Solicitor advocate Alan Muir reflects on those lost too soon, and reminds our political puppetmasters that they ought to learn the lessons of history to avoid more senseless death, and the condemnation of repeating its mistakes.

Firstly, my heart goes out to all who served and died for what we call freedom, to the maimed, to the families who have no choice but to continue without a loved family member, whether son, father, daughter, mother, brother, sister.

There is an irony in Mikhail Kalashnikov celebrating is 90th birthday as we enter Armistice Day, another 11th. November with a world still mired in war and seemingly having learned nothing from previous carnage. Kalashnikov as you will know, is the Russian man who invented and gave his name to the ever popular, hand-held killing machine better known as the AK-47. It is to his credit that, on being congratulated on this landmark birthday, he opined that, all things considered, he wished that he could be remembered for inventing a lawnmower instead of a gun.

It is interesting to note that Robert Oppenheimer, inventor of the nuclear bombs which devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki could never come to terms with what he had helped to do, as he said, ”I am become the destroyer of worlds”  Alfred Nobel made his fortune from military inventions and explosives prior to funding, among others, peace prize in his name. It is always interesting to consider the desperate lengths to which men will go in an attempt to dictate how history should remember them.

Few things anger me to the same extent than politicians’ onscreen sincerity when they have the audacity to talk of those they never met yet sent to an untimely death, whether they spell the name correctly or not.

“We feel your pain” – how much more offensive could that claim really be? Healthy individuals dead, gone and not from any incurable illness, nor accident, but because power mad politicians refused to accept the lessons of the past. Not even in many cases from a combative bullet, but from a lack of adequate protective equipment or that bizarre concept “friendly fire”
We have been lied to, conned and deceived over the wars of the last twenty years, yet we allow ourselves to actually give a rat’s ass about insipid, Irish, talentless twins. Just in case we might actually start to think about real issues and asking a few searching questions, as soon as that keich is away, we get “I’m (was at some vague point) a celebrity ( of sorts) get me out of here”
Oh, men should weep indeed.

“We continue to pay the price..” Wrong! You politicos have paid nothing, absolutely nothing. Even those who will “stand down” at the next election, not through shame or principle, but through getting caught, do not have the integrity to just shuffle off. They time their exit to maximize the M.P. salary provisions. Hardly remorse in mitigation! Compare with those who have given all, look in a mirror and have the decency to maintain your self-serving silence for longer than two minutes.

It took the Russians 48 hours to get to, and control of, Kabul; it took them 10 years of effort to get out and to lick the wounds – history only teaches those prepared to learn.

Alan