Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
On the 16 March 2011, Nigel Farage asked the EU parliament not to get involved in a war against Libya, stating that it is easier to start a war than to get out of one.
Directly addressing Van Rompoy, leader of the EU, he made this statement, and also showed him a photo dating back to December 2010.
UKIP is not in favour of Britain fighting a war in Libya, even though Nigel Farage is no supporter of Col. Gedaffi. He had in fact asked for sanctions against Libya in February 2011, but he is not in favour of our Country being militarily involved in Libya's civil war.
UKIP is a no-nonsense party, one that does not make policies by tossing a coin, or inspecting the formation of the clouds.
It does not have a policy of saying and doing one thing yesterday, and then saying and doing the opposite today while trying to drag 27 countries into war (possibly to cancel yesterday's photograph).
Guest 640- Registered: 21 Apr 2007
- Posts: 7,819
I dont think any of the parties are against what we are doing in Libya. Which is simply just carrying out our moral duty to protect citizens, fellow human beings, from annihilation. The vote in The House last night 557 - 13, showed overwhelming support from all parties for the action, so once again we see UKIP out on a limb just for the sake of it. As I understand it the voting in The House was NOT subjected to The Whip so MP's didnt vote on party lines but with their conscience.
The picture you show of Von Rompoy with Gaddafi suffers from the awful problem we forever seem to have in the media...hindsight experts. At the time the world was trying to encourage Col Gaddafi in from the cold. The world wanted him to become more mainstream, to stop developing nasty weapons and to stop supplying terrorists with semtax and whathaveyou. Tony Blair was also photographed with him as were many other leaders. If the initiative had of worked we wouldnt have the difficulties today nor all this hindsight wisdom.
I think it is a good idea to encourage the wayward into the fold if you can, but then if they dont comply the next step has to be taken
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Quite right PaulB
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
Oooh, ahh, yes; no misses, you can't fold a sheep.
It is a rather weak argument for the 'cause' to say that whips were not employed in the vote. More like making a virtue out of a necessity. It's not as if there are no elections in the offing.
What is that old joke?
"I am no mere 'yes' man...when the boss says no I say no."
There are Judges and Magistrates up and down the land, day in and day out who demand of a teenage co-conspirator, "Why did you just go along with it?"
Is their defence to be the same successful one as the Partys employ here?
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
that is unjustly synical Tom, it was a free vote, no whipping and it would not be a Party problem as such whatever way individual MPs voted. All credit for the government for making it a free vote on an issue such as this.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
it will be interesting later how they vote when it gets to the stage of all out civil war and the u.n. mandate changes.
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
"unjustly synical" (cynical, even)
I have just taken this test and found myself labelled a 'realist', such cheek!!!
http://www.blogthings.com/howcynicalareyouquiz/
All of which helps me get my head around the idea of the "righteous cynic".
To say that no whips equals free vote is to play with words. Great fun, I grant you.
As one of my fellow 'realists' asked on the letters page of a national dialy [a small clue there] What about drone attacks? It seems that civilian too is but a play on words.
After the arms dealers get to supplying the rebels and the rebels with the help of our free-vote begin to exact their retribution upon those in Tripoli shall we be then free to assist?
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 675- Registered: 30 Jun 2008
- Posts: 1,610
Will it remain confined to air strikes?
Bombs and missiles are indiscriminate and in a rebellion the rebels and rebel supporters can be anywhere and everywhere, including the air bases etc being attacked. As popular as the rebellion is touted to be there will also be a large number of civilians near every target who just want to get through it all without being killed by either side.
What happens when the fighting gets into the streets of Benghazi, home of the rebels ruling council, at least two of whom were involved in the 1969 coup that put Gaddafi in power. Already the strikes are going into Tripoli which is probably home to many sympathetic to the rebels or just keeping their heads down.
This is a rebellion with people and troops changing sides all the time. When a tank column is attacked do those ordering it recall that when Napoleon landed from Elba the army sent out to stop him turned around and marched with him to Paris?
