This is who we ally ourselves with. A nnation that executes people for apostasy. Disgusting.
Disgusting indeed.
If we are honest Saudi is actually adding to the problem of radical Islam too.
Saudi Arabian Wahhabism is indeed the cradle of Al Qaeda and ISIL. However, the U.S. especially, and the West in general .has got into bed with the Saudis and are reluctant to part with this horrendous oil producing but client state.
My Twitter timeline is full on angry Nats demanding IndyRef2 if we start bombing in Syria.
Until now.
@neiledwardlovat: Sturgeon switches policy on Syria and the crazy gang instantly change their mind.... I've read about this before.... https://t.co/eZBKrpSvum
Is there another kind of Nat than angry?
Drunk?
Sad obsessive loser , shows the limit of his intelligence. Who could have helped him post that incisive point of view.
My Twitter timeline is full on angry Nats demanding IndyRef2 if we start bombing in Syria.
Until now.
@neiledwardlovat: Sturgeon switches policy on Syria and the crazy gang instantly change their mind.... I've read about this before.... https://t.co/eZBKrpSvum
Is there another kind of Nat than angry?
Drunk?
Sad obsessive loser , shows the limit of his intelligence. Who could have helped him post that incisive point of view.
This is who we ally ourselves with. A nnation that executes people for apostasy. Disgusting.
Disgusting indeed.
If we are honest Saudi is actually adding to the problem of radical Islam too.
Saudi Arabian Wahhabism is indeed the cradle of Al Qaeda and ISIL. However, the U.S. especially, and the West in general .has got into bed with the Saudis and are reluctant to part with this horrendous oil producing but client state.
My Twitter timeline is full on angry Nats demanding IndyRef2 if we start bombing in Syria.
Until now.
@neiledwardlovat: Sturgeon switches policy on Syria and the crazy gang instantly change their mind.... I've read about this before.... https://t.co/eZBKrpSvum
Is there another kind of Nat than angry?
Drunk?
Sad obsessive loser , shows the limit of his intelligence. Who could have helped him post that incisive point of view.
Hush, you cock.
Go away you cretin, we are bored to death with you.
This is who we ally ourselves with. A nnation that executes people for apostasy. Disgusting.
Disgusting indeed.
If we are honest Saudi is actually adding to the problem of radical Islam too.
Saudi Arabian Wahhabism is indeed the cradle of Al Qaeda and ISIL. However, the U.S. especially, and the West in general .has got into bed with the Saudis and are reluctant to part with this horrendous oil producing but client state.
Buying oil is one thing. Allowing Saudis to use their oil money to buy influence in educational establishments outside their country is quite another. We can do something about stopping the latter - and we should.
My Twitter timeline is full on angry Nats demanding IndyRef2 if we start bombing in Syria.
Until now.
@neiledwardlovat: Sturgeon switches policy on Syria and the crazy gang instantly change their mind.... I've read about this before.... https://t.co/eZBKrpSvum
Is there another kind of Nat than angry?
Drunk?
Sad obsessive loser , shows the limit of his intelligence. Who could have helped him post that incisive point of view.
Hush, you cock.
Go away you cretin, we are bored to death with you.
My Twitter timeline is full on angry Nats demanding IndyRef2 if we start bombing in Syria.
Until now.
@neiledwardlovat: Sturgeon switches policy on Syria and the crazy gang instantly change their mind.... I've read about this before.... https://t.co/eZBKrpSvum
Is there another kind of Nat than angry?
Drunk?
Sad obsessive loser , shows the limit of his intelligence. Who could have helped him post that incisive point of view.
Hush, you cock.
Go away you cretin, we are bored to death with you.
Once Germany was defeated, the concept of a greater Germany was destroyed. Neo-Nazis still exist, but their threat is vastly diminished. They concentrate more on the Aryan and race-hate side of things than the concept of a German super-state, which was the real danger to the world.
While I agree with your sentiment about the quite apparent differences between IS and Nazism, I think it's worth exanding on your point here.
Nazism didn't end because Germany was beaten, certainly the ideas that made it popular did not die. What killed both Nazism and the idea of a Greater Germany off were specific, political doctrines of De-Nazification, De-Prussification and the biggest Ethnic Cleansing in history.
The equivalent in Syria would be De-Baathism, De-Islamification and substantial Ethnic Cleansing which would be smaller than East Prussia but much closer to that example than any other example in history.
I agree that the programme of De-Nazification, De-Prussification worked after a fashion after WW2, but the only Ethnic Cleansing was done by the Nazis on the Jews, Gypsies and other untermenchen.
Old and unreconstructed Nazis were brought back into the Allied Occupation Government by the U.S. with the start of the cold war in 1946, and remained there to join the new West German government when it was established later.
German populations were replaced by Polish and Czech in the lost territories but it was not ethnic cleansing in any sense. Most of the replaced population remained alive.
It varied by territory, in those parts of East Prussia that became Poland, the ethnic German populaiton was incentivised to move West - not entirely carrot, there was a bit of stick (understandably perhaps) from the ethnic Poles.
But in Kaliningrad Oblast, Lithuania, Ukraine, it was almost entirely stick - ethnic Germans were expelled. Kaliningrad Oblast has less than 1% ethnic Germans today.
Add the Sudetenland to that list. Almost all ethnic Germans were deported and there was a considerable settling of scores and many murders well after the official cessation of hostilities.
You seem sorry for the Germans, JackW. The German population in the conquered lands that the Nazis took, lorded it over the native populations and committed many acts of murder and the rounding up of Jews especially. The settling of scores after the war was well deserved and many Germans got away scot free after their deprivations.
A fundamental root of Nazism was virulent anti-semitism. Sadly, there are still people with those kinds of views and probably will be for a very long time.
I'm not sure - the Nazis seemed fairly non-discriminatory in the "other" that they sought to massacre: they didn't really care if you were Jewish, Roma, homosexual or whatever.
Nazism had its roots in economic dislocation, a sense of national betrayal, and a lack of hope for the future. The creation of an Other as a focus for discontent is a part of the process, but not a fundamental root.
No, virulent anti-Semitism was absolutely core to Nazi ideology. You're right that it was far from the only group singled out. All 'deviant' lifestyles and sub-Aryan races were indeed subject to at best discrimination and at worst extermination but the Jews were held by the Nazi race-based ideology to be in a class of their own as, unlike blacks for example, Jews were held to be clever, corrupting and untrustworthy: capable of insidiously gaining control of countries while simultaneously undermining their cultural and moral strength. By contrast, blacks were not seen to pose that same threat, being mentally inferior to whites but suitable for menial work. As such, had the Nazis won the war, it's unlikely that there'd have been plans for mass extermination across Africa: attempts at re-enslavement would be much more likely. The Roma, however, may have ended up being targeted for extermination as a 'parasite' race.
I think we are arguing different things.
I'd agree it was core to their ideology (drawing on historical traditions in Germany and Eastern Europe of pogroms) but not a root.
Nazism - or something similar - would have existed without anti-semitism.
I'm not sure we are arguing about different things. I'd say that anti-Semitism was so core to Nazi ideology that it couldn't have existed without it. Had the Nazis not come to power (had Hitler rotted out his life in prison after 1923, for example rather than being given an easy ride), it's quite possible that a militantly nationalist, aggressive, expansionist autocrat might still have seized power after the economic collapse of 1929-33 but if so, it's likely that it would either have been a much more traditional authoritarian upper-class ruler, or a fascist in the style of Mussolini. Nazism cannot exist without its racial component and in the context of the time, that could only have focussed on the Jews (today it would focus on muslims, though not quite so neatly as there's not the same sharp duality of race and religion).
I can't comprehend the logic of lefties who want to delegate our foreign policy to the UN Security Council. So if the US and UK want to take an action but a Russian dictator deigns it not in his interests that's wrong but if the Russians say ok we are good to go? That's not principled.
Why would the left want us to delegate our foreign policy to the control of the Russians? Oh wait ...
Whilst I would not go so far as to suggest that the UN has 'a priori' authority what is the point of joining it if we intend to ignore its rules and decisions when it suits us? It is rather reminiscent of Blair re-Iraq in 2003 - 'If we can get legal cover for attacking via a UN Resolution that will be very welcome. If not we will go ahead and commit the aggression anyway'.
There is nothing in the UN charter that prevents a state acting in its own self defence without the support of the Security Council, up to and including war; or acting in the defence of an ally. It's Article 51:
Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.
Once Germany was defeated, the concept of a greater Germany was destroyed. Neo-Nazis still exist, but their threat is vastly diminished. They concentrate more on the Aryan and race-hate side of things than the concept of a German super-state, which was the real danger to the world.
While I agree with your sentiment about the quite apparent differences between IS and Nazism, I think it's worth exanding on your point here.
Nazism didn't end because Germany was beaten, certainly the ideas that made it popular did not die. What killed both Nazism and the idea of a Greater Germany off were specific, political doctrines of De-Nazification, De-Prussification and the biggest Ethnic Cleansing in history.
The equivalent in Syria would be De-Baathism, De-Islamification and substantial Ethnic Cleansing which would be smaller than East Prussia but much closer to that example than any other example in history.
A fundamental root of Nazism was virulent anti-semitism. Sadly, there are still people with those kinds of views and probably will be for a very long time.
I'm not sure - the Nazis seemed fairly non-discriminatory in the "other" that they sought to massacre: they didn't really care if you were Jewish, Roma, homosexual or whatever.
Nazism had its roots in economic dislocation, a sense of national betrayal, and a lack of hope for the future. The creation of an Other as a focus for discontent is a part of the process, but not a fundamental root.
"Nazism had its roots in economic dislocation, a sense of national betrayal, and a lack of hope for the future." - All true, but I'd argue that this was more the rich soil of despair that Hitler planted the seed into. The seed was racial purity and most specifically the removal of the Jews from Germany and wider. I have just finished reading "Black Earth" by T. Snyder, so I'm a bit steeped in all this at the moment. A bleak but enlightening book. Very recommended.
I can't comprehend the logic of lefties who want to delegate our foreign policy to the UN Security Council. So if the US and UK want to take an action but a Russian dictator deigns it not in his interests that's wrong but if the Russians say ok we are good to go? That's not principled.
Why would the left want us to delegate our foreign policy to the control of the Russians? Oh wait ...
Whilst I would not go so far as to suggest that the UN has 'a priori' authority what is the point of joining it if we intend to ignore its rules and decisions when it suits us? It is rather reminiscent of Blair re-Iraq in 2003 - 'If we can get legal cover for attacking via a UN Resolution that will be very welcome. If not we will go ahead and commit the aggression anyway'.
There is nothing in the UN charter that prevents a state acting in its own self defence without the support of the Security Council, up to and including war; or acting in the defence of an ally. It's Article 51:
Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.
The definition of 'self-defence' will vary according to the desires of the individual country.
My Twitter timeline is full on angry Nats demanding IndyRef2 if we start bombing in Syria.
Until now.
@neiledwardlovat: Sturgeon switches policy on Syria and the crazy gang instantly change their mind.... I've read about this before.... https://t.co/eZBKrpSvum
Is there another kind of Nat than angry?
Drunk?
Sad obsessive loser , shows the limit of his intelligence. Who could have helped him post that incisive point of view.
