Ukraine Dispatch 44 ~ Wearing the Cloak of Appeasement
Ukraine Dispatch 44
Wearing the Cloak of Appeasement ~ COWARDICE
11 March 2024
Introduction
I actually wrote this Dispatch three days ago, out of concern at the consistent and persistent calls to appease aggression by British parliamentarians. It was drafted as Ukraine Dispatch 43.
How quickly events move within a single rise and setting of the Sun, and the world is turned upside down by a very old man, a very, very fallible man, whose track record in his life - if, that is, we are to believe the script delivered in The two Popes ~ Jorge Mario Bergoglio ~ Pope Francis. When I drafted the Dispatch the Pope was not even on my mind, so I quietly remove the gentleman from my consideration.
The Cloak of Appeasement
I
There exists a dividing line between aggressive military service on operations and ordinary military service, and a dividing line between military and civilian, and a dividing line between meaningful citizenship that contrbutes to the welfare of the community, a nation and then, further beyond that nation’s borders. In an advanced democracy such as that enjoyed within the United Kingdom, or France, or Germany, or the Scandinavian Countries we enjoy the freedom to express opinions.
There comes a point when the line blurs, and politicians especially, their eye always on their political careers and good fortunes.
Beware the politician on any TV or Radio programme or Podcast or street-chat, trotting out that idiotic, meaningless and patronising phrase, I listen to my constituents. I’m on the doorsteps. The welfare of my constituents comes first. Politicians, and that other lot, the army of - good, indifferent and plain bad - media bums that invade our living rooms daily, hourly, even cutting across our phone conversations, courtesy of the plethora of social media apps, trot it all out. Media presenters enjoy their dubious celebrity status as they flit around the world, embedding themselves into this, that and any war zone they can find…
II
We see this, today, in the War in Ukraine. Two years on, we have reached that most dangerous point. In the Second World War, Churchill spoke of the turning of the tide, that point whereby the direction of the war turned in the favour of the Allies, in the Battle of El Alamein and the Battle of Stalingrad.
Except that weak western politicians speak of a turn increasingly in the favour of Russia.
As I watch political debate and watch once respected politicians falling over themselves as they look up from their panels to expectant audiences,
There is no victory in war.
Nobody wins.
That is a fact.
The only way forward is to negotiate.
And all the panel heads nod like those toy dogs we see on the back shelf of the car we drive behind, nodding away, endlessly.
And THERE! Right in the middle of the room is that spectre from former days, now clothed in the garments of new ‘enlightened’ language garments, but which still have that same stench of death, corrosion, the blood of others but not ours, the ashes of others but not ours, the dust of others but not ours ~ APPEASEMENT.
The Language of Appeasement, Acquiescence and Subjugation
Now, at last, do I understand in a very practical sense the abject horror in 1940 recalling that idiotic man, a vain-glorious adjunct from the 19th Century, Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, more commonly known as Lord Halifax, the man who advocated appeasement with Hitler.
1 April 2024
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© 2024 Kenneth Thomas Webb
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Ken Webb is a writer and proofreader. His website, kennwebb.com, showcases his work as a writer, blogger and podcaster, resting on his successive careers as a police officer, progressing to a junior lawyer in succession and trusts as a Fellow of the Institute of Legal Executives, a retired officer with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, and latterly, for three years, the owner and editor of two lifestyle magazines in Liverpool.
He also just handed over a successful two year chairmanship in Gloucestershire with Cheltenham Regency Probus.
Pandemic aside, he spends his time equally between his city, Liverpool, and the county of his birth, Gloucestershire.
In this fast-paced present age, proof-reading is essential. And this skill also occasionally leads to copy-editing writers’ manuscripts for submission to publishers and also student and post graduate dissertations.