Is it humanitarian? The British government of the 1970's recognised the Khmer Rouge and condemned the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia despite countless reports of the killing fields.
Arab nations are already balking at the air strikes, with no clear plan or objectives in sight how long before other nations join them?
Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.
Richard Armour
Is it better to do nothing when faced with a complex and difficult challenge involving human lives?
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
Again a continuation of foreign policy by other means, to paraphrase von Clausewicz. I have not seen any sensible discussion as to where this will lead and I really don't think the endgame has been visualised by the happy button-pushers. I'm not saying they are wrong- I'm saying that earlier dithering by the UN and the countries pursuing military objectives has led to an over-hasty passing and implementation of resolution 1973 with insufficient thought as to what happens afterwards.
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
Exactly it: the dithering has caused hasty responses. Surely politics, as in business, has to have plans B, C and D in place before the event and not with the hindsight mentioned above? The process of thinking through the what-ifs and making the plans accordingly can reduce the risk of "dithering" and make appropiate responses more likely.
Guest 675- Registered: 30 Jun 2008
- Posts: 1,610
If we are going to quote the famous theorists of warfare then there is a passage from Sun Tzu's Art of War that can be used to describe Gaddafi's situation.
"Throw your soldiers into positions whence there is no escape, and they will prefer death to flight. If they will face death, there is nothing they may not achieve."
History being something we should learn from, not emulate, gives us examples of leaders given no options preferring to see their countries soaked in blood than surrender. There are also numerous examples of armed forces changing sides but ending up as the new ruling elite. The Libyan rebel council is, so far, proposing the sort of regime change they attempted in 1969, and they got Gaddafi. Bombing a country far too often leads to the call for 'strong leadership' within the country being bombed, as no other options are recognisable.
So far there have been no real signs of there being anything on the table (ideally coming from other Arab nations) to offer the people of Libya options. All bombing will achieve is a polarisation into two camps and that can lead to a long and nasty civil war.
What is wrong with using the air power, and UN resolution, to defend the rebels rather than to attack Gaddafi while using every means available to promote negotiations?
Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.
Richard Armour
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
this has potentional cock up written all over it, what with the issue of gaddafi being a tart or not, we then have the armed forces minister refusing to rule out a ground offensive.
we know nothing about the rebels or what sort of government they would form if they gained power.
they are happy at present with the air strikes but are not silly enough to believe that are purely to protect them.
Guest 645- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 4,463
Is that our very own dulcet voiced Terry shaking hands with Gadaffi?
Marek
I think therefore I am (not a Tory supporter)
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Any brief analysis of Libyan policies will show that Col. Gedaffi did just about everything to comply with western conditions, some of which were certainly noble: he long ago got rid of chemical weapons, which has been confirmed in the West (with the exception of some mustard gas stocked somewhere in the desert and which is probably decaying and beyond use).
In regards to this, assuming that Col. Gedaffi considered it better to leave it there, Mr Van Rompoy the turn-coat could have offered to have it dismantled by western military experts it in December 2010. The stuff probably was imported from the West anyway, as most other of the former chemical weapons that Col. Gedaffi once had (and Mr Saddam Hussein, for that matter).
As for supplying samtex to terrorist groups, now that goes beyond my imagination. Not even PM Cameron has accused him of doing this!
As for hind-sight, Mr Farage made his speech in the EU parliament before the bombing campaign against Libya started, so no hind-sight there.
Sky reports that Al Quaeda's second largest number of recruits in Irak are from Libya, and they are the people who Gedaffi would put in prison in Libya, and released only if they renounced violence as a means of imposing their ideas.
I tend to agree with what Saif Gedaffi has said recently, and which I wrote on the Forum previously to his statement, that it is likely that if the West bombs to power the rebels, Libya will become a nest of Al Quaeda, with bombs going off in crowded places, daily, and hatred preachers from Al Quaeda gathering support "against the hated West" and against "women not wearing burkas".