Hush, you cock.
Go away you cretin, we are bored to death with you.
Anther Richard... sorry ..I have never advocated sending British Troops into anywhere..not when there are locals to do the job..massive support ..yes...Carry on with your misinformed bile... quite amusing and I am waiting for the rain to ease off.
You really are all froth aren't you.
And you didn't like to be reminded of how gung ho you were for attacking Assad two years ago.
Tell us is there any group in Syria you don't want to attack ?
Once Germany was defeated, the concept of a greater Germany was destroyed. Neo-Nazis still exist, but their threat is vastly diminished. They concentrate more on the Aryan and race-hate side of things than the concept of a German super-state, which was the real danger to the world.
While I agree with your sentiment about the quite apparent differences between IS and Nazism, I think it's worth exanding on your point here.
Nazism didn't end because Germany was beaten, certainly the ideas that made it popular did not die. What killed both Nazism and the idea of a Greater Germany off were specific, political doctrines of De-Nazification, De-Prussification and the biggest Ethnic Cleansing in history.
The equivalent in Syria would be De-Baathism, De-Islamification and substantial Ethnic Cleansing which would be smaller than East Prussia but much closer to that example than any other example in history.
I agree that the programme of De-Nazification, De-Prussification worked after a fashion after WW2, but the only Ethnic Cleansing was done by the Nazis on the Jews, Gypsies and other untermenchen.
Old and unreconstructed Nazis were brought back into the Allied Occupation Government by the U.S. with the start of the cold war in 1946, and remained there to join the new West German government when it was established later.
German populations were replaced by Polish and Czech in the lost territories but it was not ethnic cleansing in any sense. Most of the replaced population remained alive.
But in Kaliningrad Oblast, Lithuania, Ukraine, it was almost entirely stick - ethnic Germans were expelled. Kaliningrad Oblast has less than 1% ethnic Germans today.
Add the Sudetenland to that list. Almost all ethnic Germans were deported and there was a considerable settling of scores and many murders well after the official cessation of hostilities.
You seem sorry for the Germans, JackW. The German population in the conquered lands that the Nazis took, lorded it over the native populations and committed many acts of murder and the rounding up of Jews especially. The settling of scores after the war was well deserved and many Germans got away scot free after their deprivations.
Nonsense.
I do not consider "the settling of scores" especially against innocent civilians as "well deserved."
Horrendous outrages against the Jews does not justify the victors acting in a similar fashion and is to be totally condemned.
Back in August 2014, I posted the following about IS 'It doesn't presume any of this, in fact it presumes ISIS inspired individuals turning up in the UK are more of a potential problem not less because of the practicality behind the philosophy. ISIS fundamentally have a winners mentality, a power mentality.'
In that you have just one of the pillars in taking IS to the cleaners. Destroying the perception that they have power in the conventional sense, i.e. government, territory.These are signs of the IS being winners.
That means breaking up their territory and ability to control it, it means ensuring that their leaders have nowhere to hide.
No virulent anti-Semitism was absolutely core to Nazi ideology. You're right that it was far from the only group singled out. All 'deviant' lifestyles and sub-Aryan races were indeed subject to at best discrimination and at worst extermination but the Jews were held by the Nazi race-based ideology to be in a class of their own as, unlike blacks for example, Jews were held to be clever, corrupting and untrustworthy: capable of insidiously gaining control of countries while simultaneously undermining their cultural and moral strength. By contrast, blacks were not seen to pose that same threat, being mentally inferior to whites but suitable for menial work. As such, had the Nazis won the war, it's unlikely that there'd have been plans for mass extermination across Africa: attempts at re-enslavement would be much more likely. The Roma, however, may have ended up being targeted for extermination as a 'parasite' race.
I think we are arguing different things.
I'd agree it was core to their ideology (drawing on historical traditions in Germany and Eastern Europe of pogroms) but not a root.
Nazism - or something similar - would have existed without anti-semitism.
I'm not sure we are arguing about different things. I'd say that anti-Semitism was so core to Nazi ideology that it couldn't have existed without it. Had the Nazis not come to power (had Hitler rotted out his life in prison after 1923, for example rather than being given an easy ride), it's quite possible that a militantly nationalist, aggressive, expansionist autocrat might still have seized power after the economic collapse of 1929-33 but if so, it's likely that it would either have been a much more traditional authoritarian upper-class ruler, or a fascist in the style of Mussolini. Nazism cannot exist without its racial component and in the context of the time, that could only have focussed on the Jews (today it would focus on muslims, though not quite so neatly as there's not the same sharp duality of race and religion).
Two points: I think it wrong to say that there would not be a focus on the Jews today. Given the rise in anti-Semitism in recent years I think they are still the scapegoats of choice for too many, not least for Muslims who themselves may also be on the receiving end of hatred. But all too often Muslims - some of them anyway - have been the perpetrators of anti-semitism and we have reimported or given rocket boosters to the virus of anti-semitism with the growth of Muslim populations within Europe.
Algerian Muslims' anti-Semitism is linked to the respective histories of the Muslims and Jews in Algeria and how France treated them when it was the colonial power.
Just watching the Corbyn speech. It looks and sounds really amateurish, compared to the staged clinical pressers we are used to seeing from all the main parties, but I actually quite like that. Corbyn is growing on me as a politician. Clearly, he ain't ever going to be PM, as he is shifting Labour to the far left, which isn't a place that I'd think most of the population want to be, but I genuinely respect the fact that he is sticking to his ideals, and is trying to bring voters around to his way of thinking, rather than say what he thinks the public wants. He has a lot of views that I find very unappealing, but fair play to him for having a go. Labour need to do something sharpish, mind, as the country needs a credible, coherent opposition, and the current Labour party ain't that.
Destroying ISIS is necessary, but not sufficient, in the overall war against Islamism.
We really cannot let a terrorist state, hell bent on our destruction, earning billions in oil money, survive and indeed flourish, ten miles from a NATO frontier.
The UK should bomb.
That definition pretty much fits Saudi Arabia as well.
Existential problems for the Corbyn left today as the whole world lines up against ISIS.
Based on recent experiences, they will U-turn and then deny they ever said anything other than the new message. McDonnell's performance on Newsnight was breathtaking.
Anti-semitism was widespread across Europe and beyond in the 20s and 30s, just as it had been for centuries. The difference with the Nazis was the virulence. It was that and what it led to that probably led people in this country and elsewhere to rethink their own prejudices.
Being as old as you purportedly are, you must well remember the hatred that the conquered nations had for any german. Revenge was in the very air, and if the Russian soldiers had had their way they would have wiped out half of the remaining German population. Especially after uncovering and discovering the many concentration camps dotted around Eastern Europe.
Just watching the Corbyn speech. It looks and sounds really amateurish, compared to the staged clinical pressers we are used to seeing from all the main parties, but I actually quite like that. Corbyn is growing on me as a politician. Clearly, he ain't ever going to be PM, as he is shifting Labour to the far left, which isn't a place that I'd think most of the population want to be, but I genuinely respect the fact that he is sticking to his ideals, and is trying to bring voters around to his way of thinking, rather than say what he thinks the public wants. He has a lot of views that I find very unappealing, but fair play to him for having a go. Labour need to do something sharpish, mind, as the country needs a credible, coherent opposition, and the current Labour party ain't that.
Incidentally, the third series of The Bridge starts tonight. Annoyingly, they've yet again double-shotted it, so it runs from 9-11pm on BBC4.
This time with added border controls.
I know little of this program called The Bridge. But if it is in its third series of doom and disaster then you would think people would have given up crossing it by now.
Just watching the Corbyn speech. It looks and sounds really amateurish, compared to the staged clinical pressers we are used to seeing from all the main parties, but I actually quite like that. Corbyn is growing on me as a politician. Clearly, he ain't ever going to be PM, as he is shifting Labour to the far left, which isn't a place that I'd think most of the population want to be, but I genuinely respect the fact that he is sticking to his ideals, and is trying to bring voters around to his way of thinking, rather than say what he thinks the public wants. He has a lot of views that I find very unappealing, but fair play to him for having a go. Labour need to do something sharpish, mind, as the country needs a credible, coherent opposition, and the current Labour party ain't that.
One thing thing that seems to feed the Jihadist cells is constant and seemingly large supplies of money..in order for them to live under the radar and also to travel extensively,particularly in the EU Schengen area..If that financial lifeline was severed then the cells might begin to dwindle..
It's not just money, for every bomber there are others supporting them , moving them and of course turning a blind eye to their activities.
Just for reference and why destroying IS' appearance of having conventional power is a good thing.
Top insurgent groups associated with non Syrian fighters known to have been killed in Syria .Islamic State at 35% tops the list.
If you take a fairly logical view that the proportion of killed reflects the overall make up of their forces then IS has more foreign fighters per head than any other group. One of what attracts them is is their sense that they are going to an actual state where they have control and can do what they want.
SR..Air strikes first.. and lots of them.. weaken the opposition.. then boots
Doesn't necessarily have to be British boots, as long as those that are there are signed up to the same strategy.
Let's not disappoint our troops Mr Herdson, they didn't join up to spend their lives on Salisbury Plain.
There's a great deal of truth in that. Young men are always keen to fight despite all the evidence showing it's a really shitty experience. Must be hard wired into the human brain.
I was being serious, our lads will be itching to get out there. It's unfathomable to 99% of us but they love it.
Then they come back in bits and whinge forever about people not fawning over them.
What an unpleasant man you are.
What an absolute idealistic stupid plank you are. Desperate for idiots to go and either murder other people or get themselves blown to bits. Unpleasant is to much of an accolade for someone like you , living your life vicariously through others deeds whilst you hide behind the sofa cheering.
''Let others do the bombing? Allow our allies to shoulder all the burden? So we can avoid spending blood and treasure? This position at least has a logic, although it is also spineless, selfish and cowardly.''
This, I sense, is the growing frustration with Osborne. Many tories feel that we should be in a position now to throw the full might of police and armed forces behind a defeat of ISIS.
Instead we are cutting back on both because Osborne does not have the guts to slash the welfare state and tell the howling liberal elite to go f8ck itself.
To all those pb-ers who oppose bombing Syria, and destroying the Caliphate, one has to ask: what exactly do you suggest that we do, as an alternative?
Let others do the bombing? Allow our allies to shoulder all the burden? So we can avoid spending blood and treasure? This position at least has a logic, although it is also spineless, selfish and cowardly.
But if your position is We will only make it worse, then there is no logic at all. ISIS is a growing and existential threat to our way of life. It has established a quasi-state which controls way more resources and generates way more money than any terror group before it, and which, every day it continues to exist, inspires more jihadis to take up arms around the world, who will then try to shoot us in our streets.
It can't get any "worse".
Obsessing about Raqqa while pandering to Islamic bigotry from Rotherham to Riyadh isn't going to work.
Another Richard.. You are almost as big a prick as Assad..I would like to see him removed as would a lot of people ..mainly because of the way he has treated his own people.. but I have never said the Brits should do it..we could support some of those that do.. British troops should be absolutely in support of those soldiers..it is their country and it should be their boots..or sandals
You cannot win a war with air strikes. History teaches us this.. you need boots on the ground .
