Russia on the back foot says MP for Ludlow, Philip Dunne

The West and Russia have both contributed to the present impasse in this "war of dignity, this war of sovereignty" since the Revolution of Dignity in 2014.  Let none of them feel they have won or lost!

We are all to blame, all sides have to talk, to negotiate, to compromise, to quickly stop the killings, the destruction and the escalated ecocide.

But Archbishop Welby does not think so.  This top church leader says, we all have to show resilience, patience and understand it will go on for years.  By then more thousands killed, tens of thousands with war wounds and thousands of buildings flattened.  The crown of the Lord's creation is showing yet more self-destruction, ecocide and wipeout to make us humans His shortest-lived of all His millions of species on the planet.

Coercion, force, violence is ...

... hardwired, I believe into Britain and the West; into Church and State; into both society and the individual psyche.  Therefore, we have had for every single year for, at least the last one hundred years, the killing of foreigners and, in their own lands, too; and by us good, decent, heroic Brits, too!

The 20th century saw more killings by the West of our fellow human beings than in all the previous years of humanity added together.  What sheer aggression, violence and pure evil in us upright and so, oh so democratic and freedom loving peoples!

The ever so Great Britain had the greatest empire the world had ever seen in 1914.  Kitchener had led the more recent colonial wars.  Therefore, it was the normal done thing to go to war.  It was the obvious thing to do when an upstart European country was wanting to rival the Great Empire of Britain and to acquire some nations for itself.  33,000 enlisted on one day alone in September 1914 and over one million men had volunteered by Christmas.  "They volunteered out of a sense of patriotic duty", Jeremy Paxman said on 'Britain's Great War'.  "It was a massive rush to arms", before it was all over by Christmas.

The European Union came out of centuries of European nations fighting wars with each other and around the globe; wars ordered and taxed by their representatives of God on earth - the divinely appointed and approved royal monarchs.  The grand climax of the West's World War in two parts, finally shook the war mongering Europeans into economic and some political union to have, at last, permanent peace with each other, at least.

The least you and I can do is to give to the British Red Cross and the Disasters Emergency Committee.  And, of course, avoid employment in armaments and the armed forces.

Bringing freedom, democracy and Western culture to those who don't know better

There is nothing wrong with us all (very nearly) voting for the war parties (doing it and fueling it) while our votes keep the war well away from our shores.  While we don't get killed, we must carry on supporting our heroes when they return in either body bags or upright, regardless of how many they have killed in defending us in foreign lands, on distant shores, thousands of miles away.

Let them carry on sorting out these weak, war torn and sorry countries so that they take on board our right and good way of doing things.

Of course, the West won the war against Western Nazism, next we won it against Soviet Communism and got them to introduce our capitalism.  We never beat Chinese communism but we just got them to introduce capitalism, anyway.  And, without bringing our capitalism down the barrel of a gun, like Mao tse Tung tried to do with his revolution!  Now we are winning the war against those Muslim terrorists who think they can challenge our Western, Christian presence on their holy Muslim soil.  We pay their masters good money for making much better use of their gas and oil than they would ever do!

It simply boils down to the fact that what we do - violent or not - is always morally right and our enemies violent opposition is always morally wrong.  We are the virtuous West against the Islamic terrorists.  The West just can't help being the winners, all along the way - at the expense of the rest of poor humanity!!

The West is simply best.

For Israel, attack is the best form of defence

Israel only ever tries violence, terrorism and targeted assassination as the best forms of defence.

The nation was born in 1948 out of Israeli violence and terrorism against the British.  Terrorism was rewarded and its attacks and aggression on its neighbouring countries since then hardly endeared it to those nations.  An Israeli promotional film, I recently saw at church, actually admitted it was surrounded by enemies, as if this was something to be proud of rather than ashamed of, as a sign of failure.

After 64 years, I would have thought Israel would have tried a different strategy to win friends and influence people - even if this was only out of sheer self-interest to improve its security and future prospects.  But, then, it is an outpost of what the Palestinians see as the loathed USA/West in the very heart of the Arab/Muslim Middle East.  So, what more can one expect from Israel/USA/UK than continued warfare to ratchet up the hatred, to never bring peace with justice for either Israel or Palestine?

The Purpose Driven Life - an alternative view

What on earth am I here for?

To pass on my genes;
to live as sustainably as possible;
to prepare for heaven;
to make my peace with God/to get right with God;
to glorify God and enjoy him for ever;
to support Israel in all that it does 'cos the Lord is working his purposes out through Israel for the return of Christ;
to tread as lightly as possible on the planet;
to leave the place in as good a heart as when I was born;
to be faithful to Christ in living out his life and teachings;
to turn my back on invading other countries to sort them out when there is no UN mandate to do so;
to make disciples of all nations - as long as they become non-violent disciples of all nations; and, it does not look like colonialism/imperialism or, we're right your wrong; and, it doesn't look like more white supremacy by the rich West telling everyone else how to behave;
to live for others, especially for those yet unborn, in order to leave a habitable planet for them;
to support Israel right or wrong, violent or non-violent, aggessive or non-aggressive, despite all the UN resolutions flouted and its transformation from oppressed to oppressor;
to live for God's pleasure;
to make all life on earth last for an eternity - a grand purpose, a magnificent obsession for me that is no part of God's purpose for his believers.