25 February 2011
00:2394083Peter Garstin,
I think you have completely missed the point, no one is saying the government is under a legal obligation. It is simply a question of humanity and common sense to look after ones own. As we in this country have no written constitution successive government can interpretate local circumstances to suit there own means. In other words no laid down constitution, a conveniant get out.
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
25 February 2011
00:3694084You have missed the point Jimmy. When I worked in the Middle East I had a tax-free salary and I considered myself to be outside the sphere of interest of the British Government. When they told me to go back to the UK I said Bloody Cheek, I live and work in Riyadh and I will stay there and do my job. When they said send your family home, I asked my wife and she said No way, I am staying, if it starts going pearshaped we can think again. So we all stayed put.
If it had gone pearshaped there were many alternative survival strategies. People working abroad need to realise that the government has better things to do than bail them out of trouble.
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
25 February 2011
20:4094243Peter Garstin,
It would appear that these present british subjects do not have your spirit of dare and do. That is a choice for them and not for the likes of either you or me simply because we do not know there circumstances.
P.S.
You are not the only one who has experience of the lousy arab!!
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
25 February 2011
20:4894245I have experience of a few lousy Arabs. I also have experience of many more Arabs whose hospitality, honesty and generosity are without comparison. I like their food, I admire their architecture and I respect their commitment to their religion (I mean the moderate majority, not the lunatic fringe).
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
25 February 2011
22:3094251Peter Garstin,
Now there is the problem, who are the moderate majority ?? and who are the lunatic fringe??. Many a british soldier has paid with his life simply because you cant tell the differance You paint a picture of an honourable, generous and hospitable knight of the desert. Iin reality they are a devious, cruel ,and not to be trusted barbarous people. Just think your self lucky you never saw them at there most devious. They treat there woman well dont they??
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
25 February 2011
23:5994258Jimmy
I have lived in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Dubai; and worked in Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Qatar and Oman. I have seldom come across the Arab you describe.
I have bought KFC chicken in West Beirut and felt safer than I do buying it in Dover's Market square on a Saturday night.
I have met Arabs from tea-boys to princes and from shepherds to cabinet ministers. All but a few have been excellent ambassadors for their race and culture.
You must have met different Arabs from the ones I know.
We shall have to agree to disagree on this one.
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
26 February 2011
01:1994268I had the impression that in Libya women were free to walk the street without veils covering their faces. And that children went to school. That there was freedom of religion.
Strange world that we live in: British soldiers in Afghanistan swamped down in a war against the Taliban, and in Libya no-one knows who the opposition is!
26 February 2011
16:1294341Alexander D,
The mere fact that you mention woman may be free to walk the streets in Libya highlights my point. Woman have been free to walk the streets in the United Kingdom for hundreds of years and no one has ever had the need to comment on that fact.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
27 February 2011
00:3694396Jimmy, you seem to have failed to grasp the point of what I was trying to describe, that in Libya there is no haranguing of women who do not wear veils, and there is a social system of schools for all children, and I do believe also religious tollerance.
All the things it seems western armies are trying to introduce to Afghanistan, as the Soviet army before them: a social way of life where all children go to school, women do not wear veils on their faces ...
The Mujahedin, when fighting the Soviet army, killed thousands of Afghan teachers, because they were teaching children in schools according to modern 'Indo-European' standards.
We do not even know who the opposition leaders are in Libya, what life-style they propose in Libya, if they even have any idea themselves of what they want.
Democracy as we know it has never existed in Libya. There used to be a king, Mr. Iris, who went to Turkey on a state-visit one day and found he was ousted from his throne by the Libyan army.
I think in Libya there is a kind of tribal style of society combined with modern society and a rich oil-producing economy, and I thought that Mr. Ghedaffi had been getting on quite well with the western world and was trying to do his best for the Libyan people, and also allowed over a million Egyptians to go to Libya, probably to work and receive a salary.
Unless one knows what people staging a revolt want and propose, it is hard to say if they are in any way justified. I hope no-one crops up in Libya preaching that women must walk around wearing veils and that girls must not go to school and the like of it which we know only too well from Afghanistan, and that no-one tries haranguing us one day that we have to intervene or something!
27 February 2011
19:2694497Alexander,
You do talk tripe sometimes!!