The US won with two rather large air strikes in '45
Dresden
Dresden was not the end of the war.. and I don't think the we are going to drop atomic bombs on ISIS. Boots on the ground after degradation will be the only way.
Dresden didn't end the war but it was pivotal and remains controversial. This is going to be dirty, it's war, but I'm afraid we're left with no options. Of course there will be people wailing when we receive recriminations but luckily we didn't stand by when Germany invaded Poland.
Dresden was totally pointless and had no military purpose, just fanatics of carpet bombing trying to promote their failed strategy.
I see the Nats are rewriting history now
Stick to comics, you are obviously not up to intelligent debate.
Are you this obnoxious in "real life" or is this an Internet persona?
I once read about inadequate young men, wearing tanktops in bed sits, alternating between youporn and message boards.
You are as stupid as your posts then , I am a mature gentleman in a nice detached house , and not at all like your personal description of yourself. Hard to believe you can actually read.
A detached house? Wow I apologise, I didn't realise I was in the presence of such genius.
No doubt the spare bedrooms are stuffed full of refugees
MalcG is actually the Merry Automatic Language Caricature Generator, an ELIZA programmed by drunken first-year students at the University of the West of Scotland.
Mr g is emerging as a typically blinkered lefty peacenik socialist of the type who like to refer to our armed forces pejoratively as 'paid mercinaries'. Very sick, but illuminating all the same.
Poor Nicola is showing the first ladder in her tights if she thinks she can get away with annoying the peacnicks.
''Let others do the bombing? Allow our allies to shoulder all the burden? So we can avoid spending blood and treasure? This position at least has a logic, although it is also spineless, selfish and cowardly.''
This, I sense, is the growing frustration with Osborne. Many tories feel that we should be in a position now to throw the full might of police and armed forces behind a defeat of ISIS.
Instead we are cutting back on both because Osborne does not have the guts to slash the welfare state and tell the howling liberal elite to go f8ck itself.
The welfare state is being slashed. Except in one area. We all know what that is and why the Tories will not slash it.
I'd agree it was core to their ideology (drawing on historical traditions in Germany and Eastern Europe of pogroms) but not a root.
Nazism - or something similar - would have existed without anti-semitism.
I'm not sure we are arguing about different things. I'd say that anti-Semitism was so core to Nazi ideology that it couldn't have existed without it. Had the Nazis not come to power (had Hitler rotted out his life in prison after 1923, for example rather than being given an easy ride), it's quite possible that a militantly nationalist, aggressive, expansionist autocrat might still have seized power after the economic collapse of 1929-33 but if so, it's likely that it would either have been a much more traditional authoritarian upper-class ruler, or a fascist in the style of Mussolini. Nazism cannot exist without its racial component and in the context of the time, that could only have focussed on the Jews (today it would focus on muslims, though not quite so neatly as there's not the same sharp duality of race and religion).
Two points: I think it wrong to say that there would not be a focus on the Jews today. Given the rise in anti-Semitism in recent years I think they are still the scapegoats of choice for too many, not least for Muslims who themselves may also be on the receiving end of hatred. But all too often Muslims - some of them anyway - have been the perpetrators of anti-semitism and we have reimported or given rocket boosters to the virus of anti-semitism with the growth of Muslim populations within Europe.
Algerian Muslims' anti-Semitism is linked to the respective histories of the Muslims and Jews in Algeria and how France treated them when it was the colonial power.
I completely agree that the blind paranoid hysterical anti-Semitism among some in the Middle East (and elsewhere) and lesser but still prevalent forms in larger parts of the muslim community are a good parallel with the Nazis and German population in the 1920s/30s, though of course incomplete.
However, you only have to look to the far right today for where the focus would be. It is not the Jews who are seen as different, threatening, poor in some ways but powerful in others, involved in international conspiratorial action, with their own language and dress code - and so on. Were Hitler alive today, he'd be screaming about Muslims first and foremost.
Destroying ISIS is necessary, but not sufficient, in the overall war against Islamism.
We really cannot let a terrorist state, hell bent on our destruction, earning billions in oil money, survive and indeed flourish, ten miles from a NATO frontier.
The UK should bomb.
That definition pretty much fits Saudi Arabia as well.
I agree. Once we've dealt with ISIS we really need to recalibrate our attitude to Saudi. Fuck the oil. We should politely distance ourselves, and prevent them funding mosques, madrassas, etc, at least in the West.
However, overthrowing the Saudi regime - even if we could do it - would clearly be disastrous. Islamists would take over, and with all Saudi's oil money, they would destroy the world very quickly.
We really are in quite desperate straits now. It's late Autumn, 1938.
There must be reformist elements within Saudi Arabia. We need to start investing in the foreign office again.
''Let others do the bombing? Allow our allies to shoulder all the burden? So we can avoid spending blood and treasure? This position at least has a logic, although it is also spineless, selfish and cowardly.''
This, I sense, is the growing frustration with Osborne. Many tories feel that we should be in a position now to throw the full might of police and armed forces behind a defeat of ISIS.
Instead we are cutting back on both because Osborne does not have the guts to slash the welfare state and tell the howling liberal elite to go f8ck itself.
There's never a shortage of money when it comes to vanity and pet projects - Overseas Aid, HS2, Hinckley Point, northern 'powerhouses', Kids Company.
To all those pb-ers who oppose bombing Syria, and destroying the Caliphate, one has to ask: what exactly do you suggest that we do, as an alternative?
Let others do the bombing? Allow our allies to shoulder all the burden? So we can avoid spending blood and treasure? This position at least has a logic, although it is also spineless, selfish and cowardly.
But if your position is We will only make it worse, then there is no logic at all. ISIS is a growing and existential threat to our way of life. It has established a quasi-state which controls way more resources and generates way more money than any terror group before it, and which, every day it continues to exist, inspires more jihadis to take up arms around the world, who will then try to shoot us in our streets.
It can't get any "worse".
I'm of the opinion that the only way to "defeat" the crazy death cult is to absolutely hammer them into the ground. Show them no quarter, respect nothing that they hold sacred, offer them nothing but destruction. They show no mercy in their actions towards us, and we should offer them the same.
That, though, is very easy for me to say. I won't be the one wearing the boots on the ground, although I have nephews currently in the forces who would expect to be in the vanguard of any invasion of the lands that IS hold, and know a lot of current forces personnel.
I'm not sure that we as a nation, and our allies as a whole currently have the necessary ruthlessness to do the job to completion. Crucially, also, we don't really have a plan for the aftermath, which could arguably be one of the reasons that the afflicted region of the Middle East is in the state it is in now.
SR..Air strikes first.. and lots of them.. weaken the opposition.. then boots
Doesn't necessarily have to be British boots, as long as those that are there are signed up to the same strategy.
Let's not disappoint our troops Mr Herdson, they didn't join up to spend their lives on Salisbury Plain.
There's a great deal of truth in that. Young men are always keen to fight despite all the evidence showing it's a really shitty experience. Must be hard wired into the human brain.
I was being serious, our lads will be itching to get out there. It's unfathomable to 99% of us but they love it.
Then they come back in bits and whinge forever about people not fawning over them.
What an unpleasant man you are.
What an absolute idealistic stupid plank you are. Desperate for idiots to go and either murder other people or get themselves blown to bits. Unpleasant is to much of an accolade for someone like you , living your life vicariously through others deeds whilst you hide behind the sofa cheering.
Another Richard.. You are almost as big a prick as Assad..I would like to see him removed as would a lot of people ..mainly because of the way he has treated his own people.. but I have never said the Brits should do it..we could support some of those that do.. British troops should be absolutely in support of those soldiers..it is their country and it should be their boots..or sandals
You become more ridiculous with every comment.
Just like you did two years when you wanted to attack Assad.
To all those pb-ers who oppose bombing Syria, and destroying the Caliphate, one has to ask: what exactly do you suggest that we do, as an alternative?
Let others do the bombing? Allow our allies to shoulder all the burden? So we can avoid spending blood and treasure? This position at least has a logic, although it is also spineless, selfish and cowardly.
But if your position is We will only make it worse, then there is no logic at all. ISIS is a growing and existential threat to our way of life. It has established a quasi-state which controls way more resources and generates way more money than any terror group before it, and which, every day it continues to exist, inspires more jihadis to take up arms around the world, who will then try to shoot us in our streets.
It can't get any "worse".
I think there are two schools who oppose bombing at the moment.
The handwringers, as you say, don't want to get involved because of any potential consequences. It is a moral cowardice as much as anything in that they believe that if we don't do anything (or if they oppose it) then they can't be held accountable for what happens. They are wrong. All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing, and all that.
The other, to which I subscribe to some extent, is that of the realists. Ideally, we shouldn't get involved until there is an agreed vision for what we want to achieve in Syria and Iraq and a strategy agreed with sufficient resources deployed to put that into place. Bombing ISIL now has little more merit than bombing Assad for the chemical attacks two years ago: it is not our job to act as some international referee dishing out punishments for foul play. It is better now that at least all are on side in declaring ISIL an enemy but even if the military action is successful in dealing with that threat, then what?
I am deeply uneasy about Britain going bombing unless we know what we hope to create by clearing ISIL out. If other states are going ahead then probably we need to do so too as it's the only way to keep some influence in the process and ducking out after such provocation would be contemptible. All the same, if that is where events force us, we should still be ensuring that the action is politics by other means, as war should always be: a means to an end. At the moment, no-one seems to have adequately defined the 'end', as degrading ISIL is insufficient of itself.
To all those pb-ers who oppose bombing Syria, and destroying the Caliphate, one has to ask: what exactly do you suggest that we do, as an alternative?
Let others do the bombing? Allow our allies to shoulder all the burden? So we can avoid spending blood and treasure? This position at least has a logic, although it is also spineless, selfish and cowardly.
But if your position is We will only make it worse, then there is no logic at all. ISIS is a growing and existential threat to our way of life. It has established a quasi-state which controls way more resources and generates way more money than any terror group before it, and which, every day it continues to exist, inspires more jihadis to take up arms around the world, who will then try to shoot us in our streets.
It can't get any "worse".
Obsessing about Raqqa while pandering to Islamic bigotry from Rotherham to Riyadh isn't going to work.
We have to tackle BOTH.
But this government - and the whole UK establishment - prefers to pander to Islamic bigotry in this country.
That is where our focus should be, we can leave bombing ISIS to Russia, France, the USA etc.
What would be self-defeating would be for the UK government to claim it had beaten Islamic bigotry after a few token RAF airstrikes whilst continuing to tolerate it at home.
We did it in Iraq, we did it in Afghanistan and now it would seem we are about to do it in Syria. Committing to combat without a clear idea of what constitutes victory and therefore without a strategy to achieve it is futile. We will spend very serious amounts of money we haven't got and, possibly, blood to no good effect.
I don't think it is possible to bomb an ideology out of existence.
It isn't.
But you can deny them a safe home base.
We have to tackle head on the ideology that underpins this.
I honestly believe we will need to see many more thousands dead before we get the will politically to get to that stage.
I'd agree it was core to their ideology (drawing on historical traditions in Germany and Eastern Europe of pogroms) but not a root.
Nazism - or something similar - would have existed without anti-semitism.
