President Connolly got it wrong on German rearmament

This week’s column in The Kerryman newspaper.

Michael Commane

Watching the horror that Russia is inflicting on the people of Ukraine, I keep thinking of what President Catherine Connolly said during her electioneering for the top job. She said that Germany’s current military spending had ‘some parallels with the 1930s’. People say daft things during election time.

I criticised both my parents for being gullible people; they would believe what the last person said to them, at least that’s what I thought at the time. But these days I’m finding myself not just as gullible as they were but even more so. Honestly, when it comes to differing views and opinions I am so easily swayed.

I believe all forms of violence simply don’t work; the carrot is more effective than the stick. Young people who grow up in a caring and loving environment have a much better chance of being good people than those who see and experience bad behaviour on a daily basis. But it’s not always as straightforward as that.

It was the military might of the Soviet Union, US and UK that stopped Hitler’s Germany. Peace talks would never have worked with Hitler. 

After World War I Germany was humiliated, it became a land of hyperinflation and poverty, a breeding ground for Adolf Hitler. Had Germany received aid from the west Hitler could never have happened.

Ukraine is a sovereign independent State and has been since August 24, 1991. It has a long and difficult relationship with its neighbouring Russian Empire. 

Today it is an internationally recognised independent State and has all the rights to which a State is entitled. In breaking away from Russia it agreed to surrender its nuclear capability to its former masters.

In February 2022 Russia invaded Ukraine. It is estimated that well over one million people have been killed. Russian is spoken in parts of eastern Ukraine; many people in these areas feel Russian.  Putin used that as one of his excuses for this war, but that’s the trick Hitler played annexing Danzig and the German speaking districts of Czechoslovakia.

It is upsetting to admit that the only language Putin understands is the clenched fist. The world has to stop the Russian aggressor. But how?

And that’s the only reason why Germany and other European countries are now in the process of rearming.

It’s a cruel world when an American president seems to favour tyrants and dictators rather than democratically elected leaders in open and fair elections.

It would be great if Russia would listen to diplomacy and peaceful words. But there is no chance of that happening. How would President Connolly stop the Russian Bear?

Putin has a history of being a bully and tyrant; he certainly does not know how to tell the truth, just look at the lies he told about the invasion of Ukraine, how he occupied Crimea in 2014. 

Have we forgotten the name Alexei Navalny and how Putin tortured him before he died in a gulag? The murders he has committed across Europe?

These days I hesitatingly believe that Putin has to be stopped, and if that means using force, so be it. 

Then again, have I been swayed by the opinions of western thinking? I don’t think so. Why have close to a million people left Russia since Russia invaded Ukraine?