Not On My Watch


‘This morning the American Ambassador in Moscow handed the Russian Government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by three o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from the Baltic States, then a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you that no such understanding has been received and that consequently this country is at war with Russia.’

Far-fetched perhaps but a not untimely reminder of the cost of appeasement.

Trumps conciliatory rhetoric ‘Getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing’ exposes us all, both in Europe and world-wide, to the reality that the man at the helm is quite out of his depth and indeed possibly quite out of control. He appears to understand dollars and roubles but is maybe slightly lacking in the diplomacy department.

An avid watcher of television, he has no doubt watched the old hoary documentaries depicting the so-called Munich agreement between the leaders of Germany and the UK in far off 1938.

A hand-shake in front of the cameras and a signed A-4 piece of paper spelled doom for tens of millions when just months later, an invasion of the Sudetenland – sanctioned by that historic handshake - set in motion the second war to end all wars.

Chamberlain was soon ousted and Herr Hitler joined him in the hereafter a few years later but not before a sort of hell had been let loose all across the globe.

I can almost hear the golf-president pleading for admission at the pearly gates.

‘This was all down to the Obama administration and I kid you not. Really, it’s so, so true. The left does not want people to have a voice in a free America. What has happened has happened and what you have to understand is that this did not happen on my watch! Not on my watch at all! And I mean that so sincerely; and you have to believe me when I say it again and again and again.’

Duncan Harley is the author of The A-Z of Curious Aberdeenshire - Published by The History Press at £12.99 and available from Amazon and Inverurie Whisky Shop.


Location: Balmedie, Aberdeen AB23 8YE, UK

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