The Three Monkeys of Deceiving Yourself

March 24, 2014

The Three Monkeys of Deceiving Yourself

A completely desperate mystery of what has happen to Flight MH370 is played out in high definition in every form of media around the world. 37 Countries are now applying their resources from an area that covers the entire Indian Ocean and then some. The relatives tormented by snippets of information that are then retracted the next day, as they literally scream loudly for the truth whilst at the same time silently praying that perhaps a miracle has happened and their loved ones will be found safe. Even though this is near impossible the relatives hang on to that 1 in a million chance that perhaps, just maybe someone is alive that can say exactly what has happened. My heart goes out to them, it really does, the pain and distress they are feeling is just so evident you’d have to be made of stone not to sympathise and empathise with their torment. Just knowing that the answer they seek, even if wreckage is found, could take years to be answered, if ever, must place them all firmly into a living hell of constant inability to even commence the grieving process. There is a real likelihood they will never know what happened as the people that know were lost with the plane and possibly at the bottom of a very deep Ocean. Every time I watch the news the emotional outpouring from them all is actually tangible and I genuinely hope one day they may find some form of peace, some rest from the utter all-consuming grief they must now endure for many years to come. It’s the same as if a loved one was murdered and the culprit was never found, the last thing loved ones can do is find closure, find peace, it’s just impossible and I think this is the same for the loved ones of those on flight MH370.

This awful unfolding story has overshadowed the events in the Ukraine, where a people’s revolution to overthrow an ever growing dictator was met with Russia invading the Crimea, the South East Region of Ukraine. Russia simply invaded and annexed off the section of Ukraine that it wanted, the Crimea hosting Russia’s only warm sea naval base. Yes 60% of the people of Crimea associated themselves more with Russia than they did with Ukraine but Ukraine is a country in its own right and so the invasion is simply unacceptable to all concerned. But I am getting ahead of myself, so bear with me.

This all started years before, actually it can be traced all the way back to the Libyan Revolution that overthrew Gadhafi 2011. This was facilitated and prevented from becoming a huge humanitarian disaster by the UK, America and a few other Countries creating a no fly zone over Libya so that Dictator Gadhafi could not use his air force, which we, amongst others, sold to him in the first place. The no fly zone was extended to knocking out the mechanised divisions of Gadhafi’s army, destroying the tanks and artillery that up to that point had decimated the revolutionary armed forces. Now the humanitarian in me would say that we went to all that trouble and expense, putting our air force & navy personnel at risk in order to save 100’s of thousands of lives, it was simply the right thing to do to assist in overthrowing a dictator that was merciless and ruled with utter brutality, torturing and murdering all those that opposed him with an infamous secret police. Didn’t we do well to do our bit to help the people of Libya to overthrow this despot and embrace democracy? Now on the other hand the cynic in me might suspect we may have gone to all this trouble motivated by, oh I don’t know, perhaps OIL, millions of barrels of oil that would be traded with the UK from a very grateful Libyan people. Yes the number one production in Libya was and is oil, strangely enough the same can be said of Iraq. Sure this is just a coincidence; we would never be motivated by the black gold, the fossil fuel that keeps our modern world running. Well we would be put to the test to prove we were motivated by humanitarian reasons.

Syria, another dictator lead country; same sort of secret police, torturing and murdering any and all opponents to the regime headed by Assad and his family. This uprising also started in 2011 but became truly Syria wide in 2012/2013. The Dictatorship, supported by Iran and Russia, used their air force to significant affect, as well as their tanks and artillery, with the revolutionaries being supported Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the USA supplying weapons to try and counter the modern military of Assad. By 2013 millions are displaced into surrounding countries, and tens of thousands killed and in some cases starved to death. Whole cities are destroyed at the hands of the ruling Assad forces in an attempt to root out the revolutionary forces, now swelled by groups traditionally seen as terrorists by the West. However, the slaughter continued, day after day played out in the most bloody of media scenes, culminating in Assad using poison gas on his own people. Pictures rushed around the world of children choking and dying in their hundreds due to the effects of modern day mustard gas, the likes of which would not have been out of place in World War One. Now this is where my cynical mind wanders as at the point of children dying by poisonous gas was surely enough to get the West involved, after all there was far less provocation for us to support the revolution in Libya. But if you thought that the images of dying children would be enough to force the West to create a no fly zone and knock out the Assad tanks and artillery as they did in Libya you would sadly be disappointed. No, to this day our Government has not done a thing to bring this conflict to an end as they did in Libya. Strange how the main difference between Libya and Syria is that Syria doesn’t have a drop of oil to its name. Strange that isn’t it.