I'm not sure we are arguing about different things. I'd say that anti-Semitism was so core to Nazi ideology that it couldn't have existed without it. Had the Nazis not come to power (had Hitler rotted out his life in prison after 1923, for example rather than being given an easy ride), it's quite possible that a militantly nationalist, aggressive, expansionist autocrat might still have seized power ..snip.
Two points: I think it wrong to say that there would not be a focus on the Jews today. Given the rise in anti-Semitism in recent years I think they are still the scapegoats of choice for too many, not least for Muslims who themselves may also be on the receiving end of hatred. But all too often Muslims - some of them anyway - have been the perpetrators of anti-semitism and we have reimported or given rocket boosters to the virus of anti-semitism with the growth of Muslim populations within Europe.
Algerian Muslims' anti-Semitism is linked to the respective histories of the Muslims and Jews in Algeria and how France treated them when it was the colonial power.
I completely agree that the blind paranoid hysterical anti-Semitism among some in the Middle East (and elsewhere) and lesser but still prevalent forms in larger parts of the muslim community are a good parallel with the Nazis and German population in the 1920s/30s, though of course incomplete.
However, you only have to look to the far right today for where the focus would be. It is not the Jews who are seen as different, threatening, poor in some ways but powerful in others, involved in international conspiratorial action, with their own language and dress code - and so on. Were Hitler alive today, he'd be screaming about Muslims first and foremost.
Yes... But what drove Hitler was his, well his mad, but also irrational analysis of history. He twisted the facts to suit his warped world view. Jews were an easy wider target because they could be used as a reason for national defeat and individual inadequacies and failures. Modern Germany is successful. Individual saddo Germans may want to use Muslims as an excuse but in a wider context there is clearly no need to excuse a nonexistent political and or economic failure by Germany. Unlike the fuzzy nature of the 1918 armistice, Germany was clearly and irrevocably defeated by its own fault in 1945 and suffered the painful consequence. As such there is no sense of hitler-like betrayal to play on.
Just watching the Corbyn speech. It looks and sounds really amateurish, compared to the staged clinical pressers we are used to seeing from all the main parties, but I actually quite like that. Corbyn is growing on me as a politician. Clearly, he ain't ever going to be PM, as he is shifting Labour to the far left, which isn't a place that I'd think most of the population want to be, but I genuinely respect the fact that he is sticking to his ideals, and is trying to bring voters around to his way of thinking, rather than say what he thinks the public wants. He has a lot of views that I find very unappealing, but fair play to him for having a go. Labour need to do something sharpish, mind, as the country needs a credible, coherent opposition, and the current Labour party ain't that.
I agree with all that.
But he doesn't stick to his principles! His utter gut instinct, from the very heart of his beliefs, on the day after the Paris attack was to start on about the West being to blame, and specifically not agree that he would allow shoot-to-kill on the streets by UK police in a similar situation.
Within days (or was it hours, I forget?), he was waffling around this issue saying he had been 'misrepresented' or some other weasel rubbish and that, of course, there may be situations etc etc. Now he is speaking and the BBC is reporting that he is saying "Labour would support "every necessary measure" to protect people in the UK."
Too late mate. If you were PM the order to shoot a terrorist in the middle of an incident would not have been given should it have come up the chain of command.
To all those pb-ers who oppose bombing Syria, and destroying the Caliphate, one has to ask: what exactly do you suggest that we do, as an alternative?
Let others do the bombing? Allow our allies to shoulder all the burden? So we can avoid spending blood and treasure? This position at least has a logic, although it is also spineless, selfish and cowardly.
But if your position is We will only make it worse, then there is no logic at all. ISIS is a growing and existential threat to our way of life. It has established a quasi-state which controls way more resources and generates way more money than any terror group before it, and which, every day it continues to exist, inspires more jihadis to take up arms around the world, who will then try to shoot us in our streets.
It can't get any "worse".
I am by no means a pacifist and have no objection to the use of HM's armed forces to protect the UK's vital interests. However, before rushing into war there has to be an objective, a notion of what victory will be as without that there cannot be a strategy and without that how do we know what resources are needed. If we don't know what it is we want to achieve all we will do is flail around in increasing impotence, expending treasure we don't have and the blood of our young people to no good effect until finally the UK public grows fed up and we pack it in having achieved sod all of worth (see Iraq and Afghanistan).
Saying we wish to destroy ISIS is not a good enough. What is destruction in this context? How will bombing bring it about? If Cameron actually has a plan then let us hear it. If he wants to contribute a token effort (such as our six old Tornados that have already been bombing ISIS in Iraq for months) so that he can strut about on the world stage then let us tell him to feck off and come back when he has thought it through.
My Twitter timeline is full on angry Nats demanding IndyRef2 if we start bombing in Syria.
Until now.
@neiledwardlovat: Sturgeon switches policy on Syria and the crazy gang instantly change their mind.... I've read about this before.... https://t.co/eZBKrpSvum
Is there another kind of Nat than angry?
Drunk?
In some cases (yes Malc, I mean you) they seem to go hand in hand.
Long term all the Abrahamic religions will be seen alongside Greek/Egyptian/Norse mythology for the tales they are, but that's a VERY long way off. Since Islam is one of those, and it's currently growing I guess there will always be the malcontents.
I'm not convinced - given that religious beliefs have developed in pretty much every society, it would suggest there is some evolutionary benefit (especially as the decline of traditional religions in the UK seem to have been offset by a form of mild spiritualism).
There are two few examples to really look at, but the worst examples of human behaviour (Russia, China, Cambodia, Nazi Germany etc) appear to have been in avowedly secular/non-religious societies suggesting that humans need some kind of belief in an external force to keep their worst instincts in check
Russia, China, Cambodia, Nazi Germany etc may well be the worst examples of human behavior, but that was because they were in the 20th century, the century when mechanised, mass-produced murder became available and the planetary population became big enough to provide hundreds of millions of people to murder. How would, say, the Mongol empire look if it had the Willys Jeep, the T34 tank, the Tsar Bomba, and an European population of 500million to crush?
Human society changed in the 20th century. Portillo is fond of pointing out the number of democracies immediately before WWI was seven. Even those that were democracies had very limited franchises: wasn't the UK franchise in about 1800 about 8% of the population? Atheism was completely unheard of in, say, 1700. For most of human existence, people have been organised into geographical groups of the same ethnicity, worshipping a single god, pledging obedience to a single absolute ruler, going to war when he says so, and dying on average under 50. Now we have liberal democracies, rule of law, separation of church and state, freedom of religion, vaccination, and people dying on average over 80. Things have changed.
When you observe that the worst human societies were atheist and conclude "theist state is necessary for non-murderous state", you're overlooking the fact that the rise of scientific, Fordian warfare and the increased population size are confounding factors.
To all those pb-ers who oppose bombing Syria, one has to ask: what exactly do you suggest that we do, as an alternative?
1. Remove sanctions from Syria, alleviating the suffering of the people and helping speed up the now inevitable defeat of the rebels who seem to lose ground every day now. In the process acknowledging that Assad is the legitimate, and popular, ruler of Syria.
2. Have the UNSC declare Saudia Arabia a state sponsor of terrorism. Pressure Qatar and Turkey.
3. End the illegal support for the rebels and reign in the security state etc.
4. Give the Russians, Syrians, Hezbollah, Iran and Iraq all the support they need.
5. Including stepping up our support for the Iraqi Army, the coalition taking Mosul will be harder than the SAA taking Raqqa.
6. Enforce the UN resolutions on Israel and establish a Palestinian state.
7. Toughen our border controls and immigration rules.
8. Stop wasting money on useless weapons like Trident and pointless mass data collection, focus on intelligence led policing.
We did it in Iraq, we did it in Afghanistan and now it would seem we are about to do it in Syria. Committing to combat without a clear idea of what constitutes victory and therefore without a strategy to achieve it is futile. We will spend very serious amounts of money we haven't got and, possibly, blood to no good effect.
I don't think it is possible to bomb an ideology out of existence.
It isn't.
But you can deny them a safe home base.
We have to tackle head on the ideology that underpins this.
I honestly believe we will need to see many more thousands dead before we get the will politically to get to that stage.
If you look at the history of terrorism and ask "why did the terrorists stop and agree peace", you usually find it's because they realised they were losing- and usually that involved losing lots of dead members. See the IRA,and the Tamil Tigers for an example.
As ISIS are such an extreme sect, I suspect the motto "the only good ISIS terrorist is a dead one" will apply for at least a decade or longer. Until people realise joining ISIS is a one way ticket to a quick death and achieves nothing.
(Cannot see a Corbyn lead Labour Party signing up to that)
I'd agree it was core to their ideology (drawing on historical traditions in Germany and Eastern Europe of pogroms) but not a root.
Nazism - or something similar - would have existed without anti-semitism.
I'm not sure we are arguing about different things. I'd say that anti-Semitism was so core to Nazi ideology that it couldn't have existed without it. Had the Nazis not come to power (had Hitler rotted out his life in prison after 1923, for example rather than being given an easy ride), it's quite possible that a militantly nationalist, aggressive, expansionist autocrat might still have seized power ..snip.
Two points: I think it wrong to say that there would not be a focus on the Jews today. Given the rise in anti-Semitism in recent years I think they are still the scapegoats of choice for too many, not least for Muslims who themselves may also be on the receiving end of hatred. But all too often Muslims - some of them anyway - have been the perpetrators of anti-semitism and we have reimported or given rocket boosters to the virus of anti-semitism with the growth of Muslim populations within Europe.
snip
However, you only have to look to the far right today for where the focus would be. It is not the Jews who are seen as different, threatening, poor in some ways but powerful in others, involved in international conspiratorial action, with their own language and dress code - and so on. Were Hitler alive today, he'd be screaming about Muslims first and foremost.
Yes... But what drove Hitler was his, well his mad, but also irrational analysis of history. He twisted the facts to suit his warped world view. Jews were an easy wider target because they could be used as a reason for national defeat and individual inadequacies and failures. Modern Germany is successful. Individual saddo Germans may want to use Muslims as an excuse but in a wider context there is clearly no need to excuse a nonexistent political and or economic failure by Germany. Unlike the fuzzy nature of the 1918 armistice, Germany was clearly and irrevocably defeated by its own fault in 1945 and suffered the painful consequence. As such there is no sense of hitler-like betrayal to play on.
Jews were also an easy target because anti-semitism was rampant throughout German society (an indeed other European countries, particularly France and Poland).
Destroying ISIS is necessary, but not sufficient, in the overall war against Islamism.
We really cannot let a terrorist state, hell bent on our destruction, earning billions in oil money, survive and indeed flourish, ten miles from a NATO frontier.
The UK should bomb.
That definition pretty much fits Saudi Arabia as well.
I agree. Once we've dealt with ISIS we really need to recalibrate our attitude to Saudi. Fuck the oil. We should politely distance ourselves, and prevent them funding mosques, madrassas, etc, at least in the West.
However, overthrowing the Saudi regime - even if we could do it - would clearly be disastrous. Islamists would take over, and with all Saudi's oil money, they would destroy the world very quickly.
We really are in quite desperate straits now. It's late Autumn, 1938.
No, it's not. We are not fighting the equivalent of Nazi Germany, a country capable of invading, subduing and governing other states - and sustaining all out war on two fronts. There is no existential threat. We are faced with a direct enemy with relatively low levels of manpower and restricted access to weaponary and an ideology that is eminently defeatable because it enjoys little support. Most people have or are seeking to leave the "Caliphate" not live in it.
