Guest 714- Registered: 14 Apr 2011
- Posts: 2,594
Tom, why do you constantly talk in riddles, just have the balls to say what you think rather than hide behind someone else's opinion.
My view is if we want to send our troops into war we should be prepared to ourself, you stay in your comfy house and pontificate Tom, let others get killed or maimed.
This is what happens, foreigners fight among themselves, we interfere with casualties on both sides, it causes resentment leading to ongoing hostilities and loss of life, and so the circle widens.
Where next - the drug cartels in Colombia, the mafia in Chechnya, Zimbabwe, Rwanda......?
Guest 683- Registered: 11 Feb 2009
- Posts: 1,052
There is an element of madness about this; "if you don't stop killing people we will bomb you"!
There is a poor record of intervention in the Middle East and claims that strikes will be limited to military targets ring hollow. Since 2003 there are over 114,000 verifiable civilian deaths due to violence in Iraq. The figure in Afghanistan is thought to be much higher but there is no verifiable number available (life is cheap!). Tell their families that life is much better now and those who still live in refugee camps or in their homes but without regular water or electricity supply.
Intervention in Syria will not be quick or effective or without consequence.
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
#41
I see no riddle, but as early as #5 I stated my preference.
But...
To promote intervention and - "let others get killed or maimed."
And...
To oppose intervention and - "let others get killed or maimed."
If that's not a riddle, what is?
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 714- Registered: 14 Apr 2011
- Posts: 2,594
Mark sums it up with
"if you don't stop killing people we will bomb you"!
As he points out that part of the world has history of infighting and atrocities. There is no riddle whatsoever from me, my stance is clear - let Syria do what it wants within its own borders, as horrific as it maybe we'll only stop it until the next time and at enormous cost.
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
" let Syria do what it wants within its own borders" Is that; By all means?
Perhaps Armies don't kill, just as guns don't kill. So perhaps all is well and good that major arms exporters share your view David, that the middle east is a ready-made market for 'our' armaments. They probably need lots, so we shall sell them lots, and if/when they begin to use up their stockpiles , again, all well and good.
Major arms industry corporations by nation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_arms_industry_corporations_by_nation
No Syria, Afghanistan or Iraq on the list.
Arms exporters, again no Syria, Afghanistan or Iraq...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry#World.27s_largest_arms_exportersIgnorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 714- Registered: 14 Apr 2011
- Posts: 2,594
I really don't have a clue what point you're making, you resort to c&p when you can't think for yourself.
I wouldn't waste a penny or risk a single life involving ourselves in an unwinnable scenario.
Can I make that any clearer Tom?
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
Clear, utter irrelevant and untenable.
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 714- Registered: 14 Apr 2011
- Posts: 2,594
So what would you do Tom?
Try your best, no riddles, no c&p, so semantics. My stance is clear - what's yours?
Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
you:have not got Vickers on that list.Main arms dealers in the UK
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
#48
Your stance may be clear:insouciance...
My stance is that those who cause the spill should be responsible for mopping it up.
And as I said earlier, we should be firm and stark in our seriousness to fully accept our responsibilities, and back-up our efforts to reach a negotiated settlement between all interested parties with the pledge that we would send our army in if negotiations were not held in good faith.
Admittedly, the above works best as an underlying principle in our international dealings, but a spot of honesty now would do much to move this conflict from the present patronising thinking of it as no more than 'naughty children being unruly in the school-yard'.
In short:Other people are people too.
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 714- Registered: 14 Apr 2011
- Posts: 2,594
Oh right, as Churchill said
Appeasement is when you're nice to the lion hoping he eats you last.
In other words you'd enter vague negotiations with people prepared to gas children and vaguely threaten to do something vague at some time in the future.
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
"to do something "
Those words must apply to me, because you would do nothing.
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 714- Registered: 14 Apr 2011
- Posts: 2,594
Nor would, the difference being I wouldn't waste time posturing and pontificating.
Your answer is to negotiate with people who gas children, I've never heard of anything so ridiculous.
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
#12?
