us who pay for ever more death on both sides.

I don’t know if you have realised, but the Ukrainians are fighting the troops of the biggest country on earth. Whatever you may think of Putin – crazy, scrupulous, criminal – he already is one of the most powerful men alive. Have you ever thought about, really thought about, why he is doing this, and what his real options are to bring this to an end? Have you ever considered that there maybe is more than one point of view to all this? More than just the Western point of view? I’m not saying that Putin has any right to invade a neighbouring country, I’m just asking if you really tried to understand the Russian perspective?

I don’t know if you have realised, but all refugees that appear on camera have the same point of view: They want their country back and go home. Have you ever considered, that there maybe others that want the Russians to take over, but aren’t featured much in the anti-Putin Western media? Have you ever give it a thought that almost half the Ukrainian population voted in favour of the last government that had close ties to Russia? Why do you think the Eastern regions of the country tried to split up from Ukraine years ago, but haven’t been allowed to? Because they didn’t accept the Westernisation of their country.

Furthermore, I don’t know if you have realised, but refugees tend to go home first, and only care second who is in charge there. You want to go home, you want to rebuild, you want to have your life back. You want to have peace. And you certainly don’t want to sleep longer as necessary in a foreign country with an unknown language with no money of your own. With your children! Try to put yourself in their shoes: If peace is restored at home, most of us care less who is ruling there. First we want our life back.

This is exactly what I’m hearing on a daily bases from the majority of people. Most of the refugees want to go home first and care second – if at all – to what political system. Why, I ask, isn’t this reflected in the media?

Have you thought about who the winners and the loosers of this war are? Have you thought about who profits from the weapons the West delivers to an active shooting war? And who pays for them? I don’t have to explain it, you find the answer in your supermarket, on your energy bills, on the housing market, and in the tank of your car. Our lifestyle ends up in the books of the weapon industry. This is were our money flows. Before it blows up in the Ukraine and kills and cripples soldiers and civilians alike. On both sides.

(And I didn’t even mention the 300 Million people who will partly starve to death because of the war.)

You are worried the Russians will be end up in your own country one day? You should be. Keep fueling the fire, keep sending weapons, and this day will come sooner as you can imagine.

The Russians have begun the war? It’s only just to send weapons to stop them?

There is no such thing as a just war. There is only – war.