These are hard, difficult times and we have done ourselves few favours up to now, but we will win becsuse we are stronger and we are better. ISIS is nowhere near the threat the Nazis (or the Soviets) were. Our kids will not cower for their lives - as our parents and grandparents did for night after night and year after year - while bombs rain down on them. Let's not give a rag-tag of sexually frustrated, drug-taking psycopaths the power to terrorise us they do desperately crave.
I am off to lockdown Brussels in a werk or so's time to do some business. Can't say I'm looking forward to it, but I'm going. You'll keep on visiting all parts of the world. Part of our inevitable victory will be down to the fact we just keep calm and carry on.
To all those pb-ers who oppose bombing Syria, and destroying the Caliphate, one has to ask: what exactly do you suggest that we do, as an alternative?
Let others do the bombing? Allow our allies to shoulder all the burden? So we can avoid spending blood and treasure? This position at least has a logic, although it is also spineless, selfish and cowardly.
But if your position is We will only make it worse, then there is no logic at all. ISIS is a growing and existential threat to our way of life. It has established a quasi-state which controls way more resources and generates way more money than any terror group before it, and which, every day it continues to exist, inspires more jihadis to take up arms around the world, who will then try to shoot us in our streets.
It can't get any "worse".
I'm not against bombing IS in Syria; it's just that I doubt bombing will work on its own.
''Let others do the bombing? Allow our allies to shoulder all the burden? So we can avoid spending blood and treasure? This position at least has a logic, although it is also spineless, selfish and cowardly.''
This, I sense, is the growing frustration with Osborne. Many tories feel that we should be in a position now to throw the full might of police and armed forces behind a defeat of ISIS.
Instead we are cutting back on both because Osborne does not have the guts to slash the welfare state and tell the howling liberal elite to go f8ck itself.
The welfare state is being slashed. Except in one area. We all know what that is and why the Tories will not slash it.
Pathetic and bigoted comment. Pensions are paid out of contributions as they come in. They do not affect the deficit. The pension age is going up...by 7 years for women. This govt has tackled pension issues that labour ran away from. We spend a massive amount of money on our armed forces.
To all those pb-ers who oppose bombing Syria, one has to ask: what exactly do you suggest that we do, as an alternative?
1. Remove sanctions from Syria, alleviating the suffering of the people and helping speed up the now inevitable defeat of the rebels who seem to lose ground every day now. In the process acknowledging that Assad is the legitimate, and popular, ruler of Syria.
2. Have the UNSC declare Saudia Arabia a state sponsor of terrorism. Pressure Qatar and Turkey.
3. End the illegal support for the rebels and reign in the security state etc.
4. Give the Russians, Syrians, Hezbollah, Iran and Iraq all the support they need.
5. Including stepping up our support for the Iraqi Army, the coalition taking Mosul will be harder than the SAA taking Raqqa.
6. Enforce the UN resolutions on Israel and establish a Palestinian state.
7. Toughen our border controls and immigration rules.
8. Stop wasting money on useless weapons like Trident and pointless mass data collection, focus on intelligence led policing.
I thought this was about putting IS into its box. None of those will do that.
Destroying ISIS is necessary, but not sufficient, in the overall war against Islamism.
We really cannot let a terrorist state, hell bent on our destruction, earning billions in oil money, survive and indeed flourish, ten miles from a NATO frontier.
The UK should bomb.
That definition pretty much fits Saudi Arabia as well.
I agree. Once we've dealt with ISIS we really need to recalibrate our attitude to Saudi. Fuck the oil. We should politely distance ourselves, and prevent them funding mosques, madrassas, etc, at least in the West.
However, overthrowing the Saudi regime - even if we could do it - would clearly be disastrous. Islamists would take over, and with all Saudi's oil money, they would destroy the world very quickly.
We really are in quite desperate straits now. It's late Autumn, 1938.
There must be reformist elements within Saudi Arabia. We need to start investing in the foreign office again.
Err reformist elements in Saudi Arabia have a choice : speak up and be persecuted or emigrate or stay silent. Not many exist under such a regime.
Remind me how well Iraqi dissidents fared when they gained power after Hussein was killed?
You have to remember a Muslim country usually has zero separation between Church and State, so democracy as we know it is not an option. And when there is separation as in Turkey, there is always pressure to reverse that preparation.
Destroying ISIS is necessary, but not sufficient, in the overall war against Islamism.
We really cannot let a terrorist state, hell bent on our destruction, earning billions in oil money, survive and indeed flourish, ten miles from a NATO frontier.
The UK should bomb.
That definition pretty much fits Saudi Arabia as well.
I agree. Once we've dealt with ISIS we really need to recalibrate our attitude to Saudi. Fuck the oil. We should politely distance ourselves, and prevent them funding mosques, madrassas, etc, at least in the West.
However, overthrowing the Saudi regime - even if we could do it - would clearly be disastrous. Islamists would take over, and with all Saudi's oil money, they would destroy the world very quickly.
We really are in quite desperate straits now. It's late Autumn, 1938.
There must be reformist elements within Saudi Arabia. We need to start investing in the foreign office again.
Err reformist elements in Saudi Arabia have a choice : speak up and be persecuted or emigrate or stay silent. Not many exist under such a regime.
Remind me how well Iraqi dissidents fared when they gained power after Hussein was killed?
You have to remember a Muslim country usually has zero separation between Church and State, so democracy as we know it is not an option. And when there is separation as in Turkey, there is always pressure to reverse that preparation.
Indeed - we need expertise to navigate these very complicated waters. Expertise we currently have far too little of.
Another Richard.. You are almost as big a prick as Assad..I would like to see him removed as would a lot of people ..mainly because of the way he has treated his own people.. but I have never said the Brits should do it..we could support some of those that do.. British troops should be absolutely in support of those soldiers..it is their country and it should be their boots..or sandals
That is what is being proposed as far as I can see.
Destroying ISIS is necessary, but not sufficient, in the overall war against Islamism.
We really cannot let a terrorist state, hell bent on our destruction, earning billions in oil money, survive and indeed flourish, ten miles from a NATO frontier.
The UK should bomb.
That definition pretty much fits Saudi Arabia as well.
I agree. Once we've dealt with ISIS we really need to recalibrate our attitude to Saudi. Fuck the oil. We should politely distance ourselves, and prevent them funding mosques, madrassas, etc, at least in the West.
However, overthrowing the Saudi regime - even if we could do it - would clearly be disastrous. Islamists would take over, and with all Saudi's oil money, they would destroy the world very quickly.
We really are in quite desperate straits now. It's late Autumn, 1938.
Just watching the Corbyn speech. It looks and sounds really amateurish, compared to the staged clinical pressers we are used to seeing from all the main parties, but I actually quite like that. Corbyn is growing on me as a politician. Clearly, he ain't ever going to be PM, as he is shifting Labour to the far left, which isn't a place that I'd think most of the population want to be, but I genuinely respect the fact that he is sticking to his ideals, and is trying to bring voters around to his way of thinking, rather than say what he thinks the public wants. He has a lot of views that I find very unappealing, but fair play to him for having a go. Labour need to do something sharpish, mind, as the country needs a credible, coherent opposition, and the current Labour party ain't that.
The country needs a LOYAL opposition. Corbyn is a million miles from that. In other respects your view of Corbyn is amateurish to say the least. His aim it to take over the labour party on behalf of what is effectively the Stop The War Coalition.
Once Germany was defeated, the concept of a greater Germany was destroyed. Neo-Nazis still exist, but their threat is vastly diminished. They concentrate more on the Aryan and race-hate side of things than the concept of a German super-state, which was the real danger to the world.
While I agree with your sentiment about the quite apparent differences between IS and Nazism, I think it's worth exanding on your point here.
Nazism didn't end because Germany was beaten, certainly the ideas that made it popular did not die. What killed both Nazism and the idea of a Greater Germany off were specific, political doctrines of De-Nazification, De-Prussification and the biggest Ethnic Cleansing in history.
The equivalent in Syria would be De-Baathism, De-Islamification and substantial Ethnic Cleansing which would be smaller than East Prussia but much closer to that example than any other example in history.
I agree that the programme of De-Nazification, De-Prussification worked after a fashion after WW2, but the only Ethnic Cleansing was done by the Nazis on the Jews, Gypsies and other untermenchen.
Old and unreconstructed Nazis were brought back into the Allied Occupation Government by the U.S. with the start of the cold war in 1946, and remained there to join the new West German government when it was established later.
German populations were replaced by Polish and Czech in the lost territories but it was not ethnic cleansing in any sense. Most of the replaced population remained alive.
It varied by territory, in those parts of East Prussia that became Poland, the ethnic German populaiton was incentivised to move West - not entirely carrot, there was a bit of stick (understandably perhaps) from the ethnic Poles.
But in Kaliningrad Oblast, Lithuania, Ukraine, it was almost entirely stick - ethnic Germans were expelled. Kaliningrad Oblast has less than 1% ethnic Germans today.
Add the Sudetenland to that list. Almost all ethnic Germans were deported and there was a considerable settling of scores and many murders well after the official cessation of hostilities.
I think people are (perhaps deliberately) blind to the scale of the Ethnic Cleansing of East Prussia after WW2. Konigsberg was one of the great cities of Germany, the home of Immanuel Kant, yet today you would struggle to find an ethnic German at all.
Having said that, it is very easy to show that this was a successful post war strategy by the Allies.
Just watching the Corbyn speech. It looks and sounds really amateurish, compared to the staged clinical pressers we are used to seeing from all the main parties, but I actually quite like that. Corbyn is growing on me as a politician. Clearly, he ain't ever going to be PM, as he is shifting Labour to the far left, which isn't a place that I'd think most of the population want to be, but I genuinely respect the fact that he is sticking to his ideals, and is trying to bring voters around to his way of thinking, rather than say what he thinks the public wants. He has a lot of views that I find very unappealing, but fair play to him for having a go. Labour need to do something sharpish, mind, as the country needs a credible, coherent opposition, and the current Labour party ain't that.
The country needs a LOYAL opposition. Corbyn is a million miles from that. In other respects your view of Corbyn is amateurish to say the least. His aim it to take over the labour party on behalf of what is effectively the Stop The War Coalition.
''Let others do the bombing? Allow our allies to shoulder all the burden? So we can avoid spending blood and treasure? This position at least has a logic, although it is also spineless, selfish and cowardly.''
This, I sense, is the growing frustration with Osborne. Many tories feel that we should be in a position now to throw the full might of police and armed forces behind a defeat of ISIS.
Instead we are cutting back on both because Osborne does not have the guts to slash the welfare state and tell the howling liberal elite to go f8ck itself.
The welfare state is being slashed. Except in one area. We all know what that is and why the Tories will not slash it.
Pathetic and bigoted comment. Pensions are paid out of contributions as they come in. They do not affect the deficit. The pension age is going up...by 7 years for women. This govt has tackled pension issues that labour ran away from. We spend a massive amount of money on our armed forces.
