Tuesday 16th September

In the late 60’s there was a movement, idealistic  maybe; but heartfelt nonetheless.  It was to end War, to stop killing innocent people, to change the way the World was being run.  We were then in the middle of the Vietnam war, and while we were not actively involved (Harold Wilson was the only British Prime Minister to ever say no to a US President, but little is he remembered for that) we saw the news reports and the pictures of children covered in Napalm burns.  “Make Love, Not War” became the slogan of the hippies, and though that movement descended into the chaos of drugs and Altamont a residue of that hope has survived.  I for one have, despite bowing to convention in many things, never lost that hope and am still a hippy at heart.

Almost all Wars are actually unwinnable; the days of complete ethnic cleansing and wiping out a whole people are behind us (though try telling that to the Israelis) and there is almost inevitably a political settlement in the end.  So, why not cut out the middle bit, the bombing, the destruction of homes, the killing of the innocents, and talk from the beginning.

I refuse to believe that humanity must be condemned to Never-Ending War, though that is what is virtually promised these days.  We need real statesmen who can bestride the World and insist on a real United Nations with teeth which can send in forces to stop any small wars and force the participants to talk to each other.  Talk to ordinary people all over the World and that is what they want, not this Never-Ending War.