I was completely and utterly wrong!

Dear friends

I never thought that Russia would be so foolish and immoral as to invade Ukraine.  However, it has not been helped by American/British/NATO intransigence and, expansionism eastwards.  Intransigence, over our refusal to even agree verbally, let alone put it in writing, that we would not allow Ukraine to also become a member of NATO.  In my opinion, our military exercises in NATO and in the South China Sea and in the Taiwan Straits should end.  Certainly, end in the former satellite states of the USSR that gives such a very bad example, and model to follow, to Russia/Putin.

In the 1990s, our word should have been our bond.  It should not have been necessary to put it in writing that as the Warsaw Pact folded, NATO would NOT take on board many of their former members - unless Russia agreed and became a member, too.  Should NATO have followed Russia's fine example and dissolved itself as well, perhaps?

Throughout humanity's unhappy sojourn on this planet, one group of people has wanted to dominate and subjugate another.  Such is the way of us lot!  The supposedly Christian West, over the last 1700 years has been the worse as regards numbers subjugated and killed and/or the vast tracts of land that we have subsumed and dominated.  Our Christain slave trade, I understand, was bigger and longer-lasting than the Muslim slave trade.

The wealthy greed and domination of the monarchy in Russia led to the October 1917 revolution, if I remember correctly.  The 1919 very unjust treaty on Germany may well have led to the second half of the 20th century World War.  In 1945, we would never have been victorious without Russia and their friends.  And they lost between 20 and 30 million people in those six years to defeat Nazisim.  Yet, such was our folly, within weeks the USSR had become our No 1 sworn enemy.  What ingratitude!  But we wanted yet another war.  The Cold War.  Thanks to Russian leaders in the 1980s/90s who refused to join in such childish, petty pranks, they withdrew from the game.  Yet, our side, as in 1919, claimed that we had vanquished the evil Commies of the USSR and won a mighty victory.  Especially, when the Warsaw Pact dissolved.

Our American-led NATO leaders failed us in the last 30 years of more and more Western domination of more and more of Europe while Putin and his friends saw more and more of their former satellite states change sides to the West.  Not a good omen.  The 2014 coup or uprising, as Noam Chomsky called it, must have been the last straw for Putin.  And I can well understand that.  It completely upset the already obvious misbalance in Europe since the end of the Warsaw Pact and the USSR of '89 to '91.

I can assure BobWF that I have read and considered every word he has written to me and understand his point of view, that I value.

As an eco-socialist/environmentalist all my adult life, I have been on the side of non-violence after the pattern of Gandhi, Martin Luther-King Jnr and Donald Soper who are my heroes.  Latterly, also Alastair McIntosh, the Scottish Quaker, writer, academic and activist  In 1914, I would have been shot at dawn; in 1939 as a conscientious objector and, in this war, a non-combatant.

FROM Alastair's home page:

"I am especially influenced by liberation theology in Christianity and other faiths, this being theology that liberates theology to liberate humanity. In choosing what to work on, I, therefore, ask questions like:

	Does what I do feed the hungry?
	Is it relevant to the poor or to the broken in nature?
	Is it meaningful?
	Does it give life?"

Please correct anything I have written.  Thanks for writing and for engaging in discussion.

Useless Idiots

Dear Editor  - exclusive to the Times; NOT for publication in the Express and Star or the Birmingham Post.

Useless Idiots

You wrote, “Nato was created in 1949 as an alliance of free nations to deter Soviet expansionism and aggression.” THE TIMES 15 September.

The ‘Guardian’ in February 2014​,​ proved in their four page spread that it was not the USSR but the UK that has had their armed forces in action in other countries in every single year since at least 1914.  It was hoped that 2015 would be the first year since at least 1914 that the UK was not killing foreigners in their own lands.

It seems that the Cold War was stoked and Nato formed by the West out of paranoia that it was about to be attacked and overrun by the Soviet Union.  This, mind you, after the Russians had just sacrificed about 25 million of their people to help us win a war they had no part in starting! Nato was formed in 1949 and continues.  Their equivalent, the Warsaw Pact lasted from 1955 to 1991. In other words, ​formed ​in response to the West’s unfriendly alliance that they felt threatened them.​ They dissolved their military alliance in 1991.  Since ​then​, the West has continued to spread its influence eastwards to diminish Russian influence and to expand the West’s EU and Nato membership.

Fear of attack by Russia was also used to justify a huge arsenal of weapons of every description.  Nato helped to give respectability to the three leading members for their many wars of expansionism, aggression and regime change around the world.  So much for setting a fine example to other countries! If you make yourself an enemy, you must expect to be treated as an enemy.

The West has unilaterally strengthened itself while the Russians dissolved the Warsaw Pact and saw it Eastern bloc friends go over to the West.​  Ukraine was the most damaging, led to Crimea annexation and civil war that continues to this day.​ The West stirred things up. Useless idiots.

Tim Weller​  (contact details at the foot)