Entirely coincidentally, public spending on state pensions and other benefits for pensioners has been almost totally unaffected by the cuts imposed on other areas of the welfare budget. Whoever would have thought it
Unless Hillary is found guilty of high treason she would still be eligible to run for president and may still do so and could even still win. However, if something does come up which is particularly serious and she drops out then Biden is the most likely alternative I agree but that would be the only circumstance in which he would reconsider and re-enter the race ie to stop Sanders becoming the Democratic nominee by default
Just watching the Corbyn speech. It looks and sounds really amateurish, compared to the staged clinical pressers we are used to seeing from all the main parties, but I actually quite like that. Corbyn is growing on me as a politician. Clearly, he ain't ever going to be PM, as he is shifting Labour to the far left, which isn't a place that I'd think most of the population want to be, but I genuinely respect the fact that he is sticking to his ideals, and is trying to bring voters around to his way of thinking, rather than say what he thinks the public wants. He has a lot of views that I find very unappealing, but fair play to him for having a go. Labour need to do something sharpish, mind, as the country needs a credible, coherent opposition, and the current Labour party ain't that.
TFS , you mean he is not a lying windbag like your average Tory or LabTory politician, he actually sticks to his principles ( good or bad ) rather than just climbing the greasy pole with lying and cheating. Almost original for Westminster.
It is more likely that a serious health problem derails Hillary than the E mail scandal ; I think it's a rather moot point anyway as she is clearly going to lose ; indeed , Hillary is a paper tiger , she is much more vulnerable than she appears ...Obama proved this when he took the nomination away from her in 2008 Marco Rubio is not only going to win the nomination , he is going to decisively CRUSH Hillary ; the writing is on the wall for those with eyes to see !
The recent polling in Colorado is the latest clue where Hillary is outpolled by 4 Republican candidates ...Colorado is not only a swing state that the eventual victor needs to win , it is also a bell weather state that indicates which way the winds of change are blowing ; whoever wins Colorado is very likely to win the presidency and Rubio is out polling everyone ..Colorado went with the winner in at least the last 4 elections
Hillary is like an aging actress who just cannot accept that she's just not wanted anymore ; RUBIO/FIORINA will crush CLINTON/CASTRO !
Hillary also tied Rubio in Nevada last week and that is a swing state and led Trump in Iowa and New Hampshire, also swing states. Colorado is a swing state too but it leans fractionally more Republican than Democrat, it voted for Bob Dole in 1996 for example and it also dislikes the Clintons, they not only lost it in Bill's re-election year but it voted for Obama in the Democratic primaries too. Your hopes on Rubio are also misplaced, he was in 4th place for the nomination in a national poll of Republican voters yesterday behind Trump, Cruz and Carson and he is not doing much better in the early states of Iowa and New Hampshire
My Twitter timeline is full on angry Nats demanding IndyRef2 if we start bombing in Syria.
Until now.
@neiledwardlovat: Sturgeon switches policy on Syria and the crazy gang instantly change their mind.... I've read about this before.... https://t.co/eZBKrpSvum
Is there another kind of Nat than angry?
Drunk?
In some cases (yes Malc, I mean you) they seem to go hand in hand.
Another vile loser , a small envious person of odious nature. Jog on you cretinous saddo.
To all those pb-ers who oppose bombing Syria, and destroying the Caliphate, one has to ask: what exactly do you suggest that we do, as an alternative?
Let others do the bombing? Allow our allies to shoulder all the burden? So we can avoid spending blood and treasure? This position at least has a logic, although it is also spineless, selfish and cowardly.
But if your position is We will only make it worse, then there is no logic at all. ISIS is a growing and existential threat to our way of life. It has established a quasi-state which controls way more resources and generates way more money than any terror group before it, and which, every day it continues to exist, inspires more jihadis to take up arms around the world, who will then try to shoot us in our streets.
It can't get any "worse".
Obsessing about Raqqa while pandering to Islamic bigotry from Rotherham to Riyadh isn't going to work.
We have to tackle BOTH.
But we are not.
We are focusing on Raqqa as an alternative to Riyadh or Rotherham.
When in reality the priority should be : -
1. Rotherham 2. Riyadh 3. Raqqa
We are focusing on the least important aspect and one that would be best dealt with by stopping all refugees leaving Syria, dropping in piles of small arms and letting cards fall once the necessary casualties are recorded.
@SeanT - I agree that if 600 million cannot defeat 2 million then we are fucked. But those numbers alone demonstrate why this is not Autumn 1938. Self-loathing lefties have been a major issue and problem up to now. What we don't need in addition are apocalyptic, defeatist righties. We will win.
SR..Air strikes first.. and lots of them.. weaken the opposition.. then boots
Doesn't necessarily have to be British boots, as long as those that are there are signed up to the same strategy.
Let's not disappoint our troops Mr Herdson, they didn't join up to spend their lives on Salisbury Plain.
There's a great deal of truth in that. Young men are always keen to fight despite all the evidence showing it's a really shitty experience. Must be hard wired into the human brain.
I was being serious, our lads will be itching to get out there. It's unfathomable to 99% of us but they love it.
Then they come back in bits and whinge forever about people not fawning over them.
What an unpleasant man you are.
What an absolute idealistic stupid plank you are. Desperate for idiots to go and either murder other people or get themselves blown to bits. Unpleasant is to much of an accolade for someone like you , living your life vicariously through others deeds whilst you hide behind the sofa cheering.
Drunk by 9:30 - quite an achievement Malc.
You've led a sheltered life.
TUD, I doubt it has a life , low life vermin. Cretins like this are a good reason for euthanasia.
To all those pb-ers who oppose bombing Syria, one has to ask: what exactly do you suggest that we do, as an alternative?
1. Remove sanctions from Syria, alleviating the suffering of the people and helping speed up the now inevitable defeat of the rebels who seem to lose ground every day now. In the process acknowledging that Assad is the legitimate, and popular, ruler of Syria.
2. Have the UNSC declare Saudia Arabia a state sponsor of terrorism. Pressure Qatar and Turkey.
3. End the illegal support for the rebels and reign in the security state etc.
4. Give the Russians, Syrians, Hezbollah, Iran and Iraq all the support they need.
5. Including stepping up our support for the Iraqi Army, the coalition taking Mosul will be harder than the SAA taking Raqqa.
6. Enforce the UN resolutions on Israel and establish a Palestinian state.
7. Toughen our border controls and immigration rules.
8. Stop wasting money on useless weapons like Trident and pointless mass data collection, focus on intelligence led policing.
Agree with most of that but while Iraq is majority Shia Syria is majority Sunni and they will not accept Shiite Assad being ruler beyond the Alawite areas. Thus the FSA and some other rebel groups will need to defeat ISIS in Sunni Syria and then replace them in that area leaving Assad to govern Damascus and the coast
I was right about the Mark Clarke story having legs. The police have been called in and there are emails proving Tory staff received allegations of his behaviour. There are person(s) who were leaking the allegations to Clarke and it is important that they are rooted out and expelled.
Yesterday the Mail told how the whistleblower said she sent a 2,000-word email spelling out the allegations of sex, drugs and the blackmailing of MPs to Lord Feldman on Monday and also passed it on to the Prime Minister’s office.
But she said last night: ‘The following day a friend of mine received an anonymous call from a man who quoted part of my letter to her, so it had clearly gone straight back to Clarke or one of his henchman. Then he warned: “If you don’t shut her up, we will.” It was a direct threat aimed at silencing me for speaking out.
You cannot win a war with air strikes. History teaches us this.. you need boots on the ground .
The US won with two rather large air strikes in '45
Dresden
Dresden was not the end of the war.. and I don't think the we are going to drop atomic bombs on ISIS. Boots on the ground after degradation will be the only way.
Dresden didn't end the war but it was pivotal and remains controversial. This is going to be dirty, it's war, but I'm afraid we're left with no options. Of course there will be people wailing when we receive recriminations but luckily we didn't stand by when Germany invaded Poland.
Dresden was totally pointless and had no military purpose, just fanatics of carpet bombing trying to promote their failed strategy.
I see the Nats are rewriting history now
Stick to comics, you are obviously not up to intelligent debate.
Are you this obnoxious in "real life" or is this an Internet persona?
I once read about inadequate young men, wearing tanktops in bed sits, alternating between youporn and message boards.
You are as stupid as your posts then , I am a mature gentleman in a nice detached house , and not at all like your personal description of yourself. Hard to believe you can actually read.
A detached house? Wow I apologise, I didn't realise I was in the presence of such genius.
No doubt the spare bedrooms are stuffed full of refugees
MalcG is actually the Merry Automatic Language Caricature Generator, an ELIZA programmed by drunken first-year students at the University of the West of Scotland.
Mr g is emerging as a typically blinkered lefty peacenik socialist of the type who like to refer to our armed forces pejoratively as 'paid mercinaries'. Very sick, but illuminating all the same.
Poor Nicola is showing the first ladder in her tights if she thinks she can get away with annoying the peacnicks.
You absolutely thick turnip, I am no more socialist than you are intelligent. Just so you understand , if they want to join the army then get on with it , don't come back whinging when the big boys have thumped them yet again and expect Cameron and his millionaire chums to give a toss about the cannon fodder.
To all those pb-ers who oppose bombing Syria, one has to ask: what exactly do you suggest that we do, as an alternative?
1. Remove sanctions from Syria, alleviating the suffering of the people and helping speed up the now inevitable defeat of the rebels who seem to lose ground every day now. In the process acknowledging that Assad is the legitimate, and popular, ruler of Syria.
2. Have the UNSC declare Saudia Arabia a state sponsor of terrorism. Pressure Qatar and Turkey.
3. End the illegal support for the rebels and reign in the security state etc.
4. Give the Russians, Syrians, Hezbollah, Iran and Iraq all the support they need.
5. Including stepping up our support for the Iraqi Army, the coalition taking Mosul will be harder than the SAA taking Raqqa.
6. Enforce the UN resolutions on Israel and establish a Palestinian state.
7. Toughen our border controls and immigration rules.
8. Stop wasting money on useless weapons like Trident and pointless mass data collection, focus on intelligence led policing.
Agree with most of that but while Iraq is majority Shia Syria is majority Sunni and they will not accept Shiite Assad being ruler beyond the Alawite areas. Thus the FSA and some other rebel groups will need to defeat ISIS in Sunni Syria and then replace them in that area leaving Assad to govern Damascus and the coast
Unfortunately our government will never support having the terrorist funding states censored, as we have seen they will do anything to keep friendly relations with them. We will not see Saudi troops alongside ours in Syria for sure.
''Let others do the bombing? Allow our allies to shoulder all the burden? So we can avoid spending blood and treasure? This position at least has a logic, although it is also spineless, selfish and cowardly.''
This, I sense, is the growing frustration with Osborne. Many tories feel that we should be in a position now to throw the full might of police and armed forces behind a defeat of ISIS.
Instead we are cutting back on both because Osborne does not have the guts to slash the welfare state and tell the howling liberal elite to go f8ck itself.
The welfare state is being slashed. Except in one area. We all know what that is and why the Tories will not slash it.
Pathetic and bigoted comment. Pensions are paid out of contributions as they come in. They do not affect the deficit. The pension age is going up...by 7 years for women. This govt has tackled pension issues that labour ran away from. We spend a massive amount of money on our armed forces.