But this very important lack of action by the West set the scene (a scene that was to be played out in full view of the impotent West) as Russia was emboldened by this inaction, as it continued to support the Assad regime and its murderous rampage against the revolutionaries. The world could see that for this British Government the desperate humanitarian need in Syria, which far outstripped any tragedy seen in Libya, meant nothing to them. The shameful realisation that our involvement was not based on morality or humanity but on oil, plain and simple, as shameful as this realisation is, as sickening as it is. Yes the murderous rampage of the Assad regime means nothing to our Government; the brutal war against his own people even introduced a new word to our language, the Barrel Bomb. This is an oil barrel filled with explosives; usually incendiary in nature combined with high explosive, and then the barrel is just rolled out of a helicopter onto the towns below. It destroys indiscriminately, murdering children, women & men and is deployed against the towns where the Assad regime is surrounding a town or city supporting the uprising, laying siege so people, yes including revolutionary fighters, cannot escape even if they wanted to. So Assad uses his air superiority to bomb them, burn them out of existence showing no mercy at all, his own people slaughtered and we do nothing, NOTHING because they have no oil! Air superiority we could stop if we wanted to, as we did in Libya, creating safe zones for people to gather in, corridors of safety to escape the fighting, humanitarian airdrops to feed the starving, but no, we sit by and let the murder continue.

Russia supporting the Assad regime acted as broker to stop him using chemical weapons, but this in reality just gave the West an excuse to do nothing, and the killing continues to this day. But Russia plays what they call the long game. It waits, watches, learns and when ready it acts. It feigns friendship, lulls the West into thinking it has embraced capitalism and that its aggressiveness of the Cold War is long gone, a new modern engaging Russia that even spends £50 billion on the Winter Olympics & Paralympics. But all the time it was planning. Calculating possible responses, watching the West’s reaction to world situations, the effect on our armed forces of the recession and the Coalition cuts – a cool, patient and calculating predator waiting to strike. So the Cold War ended when the Berlin Wall fell, this marked the end and over the decades since then our forces have slowly ebbed away from Europe as it seemed peace was assured. Trade increased between Russia and all of Europe, and most of the world to be honest, as the Cold War became a distant memory, and instead warm relationships were paraded in front of the world’s media. Russia’s huge gas and oil reserves became its number one trade with Europe, with many of the industrial countries such as Germany becoming heavily dependent on gas from Russia via a direct pipeline that Angela Merkel & Vladimir Putin were only too happy to shake hands over at its formal opening. Ukraine too became closer to Europe and relationships warmed as they talks started over whether or not to allow Ukraine formally into the EU, starting with trade agreements.

However, the Russian sponsored President of Ukraine at the time wanted no part of it but the people of West and Central Ukraine wanted closer ties with Europe. This culminated in a revolution against President Viktor Yanukovych which culminated in him losing power to what was widely promoted as a ‘people’s’ revolution against the increasing dictatorial Yanukovych, who fled back to Russia. Within weeks Russia invaded without a single concern, as it new the reaction of the West before he annexed Crimea, he had seen the lack of action for himself in Syria, despite horrendous crimes against humanity being committed – That was more accurately no action! So Putin knew, was 100% guaranteed that the West would not and could not stop him, they neither had the desire nor the military strength post-recession to stop him even if they wanted to.

So what does our courageous Government do in response to this act of aggression by Russia in our own back yard, nothing, nothing at all. Yes we spoke with passion about Russia’s actions, condemned them, rather politely, and even banned some of Putin’s ministers from traveling to Europe, not that they travelled to Europe before. Yes we did exactly what Putin had calculated we would do – NOTHING, AGAIN! However, as the Russian annexation of Crimea is strengthened, even taking Ukraine’s warships off them, I wonder what else Russia might do. Russia knows we (the West) are heavily dependent on its gas and oil resources and we have just proved that we won’t do a damn thing to stop Russia, so what if the Crimea was just a test to confirm what Putin assumed? What if Russia has further desires in Europe or even in other places in the world? What if our complete lack of action by our own immoral Government whilst the world watched children die from gassing in Syria has a further price to pay, one which will become clear in the months ahead. What if this is payback for letting Syria burn when we could have done exactly what we did in Libya but didn’t because there was no pay off for us in Syria in the form of oil? The truth is there is always a price for doing nothing on the world stage, pretending not to hear, nor see, nor speak of the evil in front of you, and the real cost is starting to become clear.