To Ask Some Very Simple Questions

Peter Hitchens writes:

It is time to ask some very simple questions about the Ukraine crisis, which each day threatens to spread, very dangerously indeed.

I never really believed there was a nuclear danger in the Cold War, which I lived through. Now I think there is one.

Though this country is not actually at war with Russia, and has no defence treaty with Ukraine, politicians and other supporters of this conflict often refer to ‘we’ when discussing it.

Who is this ‘we’? What British national interest is served by deeper involvement in what is at root a Russo-American war? Must we yet again be the fifth wheel in America’s cart? How much are you prepared to pay in taxes for the munitions we send?

If, as is horribly possible, British soldiers are drawn in, what British interest will they be dying or being injured for? Why is our Defence Ministry mounting a running commentary on the conflict? It is as if the Italian defence ministry had been holding press conferences on the Falklands War back in 1982.

Is it because they wish to draw attention away from our very small Army and our shrunken, malfunctioning Navy? Yet our military ‘experts’ speak from a position of assumed superiority.

And:

During more than 40 years of active journalism, including a stint as a defence reporter, I have never once been prevented from writing anything by a so-called ‘D’ Notice (nowadays they are officially DSMA Notices, if you care), until now.

I used to scoff when people told me that such things were common, or that I was constrained in reporting by them. Now I cannot.