Entirely coincidentally, public spending on state pensions and other benefits for pensioners has been almost totally unaffected by the cuts imposed on other areas of the welfare budget. Whoever would have thought it
Pensions are not a benefit. They are strangely enough ... A pension. Keep your fingers crossed... You will be old one day. Being old is not a lifestyle choice. You pay NI and taxes all your life for the privilege of becoming old and increasingly infirm and reliant on a fixed income. And on other people to look after you . Of course if you have been say a housewife all your life (as my own mother was) and therefor limited opportunity to save on your own bat, you are even more beholden. There may be many other reasons relating to illness and circumstances that put old people in to penury. It's possible of course that you are too dim to think of them but I had better not go further on pain of being banned. Take care of yourself, it will all come your way one day. However you will have to wait until 68 thanks to this govt.
You cannot win a war with air strikes. History teaches us this.. you need boots on the ground .
Kosovo in the 90s?
The Air Strike in Kosovo campaign was a disastrous and total failure. Serbian material and troop losses were insignificant, ethnic cleansing speeded up whilst the air campaign took palce and the level of civilian casualties were totally unacceptable given the failure to deliver results.
It took boots on the ground to sort out Kosovo - the Serbians buggered off sharpish as soon as the first infatryman stepped into Kosovo.
I’ve just seen this posted on a Facebook site. Anyone know a) if it’s true and b) where did ISIS get it’s tankers from. "The United States is now taking out your oil tankers without regard for collateral damage; there goes your only revenue."
I'd agree it was core to their ideology (drawing on historical traditions in Germany and Eastern Europe of pogroms) but not a root.
Nazism - or something similar - would have existed without anti-semitism.
I'm not sure we are arguing about different things. I'd say that anti-Semitism was so core to Nazi ideology that it couldn't have existed without it. Had the Nazis not come to power (had Hitler rotted out his life in prison after 1923, for example rather than being given an easy ride), it's quite possible that a militantly nationalist, aggressive, expansionist autocrat might still have seized power after the economic collapse of 1929-33 but if so, it's likely that it would either have been a much more traditional authoritarian upper-class ruler, or a fascist in the style of Mussolini. Nazism cannot exist without its racial component and in the context of the time, that could only have focussed on the Jews (today it would focus on muslims, though not quite so neatly as there's not the same sharp duality of race and religion).
Two points: I think it wrong to say that there would not be a focus on the Jews today. Given the rise in anti-Semitism in recent years I think they are still the scapegoats of choice for too many, not least for Muslims who themselves may also be on the receiving end of hatred. But all too often Muslims - some of them anyway - have been the perpetrators of anti-semitism and we have reimported or given rocket boosters to the virus of anti-semitism with the growth of Muslim populations within Europe.
Algerian Muslims' anti-Semitism is linked to the respective histories of the Muslims and Jews in Algeria and how France treated them when it was the colonial power.
I completely agree that the blind paranoid hysterical anti-Semitism among some in the Middle East (and elsewhere) and lesser but still prevalent forms in larger parts of the muslim community are a good parallel with the Nazis and German population in the 1920s/30s, though of course incomplete.
However, you only have to look to the far right today for where the focus would be. It is not the Jews who are seen as different, threatening, poor in some ways but powerful in others, involved in international conspiratorial action, with their own language and dress code - and so on. Were Hitler alive today, he'd be screaming about Muslims first and foremost.
If that were the case, however, Hitler would be at least partly correct. Islam/ism IS a threat to the West, in a way that Jews, of course, never were.
Indeed. The most dangerous lies are those based on truth.
To all those pb-ers who oppose bombing Syria, and destroying the Caliphate, one has to ask: what exactly do you suggest that we do, as an alternative?
Let others do the bombing? Allow our allies to shoulder all the burden? So we can avoid spending blood and treasure? This position at least has a logic, although it is also spineless, selfish and cowardly.
But if your position is We will only make it worse, then there is no logic at all. ISIS is a growing and existential threat to our way of life. It has established a quasi-state which controls way more resources and generates way more money than any terror group before it, and which, every day it continues to exist, inspires more jihadis to take up arms around the world, who will then try to shoot us in our streets.
It can't get any "worse".
Obsessing about Raqqa while pandering to Islamic bigotry from Rotherham to Riyadh isn't going to work.
We have to tackle BOTH.
But we are not.
We are focusing on Raqqa as an alternative to Riyadh or Rotherham.
When in reality the priority should be : -
1. Rotherham 2. Riyadh 3. Raqqa
We are focusing on the least important aspect and one that would be best dealt with by stopping all refugees leaving Syria, dropping in piles of small arms and letting cards fall once the necessary casualties are recorded.
Quite, Mr. Dair, it is what in other circumstances would be called displacement activity. Much easier to bomb Raqqa than tackle the problems in our own country.
''Let others do the bombing? Allow our allies to shoulder all the burden? So we can avoid spending blood and treasure? This position at least has a logic, although it is also spineless, selfish and cowardly.''
This, I sense, is the growing frustration with Osborne. Many tories feel that we should be in a position now to throw the full might of police and armed forces behind a defeat of ISIS.
Instead we are cutting back on both because Osborne does not have the guts to slash the welfare state and tell the howling liberal elite to go f8ck itself.
The welfare state is being slashed. Except in one area. We all know what that is and why the Tories will not slash it.
Pathetic and bigoted comment. Pensions are paid out of contributions as they come in. They do not affect the deficit. The pension age is going up...by 7 years for women. This govt has tackled pension issues that labour ran away from. We spend a massive amount of money on our armed forces.
Yes, they are paid out of contributions from non-pensioners and go to pensioners. Just like how unemployment benefit goes from working people to non-working people.
I’ve just seen this posted on a Facebook site. Anyone know a) if it’s true and b) where did ISIS get it’s tankers from. "The United States is now taking out your oil tankers without regard for collateral damage; there goes your only revenue."
Presumably they stole then when they occupied the territory.
I'm not sure we are arguing about different things. I'd say that anti-Semitism was so core to Nazi ideology that it couldn't have existed without it. Had the Nazis not come to power (had Hitler rotted out his life in prison after 1923, for example rather than being given an easy ride), it's quite possible that a militantly nationalist, aggressive, expansionist autocrat might still have seized power ..snip.
Two points: I think it wrong to say that there would not be a focus on the Jews today. Given the rise in anti-Semitism in recent years I think they are still the scapegoats of choice for too many, not least for Muslims who themselves may also be on the receiving end of hatred. But all too often Muslims - some of them anyway - have been the perpetrators of anti-semitism and we have reimported or given rocket boosters to the virus of anti-semitism with the growth of Muslim populations within Europe.
Algerian Muslims' anti-Semitism is linked to the respective histories of the Muslims and Jews in Algeria and how France treated them when it was the colonial power.
I completely agree that the blind paranoid hysterical anti-Semitism among some in the Middle East (and elsewhere) and lesser but still prevalent forms in larger parts of the muslim community are a good parallel with the Nazis and German population in the 1920s/30s, though of course incomplete.
However, you only have to look to the far right today for where the focus would be. It is not the Jews who are seen as different, threatening, poor in some ways but powerful in others, involved in international conspiratorial action, with their own language and dress code - and so on. Were Hitler alive today, he'd be screaming about Muslims first and foremost.
Yes... But what drove Hitler was his, well his mad, but also irrational analysis of history. He twisted the facts to suit his warped world view. Jews were an easy wider target because they could be used as a reason for national defeat and individual inadequacies and failures. Modern Germany is successful. Individual saddo Germans may want to use Muslims as an excuse but in a wider context there is clearly no need to excuse a nonexistent political and or economic failure by Germany. Unlike the fuzzy nature of the 1918 armistice, Germany was clearly and irrevocably defeated by its own fault in 1945 and suffered the painful consequence. As such there is no sense of hitler-like betrayal to play on.
Who says the Nazis of tomorrow will be German? If there's any country that's *not* going produce new Nazis it's Germany.
You cannot win a war with air strikes. History teaches us this.. you need boots on the ground .
The US won with two rather large air strikes in '45
Dresden
Dresden was not the end of the war.. and I don't think the we are going to drop atomic bombs on ISIS. Boots on the ground after degradation will be the only way.
Dresden was totally pointless and had no military purpose, just fanatics of carpet bombing trying to promote their failed strategy.
I see the Nats are rewriting history now
Stick to comics, you are obviously not up to intelligent debate.
Are you this obnoxious in "real life" or is this an Internet persona?
I once read about inadequate young men, wearing tanktops in bed sits, alternating between youporn and message boards.
You are as stupid as your posts then , I am a mature gentleman in a nice detached house , and not at all like your personal description of yourself. Hard to believe you can actually read.
A detached house? Wow I apologise, I didn't realise I was in the presence of such genius.
No doubt the spare bedrooms are stuffed full of refugees
MalcG is actually the Merry Automatic Language Caricature Generator, an ELIZA programmed by drunken first-year students at the University of the West of Scotland.
Mr g is emerging as a typically blinkered lefty peacenik socialist of the type who like to refer to our armed forces pejoratively as 'paid mercinaries'. Very sick, but illuminating all the same.
Poor Nicola is showing the first ladder in her tights if she thinks she can get away with annoying the peacnicks.
You absolutely thick turnip, I am no more socialist than you are intelligent. Just so you understand , if they want to join the army then get on with it , don't come back whinging when the big boys have thumped them yet again and expect Cameron and his millionaire chums to give a toss about the cannon fodder.
A beautiful sentiment . You are exactly what I say you are. And nasty with it. A brilliant advert for 'the crazy gang'.
PS ... And as remarked up thread, the Nats certainly know nothing of history and Dresden.
This is who we ally ourselves with. A nnation that executes people for apostasy. Disgusting.
Disgusting indeed.
If we are honest Saudi is actually adding to the problem of radical Islam too.
Saudi Arabian Wahhabism is indeed the cradle of Al Qaeda and ISIL. However, the U.S. especially, and the West in general .has got into bed with the Saudis and are reluctant to part with this horrendous oil producing but client state.
Buying oil is one thing. Allowing Saudis to use their oil money to buy influence in educational establishments outside their country is quite another. We can do something about stopping the latter - and we should.
@SeanT - I agree that if 600 million cannot defeat 2 million then we are fucked. But those numbers alone demonstrate why this is not Autumn 1938. Self-loathing lefties have been a major issue and problem up to now. What we don't need in addition are apocalyptic, defeatist righties. We will win.
I'm far from defeatist, I'm manic depressive. And, also, sometimes, just occasionally, quite prescient.
I've also proposed a sensible way of vanquishing Islamism in the West: we slowly make life intolerable for hardcore, extreme Islam - close Wahhabist mosques, ban burqas, prohibit sharia, shutter madrassas, expel hate preachers, ferociously prosecute FGM/forced marriage/cousin marriage/terror apologetics, and so forth.
In the end the nastier and more dangerous Muslims will simply leave, as they will be unable to practise their faith as they would like.
Indeed I predict that in the end something like this must, eventually, happen across Europe. There is no alternative - unless we are ready to surrender our freedoms and lifestyles as we know them.
Yep - I agree with all of that. The way to victory is entirely within our control. This is not Autumn 1938. We are not dependent on others, on enemy mistakes or even on the weather (see D Day). We hold all the keys to victory. It is a question of resolve - to take meaningful military action, to crackdown on militancy at home, to carry on as normal as far as is possible - nothing more.
