Letter to media: THE DESTRUCTIVENESS OF WARS (All wars create refugees)

Dear NEWS OF THE AREA,

Night after night, we watch the unfolding horror of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on our screens. The sight of innocent civilians, mostly women and children, fleeing towards the Polish border, whilst their towns are bombarded and laid waste by the Russians is truly heartbreaking, and the international community must come together urgently to bring this nightmare to an end. The condemnation of the Russian invasion has rightly been almost universal, and nations have moved swiftly to impose sanctions on the Putin regime. Let us all hope earnestly that the sanctions will work.

But what of the other wars of aggression that have taken place in recent decades, some of which continue to this day?

There were no calls for sanctions against the US and its Coalition of the Willing when it invaded Iraq in search of non-existent weapons of mass destruction. And what of NATO’s bombardment of Libya to oust the dictator Gaddafi, leaving the country in turmoil to this day? And then we have the destruction of the impoverished state of Yemen at the hands of Saudi Arabia, armed by Western governments and resulting in the loss of tens of thousands of mostly innocent lives, leaving the country almost completely destroyed and its inhabitants in abject poverty?  And why is it OK for Israel to regularly pulverize the Gaza strip, killing thousands of Palestinians and creating mass poverty amongst the two million people living there? And it’s worth asking this question: why are Ukrainians who throw Molotov cocktails at their invaders hailed as heroes, whereas teenage Palestinian boys who throw stones at their military oppressors in the West Bank are labelled as terrorists, to be shot dead with impunity by the occupying army?

We should condemn all these wars of aggression, which cause so much suffering, bloodshed and destruction, and which have displaced tens of millions of people in the past two decades. These  wars serve only the interests of the all-powerful armaments industry and the politicians who do their bidding.

Mike Griffin

Our recent local RAR planning meeting in Valla Beach