Integration or disintegration: Keir Starmer faces backlash for including flag on electoral campaign

It looks and sounds like a contradiction that people coming to Britain or who have been born see the national symbols as a threat. Why is this happening? The education system might have a lot to do with it. Negative attitudes towards Nation and nationalist are being promoted throughout the education system, thus turning Britons against their own country and their own national identity.

Instead of being encouraged to love the country in which they live, they are being taught to hate the country in which they live and to see the country in which they live as evil. This state of affairs has to change and the time for change is long overdue when Britain might be about to face yet another historical challenge for its survival. 

Environmental measures are a national security liability

Limiting options in terms of the energy mix makes countries weaker when it comes to defending themselves in case of war. This statement has proven to be true not once, but many times. In fact, blockades have been about reducing energy options to defeat your enemy. Energy sources are a prime target when conflict arises.

Bombing oil installations, energy plants and hydroelectric facilities is about depriving your enemy of the energy that it needs to carry on fighting. This is why Green policies are a threat to National Security. Proponents of green alternatives have in mind the idea of protecting eco systems and preserving the environment for future generations. Unfortunately, such alternatives come with a huge price tag in times of political and geopolitical uncertainty.

When Germany was deprived of oil during World War Two, the country had to reach for alternatives to produce the energy needed to keep itself going and to meet the needs of war. Airplanes, tanks, ships, trucks and everything imaginable that needs to be fuelled could not possibly be kept running without fossil fuels and therefore Germany had to create something that resembled oil.

Britain also knew the price of not having oil. The number of ships that went down trying to keep Britain provided of essentials is a reminder of the fact that the country needed reliable and sufficient amount of energy not to face defeat.

Political statements about geopolitics and environmental policies travel in opposite directions. You can try to protect the environment by weakening your country, making your country extremeluy vulnerable because of lack of reliable and sufficient energy sources. 

War Readiness: Where is the money? Where is the infra-structure?

The debate in the House of Commons about Britain's readiness to go to war with few of the theoretical 650 MPs in attendance was quite elighhtening about the real state of the British Armed Forces. Britain is spending 2.1% of its budget in Defense and given the present situation in terms of being really and trully ready for any massive conflict, the amount to be spent would be not less than 15% and this includes cutting down the budget for health, education and other areas of the British budget. To put it mildly, it would be really and truly impossible.

So all the statements made by the British Prime Minister and other Members of the Cabinet are a lot of hot air, a pretense that is not based on real possibilities.

George Galloway and the SNP told things as they are. The total number of members of the Armed Forces could be put in Wembley Stadium. Britain has no real war industries. The Armed Forces are not only facing a recruitment crisis generated in part by British foreign policy, but also by the way Britain treats those who dare to become members of the Armed Forces.

Unfortunately, such a debate did not make headlines for the BBC, Sky News or any other mass media that keep broadcasting incessantly the pretense statements made by the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Defense and others. Nobody is asking questions that should be asked in the country as whole. At times, it feels like very few people care about it. 

On the nature of war: if somebody risks his or her life for the country you see as your country, he or she are duly entitled to be protected by you.

In 2001, Britain went into Afghanistan and stayed there 20 years. In order to fight in Afghanistan, British forces needed the cooperation of local populations, people that put themseves in mortal danger simply because they were helping Britain to fight a war. In Britain's hour of need, they were there to support Britain and therefore Britain has the moral obligation to protect them in their hour of need.

In 2003, Britain went into Iraq and needed the cooperation of Iraqis to be there. There same applies then to Iraqis that helped Britain and it must be remembered that many of them not just risked their lives. They lost their lives.

When the point was raised that Britain should honour those who fought for Britain during World Wars, including World War Two, some Conservative MPs showed that they opposed the plan not because of what happened in World War Two and other wars of a long gone past but because of present geopolitical considerations that have nothing to do with the risks people took 70 or so years ago. If we were to think in such a way, Britain would see the French Resistance as enemies because of the fight against Napoleon.

Sajid Javid and others are right to consider honouring Muslim fighters that fought for Britain during World War Two. 

 

The perception of war is different from reality

 The Perception of War is different from Reality

Throughout history, the outcome of wars has been reported as victories and defeat, conquests, and so forth, but the reality of war has escaped proper consideration.

Even in victory there has been a price to pay to win. For those who were tragically injured or killed there is no victory. There is also no defeat. It is the end of their lives. There is no recovery. Even if they survive, life will no longer be what it was.

Warmongers will not often suffer the consequences of what they have instigated. For warmongers, the lives of those they see as enemies don't count, but the lives of those they pretend to be close to don't count either. It is just a matter of numbers. As long as they can claim victory and even if as consequence of their acts there is defeat, they will go around living their lives happily ever after while both presumed foes and presumed friends will suffer dire consequences.

When we see or hear reports about tens of thousands of people dead or injured, names don't count because it would be time consuming or even impossible to determine the identities of those who have lost their lives. The pulverised buildings of what used to be a living city cannot possibly reflect the full story of the tragedy that has occurred. 

Olaf Scholz: Hesitating man or man deeply aware of the dire consequences of knee jerk reactions

 

An article on The Guardian newspaper qualifies the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz as 'hesitant', supposedly a label for somebody seen as weak or indecisive because he is not fully committing Germany to yeat another war in Europe.

As a German, Olaf Scholz is extremely aware of the consequences of war. He might not have been around during World War II, but he certanly knows about what happened in Germany all the way until 1945 and after that.

Despite all odd, Germany prospered and with a lot of hard work managed to reach an enviable position, leading those who were supposed to be the conquering nations, the winning nations, after World War II.

The recipe for German success? Ingenuity, creativity and a lot of work done from the very beginning in the worst of circumstances. Germany started the way to recovery and excellence as an occupied and devided country. It capital city was not more. Berlin was divided by the victors and for a time Bonn became the capital of the Federal Republic of Germany. Much of its territory had been lost. Much of it was taken by Poland, Prussia was chopped to bits. The DDR was born, the so called Polish corridor - German land - was given to Poland and much of the eastern side of German was also given to Poland. Eastern Prussia was taken by the Soviet Union and is now part of the Russian Federation.

The fall of the Berlin Wall was much celebrated as was celebrated the end of the DDR and the reunification of Germany, a reunification that is very much incomplete as vast expanses of German land are still in other countries.

Olaf Scholz explicitly said that despite the fact that Germany is part of NATO - in fact is still under American occupation and its contitution was not designed by Germans. It was imposed by the USA that maintains a substantial military pressence in the Federal Republic of Germany. So Germany is still an occupied country.

The German Chancellor has to move with extreme caution. He is the head of a coalition that is intrinsically weak and SPD won an election without winning a big number of votes. It was the debacle of CDU/CSU that fell so massively what made it possible for SPD to win an election with less than 30 per cent of the votes cast.

A new party now has more than 21 per cent of electoral support and, unlike SPD that is only represented in 11 of 16 Federal States, Alternative für Deutchland has captured the imagination of German voters to the point that in the last days of the then Chancellor Angela Merkel many elected representatives of CDU were working together with Alternative für Deutchland.

The present German Chancellor knows full well that if things take a turn for the worst the present coalition will not survive. He also knows that after decades of constant lecturing and self-imposed and imposed guilt, the German peoples themselves are reluctant to engage in yet another European war that would be fought not because of German interests, but of American interests that go against German interests. The German peoples are not willing to throw away decades of hard work and prosperity to please the invaders that fragmented Germany and left Germany in ruins.