The following article by Eoin Ó Murchú was first published in Unity, the weekly paper of the Irish Communist Party.
THE drums of war are beating louder every day, as European leaders up their rhetoric and whip up an atmosphere of fear, urging massive expansion of military expenditure. They are really getting ready for war.
And yet, despite the talk of conscription and the shifting of resources from welfare to warfare, there is a complacency about the issue. It's as if people don't really believe that the political leaders will do what they say.
Let's be clear about what it means. War means the death, often in agonising brutality, of hundreds of thousands of young men and women. It's not a computer game. It's real horror, and all sensible people will do whatever it takes to find diplomatic solutions to problems.
Instead, the EU and the European wing of NATO are determined to try and prolong the Ukraine war in the vain hope of breaking Russia. Already, it is western European drones and missiles, satellite systems and active use of western military personnel that are being used to "carry the war into Russia".
Russia is now warning that it will not sit idly by while Britain, France, Germany and the rest engage in long distance warfare against Russia. At some point they will retaliate.
But the European leaders have boxed themselves into a corner with their absurd declarations of standing by Ukraine "for as long as it takes". And, as Russia continues ot make progress on the front, and as Ukraine's military gets weaker and weaker, so the European leaders get more and more desperate.
This desperation raises the real possibility of a full scale war between Russia and NATO, or at least European NATO.
Let's be clear again. If the very existence of Russia is at threat they will use nuclear weapons. Further, don't mind the blather from Europe that they could win a nuclear war. Pushed to its extreme no one would win. The world would be destroyed.
Let's compare the two sides, however. Russia has an estimated total inventory of over 5,400 nuclear warheads. France has 290 and Britain has 225. Given the vast size of Russia, the French nuclear arsenal could make 0.1% of the Russian territory uninhabitable. The Russian nuclear arsenal could completely destroy all of Western Europe, and still have a lot of missiles left. This is not a war Europe can win.
The European strategy seems to be to hope that the US can be drawn in. If it can, then that's the end of the world, but it is doubtful that the US would destroy itself to save the blushes of Europe's warmongering leaders.
Remember, it isn't Andy Burnham, or Boris Johnson, or Jon Burrows, or Gavin Robinson, or Jim Allister who will do the fighting and dying. It is young men and women from working class estates, from the Shankill and the Falls, from Tallaght and Knocknaheeney.
Ireland, of course, as a supposedly neutral country should be raising its voice to urge peace and diplomacy. Instead, Micheal Martin and his crew are rowing in soldly behind the warmongers, and doing their bit to whip up fear of a non-existent Russian threat.
The most ludicrous false flag excuse for all this is the drone supposedly found in Leipzig. Remember: Leipzig is 2,137 km from Russia, and the longest flying range of a green drone is 1,000 km.
Amazing too, that while Russia has the most advanced hypersonic missiles in the world – the Oreshnik – "their" drones in Leipzig failed to work. Still, helpfully the perpetrators left a Russian passport behind. That's pretty conclusive.
Really if you believe that you'll believe that the moon is made of cheese.
Wise up and raise your voice against war and for peace