I’ve just seen this posted on a Facebook site. Anyone know a) if it’s true and b) where did ISIS get it’s tankers from. "The United States is now taking out your oil tankers without regard for collateral damage; there goes your only revenue."
It's not quite true: the US is trying to minimise collateral damage - an hour before bombing and strafing the heck out of a tanker park they dropped leaflets to tell the drivers to stay away.
Comments
TIA.
Needless to say the UK's huge tourism deficit continues (and has significantly increased in 2015):
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_424367.pdf
Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.
And you didn't like to be reminded of how gung ho you were for attacking Assad two years ago.
Tell us is there any group in Syria you don't want to attack ?
https://twitter.com/simon_schama/status/667073128443592704
I do not consider "the settling of scores" especially against innocent civilians as "well deserved."
Horrendous outrages against the Jews does not justify the victors acting in a similar fashion and is to be totally condemned.
'It doesn't presume any of this, in fact it presumes ISIS inspired individuals turning up in the UK are more of a potential problem not less because of the practicality behind the philosophy. ISIS fundamentally have a winners mentality, a power mentality.'
In that you have just one of the pillars in taking IS to the cleaners. Destroying the perception that they have power in the conventional sense, i.e. government, territory.These are signs of the IS being winners.
That means breaking up their territory and ability to control it, it means ensuring that their leaders have nowhere to hide.
Algerian Muslims' anti-Semitism is linked to the respective histories of the Muslims and Jews in Algeria and how France treated them when it was the colonial power.
Corbyn is growing on me as a politician. Clearly, he ain't ever going to be PM, as he is shifting Labour to the far left, which isn't a place that I'd think most of the population want to be, but I genuinely respect the fact that he is sticking to his ideals, and is trying to bring voters around to his way of thinking, rather than say what he thinks the public wants.
He has a lot of views that I find very unappealing, but fair play to him for having a go.
Labour need to do something sharpish, mind, as the country needs a credible, coherent opposition, and the current Labour party ain't that.
Being as old as you purportedly are, you must well remember the hatred that the conquered nations had for any german. Revenge was in the very air, and if the Russian soldiers had had their way they would have wiped out half of the remaining German population. Especially after uncovering and discovering the many concentration camps dotted around Eastern Europe.
Top insurgent groups associated with non Syrian fighters known to have been killed in Syria
.Islamic State at 35% tops the list.
If you take a fairly logical view that the proportion of killed reflects the overall make up of their forces then IS has more foreign fighters per head than any other group. One of what attracts them is is their sense that they are going to an actual state where they have control and can do what they want.
This, I sense, is the growing frustration with Osborne. Many tories feel that we should be in a position now to throw the full might of police and armed forces behind a defeat of ISIS.
Instead we are cutting back on both because Osborne does not have the guts to slash the welfare state and tell the howling liberal elite to go f8ck itself.
Poor Nicola is showing the first ladder in her tights if she thinks she can get away with annoying the peacnicks.
However, you only have to look to the far right today for where the focus would be. It is not the Jews who are seen as different, threatening, poor in some ways but powerful in others, involved in international conspiratorial action, with their own language and dress code - and so on. Were Hitler alive today, he'd be screaming about Muslims first and foremost.
Or for buying votes of pensioners.
The scary thing for me is how many muslims in the West actually agree with the death penalty for apostasy.
The lefts response? Silence.
That, though, is very easy for me to say. I won't be the one wearing the boots on the ground, although I have nephews currently in the forces who would expect to be in the vanguard of any invasion of the lands that IS hold, and know a lot of current forces personnel.
I'm not sure that we as a nation, and our allies as a whole currently have the necessary ruthlessness to do the job to completion.
Crucially, also, we don't really have a plan for the aftermath, which could arguably be one of the reasons that the afflicted region of the Middle East is in the state it is in now.
Just like you did two years when you wanted to attack Assad.
The handwringers, as you say, don't want to get involved because of any potential consequences. It is a moral cowardice as much as anything in that they believe that if we don't do anything (or if they oppose it) then they can't be held accountable for what happens. They are wrong. All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing, and all that.
The other, to which I subscribe to some extent, is that of the realists. Ideally, we shouldn't get involved until there is an agreed vision for what we want to achieve in Syria and Iraq and a strategy agreed with sufficient resources deployed to put that into place. Bombing ISIL now has little more merit than bombing Assad for the chemical attacks two years ago: it is not our job to act as some international referee dishing out punishments for foul play. It is better now that at least all are on side in declaring ISIL an enemy but even if the military action is successful in dealing with that threat, then what?
I am deeply uneasy about Britain going bombing unless we know what we hope to create by clearing ISIL out. If other states are going ahead then probably we need to do so too as it's the only way to keep some influence in the process and ducking out after such provocation would be contemptible. All the same, if that is where events force us, we should still be ensuring that the action is politics by other means, as war should always be: a means to an end. At the moment, no-one seems to have adequately defined the 'end', as degrading ISIL is insufficient of itself.
That is where our focus should be, we can leave bombing ISIS to Russia, France, the USA etc.
What would be self-defeating would be for the UK government to claim it had beaten Islamic bigotry after a few token RAF airstrikes whilst continuing to tolerate it at home.
But you can deny them a safe home base.
We have to tackle head on the ideology that underpins this.
I honestly believe we will need to see many more thousands dead before we get the will politically to get to that stage.
Unlike the fuzzy nature of the 1918 armistice, Germany was clearly and irrevocably defeated by its own fault in 1945 and suffered the painful consequence. As such there is no sense of hitler-like betrayal to play on.
Within days (or was it hours, I forget?), he was waffling around this issue saying he had been 'misrepresented' or some other weasel rubbish and that, of course, there may be situations etc etc. Now he is speaking and the BBC is reporting that he is saying "Labour would support "every necessary measure" to protect people in the UK."
Too late mate. If you were PM the order to shoot a terrorist in the middle of an incident would not have been given should it have come up the chain of command.
Saying we wish to destroy ISIS is not a good enough. What is destruction in this context? How will bombing bring it about? If Cameron actually has a plan then let us hear it. If he wants to contribute a token effort (such as our six old Tornados that have already been bombing ISIS in Iraq for months) so that he can strut about on the world stage then let us tell him to feck off and come back when he has thought it through.
Human society changed in the 20th century. Portillo is fond of pointing out the number of democracies immediately before WWI was seven. Even those that were democracies had very limited franchises: wasn't the UK franchise in about 1800 about 8% of the population? Atheism was completely unheard of in, say, 1700. For most of human existence, people have been organised into geographical groups of the same ethnicity, worshipping a single god, pledging obedience to a single absolute ruler, going to war when he says so, and dying on average under 50. Now we have liberal democracies, rule of law, separation of church and state, freedom of religion, vaccination, and people dying on average over 80. Things have changed.
When you observe that the worst human societies were atheist and conclude "theist state is necessary for non-murderous state", you're overlooking the fact that the rise of scientific, Fordian warfare and the increased population size are confounding factors.
2. Have the UNSC declare Saudia Arabia a state sponsor of terrorism. Pressure Qatar and Turkey.
3. End the illegal support for the rebels and reign in the security state etc.
4. Give the Russians, Syrians, Hezbollah, Iran and Iraq all the support they need.
5. Including stepping up our support for the Iraqi Army, the coalition taking Mosul will be harder than the SAA taking Raqqa.
6. Enforce the UN resolutions on Israel and establish a Palestinian state.
7. Toughen our border controls and immigration rules.
8. Stop wasting money on useless weapons like Trident and pointless mass data collection, focus on intelligence led policing.
As ISIS are such an extreme sect, I suspect the motto "the only good ISIS terrorist is a dead one" will apply for at least a decade or longer. Until people realise joining ISIS is a one way ticket to a quick death and achieves nothing.
(Cannot see a Corbyn lead Labour Party signing up to that)
These are hard, difficult times and we have done ourselves few favours up to now, but we will win becsuse we are stronger and we are better. ISIS is nowhere near the threat the Nazis (or the Soviets) were. Our kids will not cower for their lives - as our parents and grandparents did for night after night and year after year - while bombs rain down on them. Let's not give a rag-tag of sexually frustrated, drug-taking psycopaths the power to terrorise us they do desperately crave.
I am off to lockdown Brussels in a werk or so's time to do some business. Can't say I'm looking forward to it, but I'm going. You'll keep on visiting all parts of the world. Part of our inevitable victory will be down to the fact we just keep calm and carry on.
The pension age is going up...by 7 years for women. This govt has tackled pension issues that labour ran away from.
We spend a massive amount of money on our armed forces.
Remind me how well Iraqi dissidents fared when they gained power after Hussein was killed?
You have to remember a Muslim country usually has zero separation between Church and State, so democracy as we know it is not an option. And when there is separation as in Turkey, there is always pressure to reverse that preparation.
In other respects your view of Corbyn is amateurish to say the least. His aim it to take over the labour party on behalf of what is effectively the Stop The War Coalition.
Having said that, it is very easy to show that this was a successful post war strategy by the Allies.
'There must be reformist elements within Saudi Arabia. We need to start investing in the foreign office again.'
There and the ones that have stayed in Saudi Arabia are in prison.
This is a country where it is illegal to practice any other religion,Bibles,necklaces with crosses are confiscated by customs etc.
As a stewardess is alleged to have said 'Welcome to King Khalid international airport, for the local time please wind your watches back 1,000 years.'
We are focusing on Raqqa as an alternative to Riyadh or Rotherham.
When in reality the priority should be : -
1. Rotherham
2. Riyadh
3. Raqqa
We are focusing on the least important aspect and one that would be best dealt with by stopping all refugees leaving Syria, dropping in piles of small arms and letting cards fall once the necessary casualties are recorded.
Just so you understand , if they want to join the army then get on with it , don't come back whinging when the big boys have thumped them yet again and expect Cameron and his millionaire chums to give a toss about the cannon fodder.
We will not see Saudi troops alongside ours in Syria for sure.
Ken's been allowed out again - LBC this time...
http://www.lbc.co.uk/ken-in-raging-row-with-labour-colleague-john-mann-120160
Keep your fingers crossed... You will be old one day. Being old is not a lifestyle choice. You pay NI and taxes all your life for the privilege of becoming old and increasingly infirm and reliant on a fixed income. And on other people to look after you . Of course if you have been say a housewife all your life (as my own mother was) and therefor limited opportunity to save on your own bat, you are even more beholden. There may be many other reasons relating to illness and circumstances that put old people in to penury. It's possible of course that you are too dim to think of them but I had better not go further on pain of being banned.
Take care of yourself, it will all come your way one day. However you will have to wait until 68 thanks to this govt.
It took boots on the ground to sort out Kosovo - the Serbians buggered off sharpish as soon as the first infatryman stepped into Kosovo.
"The United States is now taking out your oil tankers without regard for collateral damage; there goes your only revenue."
PS ... And as remarked up thread, the Nats certainly know nothing of history and Dresden.
Nick Cohen @NickCohen4
Christ Livingstone is sleazy.
https://www.politicshome.com/party-politics/articles/story/john-mann-calls-ken-livingstone-appalling-bigot …