| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| nightowl |
Posted - 14/11/2007 : 00:26:28
Now this story makes me very angry,I remember when the Falklands memorial service took place many badly injured veterans were excluded from taking part.
Plenty of room for politicians and the great and powerful who were never there, this country is real shite at times....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/military/story/0,,2209307,00.html |
| 30 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Miriam Binder |
Posted - 22/06/2008 : 19:06:41
Okay DaveB ... I'll set up a thread. See you there Anubis? |
| Anubis |
Posted - 22/06/2008 : 19:00:00
quote:
Originally posted by Miriam Binder
quote:
Originally posted by Anubis
An appropriate and very relevant contribution, BLONDIE.
The irony of it all is that the Saddam regime set up a secular state; the very opposite of the fundamentalist aspirations of today's contenders -- which is why when George Bush senior invaded Iraq the first time, bin Laden offered his full support to the American president !!! (In the same spirit, as those of you familiar with Michael Moore's fim will be very aware, immediately following 9/11, George W Bush saw to it that special flights allowed the bin Laden family to get out of the USA fast).
That is certainly the irony ... though Saddam was not perfect and did indeed have his faults and not all the various groups were actually enjoying similar benefits from the majority (witness the Kurds) he was certainly on the right path to secularisation.
Here, Miriam, here! The discussion is about contrasting a 'secular' approach with a 'religious fundamental' approach, to which you, in response, introduce the 'Kurds'. |
| Daveb |
Posted - 22/06/2008 : 18:56:06
Rememberance Day is to remember all of the fallen.
I can see how this thread drifted in this direction but
the politics behind the wars/conflicts should be discussed elsewhere. |
| Miriam Binder |
Posted - 22/06/2008 : 18:50:32
quote:
Originally posted by Daveb
PS. Please discuss the Middle East on the appropriate thread.
I can see why you would say this Daveb ... However surely a way to remember those who paid for our freedoms with their lives is to try and understand why it deemed was necessary? |
| Miriam Binder |
Posted - 22/06/2008 : 18:20:01
Where did I mention religious beliefs Anubis? I agreed that Saddam had largely secularised the country ... I remember a post I made quite a while back - possibly still on the old Argus Forums - where I spoke about the numerous steps Saddam had made with introducing secularisation into Iraq, the public education programmes as well as the health programmes that he introduced. The reason I mentioned the Kurds was as they are an example of one tribal group that did not fare well under Saddam. He was not perfect nor wholly equitable and he certainly was not a soft man. I personally hold now, as I did then, that if Saddam was to be removed from office then this should be done by the Iraqi themselves and not by a foreign invasion force.
Anything else you wish to misunderstand Anubis? |
| Daveb |
Posted - 22/06/2008 : 18:17:42
Sarcasm? Light highted banter surely!
Then again not being a psychology teacher how can I tell the difference?
As for personal attacks, these were simple comments.
I have noticed in my journey through life that sometimes when you hit a truthful nerve the response you get from peolpe can be defensive.
PS. Please discuss the Middle East on the appropriate thread. |
| Anubis |
Posted - 22/06/2008 : 17:37:11
quote:
Originally posted by Miriam Binder
quote:
Originally posted by Anubis
An appropriate and very relevant contribution, BLONDIE.
The irony of it all is that the Saddam regime set up a secular state; the very opposite of the fundamentalist aspirations of today's contenders -- which is why when George Bush senior invaded Iraq the first time, bin Laden offered his full support to the American president !!! (In the same spirit, as those of you familiar with Michael Moore's fim will be very aware, immediately following 9/11, George W Bush saw to it that special flights allowed the bin Laden family to get out of the USA fast).
That is certainly the irony ... though Saddam was not perfect and did indeed have his faults and not all the various groups were actually enjoying similar benefits from the majority (witness the Kurds) he was certainly on the right path to secularisation.
"(witness the Kurds)" .... yes, indeed -- a people betrayed by every nation embroiled in the middle east, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Israel, UK and especially the USA. As one of the few cultures preserving the Zoroasteran tradition (as I wrote about some time ago vis-a-vis 'Christian origins') I'm interested and supportive of them as a people, but to be fair to the late Saddam, I have never heard his policies against them as having anything to do with their religious beliefs, Miriam. Unless, of course, you know better !?
|
| Miriam Binder |
Posted - 22/06/2008 : 15:57:38
quote:
Originally posted by Anubis
An appropriate and very relevant contribution, BLONDIE.