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 714- Registered: 14 Apr 2011
- Posts: 2,594
What about #12?
Your naïve stance is to negotiate with people who choose to use chemical weapons. You watch too much Dad's Army Tom,
"Now listen old chap, about these chemical weapons, its really not on you know"
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Tom, at the moment we must urgently keep to one topic: who launched the chemical attack on 21 August 2013?
Let's try to keep to this issue just for now, and open a separate thread on the morality of selling-manufacturing arms in general.
The reason being, Parliament will convene tomorrow to decide whether or not the Syrian government launched a chemical attack on 21 August and whether Britain should intervene militarily.
Everything else you write about, while you have good points, will NOT be discussed tomorrow in Parliament.
If Parliament gets this one wrong, the consequences could be catastrophic.
Firstly: not one shred of evidence has been presented that the Syrian military carried out the chemical attack.
(Remember T. Blair lying in Parliament).
Secondly, an investigation - with cool heads - needs to be carried out as to WHERE the chemical attack came from, in order to ascertain who did it and who did not.
For example, did it come from the North, the South, from East or from West with respect to the location where the people were intoxicated?
Thirdly, only when an investigation has been carried out, regardless of its findings, should the Government - or the Prime Minister - consult with Parliament on what to do or not do, while keeping the Public Opinion informed.
Currently, we have a handful of leaders, namely top men in the American, British and French administrations, telling us all twenty times a day that "they have evidence the Syrian leadership carried out the attack".
In truth, they have not shown a shred of evidence.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
you're right on this one alex, the issue of arms sales is clouding the important issue of whether the west should stick it's collective oars in and put the rest of us in danger of terrorist attacks.
SWWood- Location: Dover
- Registered: 30 May 2012
- Posts: 261
I find myself broadly agreeing with Alexander on this one, with one exception. The fact that someone has used chemical weapons is not in doubt. That this atrocity has occurred makes it right and proper that Parliament is recalled to discuss the situation, if only to reinforce the idea that no action is taken until the full circumstances are known. The Government, and it's allies, need to make it clear that this sort of action is totally unacceptable, whoever the perpetrator, and that we will not stand by and let civilians die like this.
I'm glad that out Government will not be following the advice of some posters here and "minding our own business". If the West decides to turn a blind eye to these sorts of atrocities, wherever they occur, we will be heading for much greater problems in future.
Guest 745- Registered: 27 Mar 2012
- Posts: 3,370
If you go to YouTube and enter Syria Torture ,you will see just what these people are dong to each other
This war is now all about different fraction killing one another
Only the Syrian army can bring order to this mess, whoever controls them will be the government at the end.
Syria will be a military government not a democracy
What happen if Syria launches its massif chemical weapon stocks on its enemies, After the west stops bombing them ??
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
What I make mention of in #12 does not touch upon arms sales, but on the continued chemical poisoning of a civilian population as a direct result of action taken by US and UK forces.
The issue I have with arms sales is that, at present, this trade is treated the same as burgers and lemon drops. The direct link between sales and foreseeable and detrimental outcomes is never the business of the seller, this is never more wrong than with the sales of arms. 'We' as an arms exporter must bear some responsibility for how those weapons are deployed;in Iraq and Afghanistan as in Syria. To heap the blame only upon the end-user, to steadfastly ignore out own shortcomings in this regard and so argue that we are above such things is also gravely wrong.
To argue that we should do nothing or that we should use 'surgical' strikes, while keeping ourselves safe, is to let the war-mongers off the hook entirely.
Far better now to dismiss what has happened in Syria (the deployment - or not - of chemical weapons) as simply a sad fact of all modern warfare that we as a world have yet to come to terms with, and make moves to address this whole matter in Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan, and to reaffirm the absolute need for a cease-fire and for all-party negotiations.
Hague's piece in the toady-Telegraph is no more that imperialist clap-trap, and perhaps if it was not for the financial cost implications, would have a ready ear with those here who so glibly trot-out the basest racist stereotypical dehumanising of much of the population of the Middle East.
It IS NOT how we die that matters, but how we (we ALL) live.
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