And poor British and American soldiers having to go in and patrol the streets and be shot at or blown to pieces.
Oh and incidentally, two important polls, one by YouGov., conducted Sunday last, state this: Yougov poll asks if you are in favour of military involvement in Libya against Col. Gedaffi, and 43% say yes, 36% say no.
The other poll (forgot the name now), asks if you are in favour of military involvement in Libya, without mentioning Col. Gedaffi, and about 46% say no, and 34% say yes.
That what Parliament might vote is not the same as what the people in general democratically say. The percentages are completely out of tune!
Once again a sheer example of how we are told that our democratic views do not count, but only those of Parliament, and all this while they try to ram something down our throat about bombing "democracy" to power in Libya!!!
Guest 703- Registered: 30 Jul 2010
- Posts: 2,096
Alexander,
2,500 victims of IRA use of Libyan-supplied Semtex have tried to obtain compensation and been fobbed off by the previous government's attitude to Libya.
From Sunday Times, 6 Sept 2009
"The UK government does not consider it appropriate to enter into a bilateral discussion with Libya on this matter," the prime minister wrote to lawyers last November, while insisting trade was only one of several factors. "Bilateral co-operation is now wide-ranging on many levels, particularly in the fight against terrorism," he said. "I believe it is in all our interests for this co-operation to continue." Bill Rammell, his ministerial colleague, wrote to a campaigner for IRA victims emphasising Libya's contribution to Britain's "secure energy future".
Guest 640- Registered: 21 Apr 2007
- Posts: 7,819
Am surprised you didnt know about the Semtex/Libya/Terrorist link Alex...common knowledge that one. David Cameron and indeed Gordon Brown have often spoken about it. In fact the very item cropped up on TV only last night.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
I did hear about a shipment of arms to Northern Ireland being detected in the 70's, which is also when I heard about it!
I was living in North Camp when a bomb went off in Aldershot; my sister saw the bomb explode before her very eyes!
And in that period the local catholic priest of North Camp got shot in Norhtern Ireland, by the IRA. He was Irish, and many people liked him!
I had thought that Col. Gedaffi long ago had given up his support of the IRA, which was probably based on a misunderstanding of Irish history. He probably saw many things from one point of view, and hadn't been informed on the whole context.
I am surprised that this has been dragged out and opened publicly on TV, as I had thought that Mr. Gerry Adams and many other people active in Northern Irish politics had all renounced confrontation with other people in Northern Ireland and with Britain, and that we had a new beginning of cooperation, and that these terrible wounds of the past had been in the healing process.
At this point one might as well call for all former members of the IRA to be dragged to prison!!! It is all the more bluffing and incredible the more this topic goes on with the argumentations that are beinbg pulled out.
I also strongly doubt that Checoslovakian-produced semtex was responsible for every death of a person that got blown up in Northern Ireland and England! Many people got shot, or executed at point blank range.
My mother was shocked once when her sister told her that such and such a young Irish man in the British Army, who they both knew, had been captured by the IRA with two other soldiers, and the three were hacked to death in a house, executed.
A shame that the Government's decision to call it a day with Gedaffi-accusations has now been reversed, and we go slipping back into old memories and remorses!
My Dad being a soldier, I lived in an Army base and have been to Army school in North Camp, and know more about military and less-military facts than many people have had hot dinners!
Guest 658- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 660
Well i for one served 2 stints at lille bks in North camp so i would say my opinion is valid.
beer the food of the gods
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Were the wooden houses still standing when you were there, Tom? they pulled them all down in the 90's, because they were too expensive to maintain, and also a lot of brick buildings. And the mess and block 16 went down too, and the Naafi, and half of Marlborough Lines school.
The Army built new and more cosy residences there.
But the woodlands between North Camp and Aldershot are still the same. It's really lovely countryside there!
