PITY PUTIN, By Jesutega Onokpasa

Perhaps the most famous take on war in philosophy is the principle of the “just war” by St Thomas Aquinas.

Amongst other things, he prescribes that a war should only be fought if it can be won.

Humble, diehard Catholic that I am, I respectfully disagree.

What do you do if some enemy you could not possibly defeat is nevertheless implacably bearing down on you, coming to decimate your land, violate your women and transport your children into slavery?

You fight him all the same and die fighting or you are a bastard, unworthy of your ancestors and the God who created you.

And what is even the meaning of “a war you can win”, when victory ultimately belongs to God?

You fight your best and leave the rest to God.

Like China, Russia is an intrinsically imperialist realm and the Russians, again like the Chinese, a hopelessly racist lot.

Let them do their worst in Ukraine – they cannot destroy the place more than Japan was pulverized in the Second World War.

That same Japan had bounced back two decades later – just watch “Love In Tokyo” (1966), and, “You Only Live Twice” (1967), two classics which showcase a postwar Japan of the sixties that seems even more developed than the Nigeria or India of today!

What has happened to Vladimir Putin is clearly a case of those the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.

If this war will eventually destroy a country, I project it will ultimately be Russia and certainly not Ukraine.

Onokpasa, a lawyer, writes from Abuja.