The irony of it all is that the Saddam regime set up a secular state; the very opposite of the fundamentalist aspirations of today's contenders -- which is why when George Bush senior invaded Iraq the first time, bin Laden offered his full support to the American president !!! (In the same spirit, as those of you familiar with Michael Moore's fim will be very aware, immediately following 9/11, George W Bush saw to it that special flights allowed the bin Laden family to get out of the USA fast).
That is certainly the irony ... though Saddam was not perfect and did indeed have his faults and not all the various groups were actually enjoying similar benefits from the majority (witness the Kurds) he was certainly on the right path to secularisation. |
| Anubis |
Posted - 22/06/2008 : 15:34:52
quote:
Originally posted by BLONDIE
Just thought I would throw this one into the melting pot. Food for thought.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2171300/Young-Muslims-'are-turning-to-extremism'.html?DCMP=EMC-new_22062008
An appropriate and very relevant contribution, BLONDIE.
The irony of it all is that the Saddam regime set up a secular state; the very opposite of the fundamentalist aspirations of today's contenders -- which is why when George Bush senior invaded Iraq the first time, bin Laden offered his full support to the American president !!! (In the same spirit, as those of you familiar with Michael Moore's fim will be very aware, immediately following 9/11, George W Bush saw to it that special flights allowed the bin Laden family to get out of the USA fast). |
| Miriam Binder |
Posted - 22/06/2008 : 15:19:08
Certainly food for thought and I could have fed it to them without the need for a lengthy report ... |
| BLONDIE |
Posted - 22/06/2008 : 15:18:27
DUPLICATED POST DELETED. |
| BLONDIE |
Posted - 22/06/2008 : 15:16:44
Just thought I would throw this one into the melting pot. Food for thought.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2171300/Young-Muslims-'are-turning-to-extremism'.html?DCMP=EMC-new_22062008 |
| Miriam Binder |
Posted - 22/06/2008 : 15:15:32
Sorry, my mistake ... I stupidly assumed then when you stated that the statement remains true that that is what you meant.
And no, I cannot at this moment recall anything like 7/7 actually happening here in England ... well certainly not orchestrated by Islamic Fundamentalists. Having said that, there were plenty of other instances. Less 'groundbreaking' perhaps but leading to the marginalisation and the radicalisation of disaffected Muslims. I suppose it all depends on whether you really want to understand how radicalisation works. I have no doubt that the climate in the West especially since 9/11 but even prior to that has done more to aid the recruiters for Fundamentalism - in its various guises, including the far right, Neo-Nationalism (I think to call it Neo-Socialist Nationalism is going a bit too far really) as well as Christian and Islamic Fundamentalism. I also hold that one of the primary tools employed by Fundamentalists again regardless of creed, is violence; be it by the manipulation of expectation, the seduction of wish-fulfilment or the attempted enforcement by terror.
As for what is meant by 'Active' Middle Eastern aggressive presence ... well funnily enough that is exactly what I meant ... the aggressive presence that is currently active in the Middle East and has been since shortly after 9/11. |
| Anubis |
Posted - 22/06/2008 : 14:50:06
quote:
Originally posted by Miriam Binder
Pardon my pedantry Anubis but I think that you are claiming for 'truth' something that is a matter of opinion. I hold that we cannot say whether or not terrorist threats would have been any more or less had we not entered the Middle East aggressions so actively. We can at best make an educated guess at it and form an opinion. Further I feel it is the very linking of the admittedly highly exaggerated threat of terrorism with the active Middle Eastern aggressive presence that is lending weight to the argument that the government uses to increasingly curtail civil liberties and justifies the increasing surveillance that we are living under.
Hence my signature BTW.
(1) Of course it's a matter of opinion .... (How many times have I posted on many sites my view that all facts are no more than theories?). I do not know of any Muslim (so-called) terorist plot/attacks against us here in the UK prior to the invasion of Iraq. If I've missed something, enlighton me please ...
(2) Sorry, I don't understand what you mean by "the active Middle Eastern aggressive presence". I realize the UK has been bombing and gassing Iraqi's since the 1920s and that mostly the victims of these acts have been unable to retaliate in any meaningful way, but understandably, on a 'non-state' level, commoners are beginning to retaliate. You probably don't mean this, though, so I wonder what you do mean!? |
| Miriam Binder |
Posted - 22/06/2008 : 14:38:50
I hope you don't mind my sharing some of my thoughts with you Anubis ... but here goes whether you do or not. I think that interesting as your posts are mostly you do tend to present them in a sort of lecturing style as if you are talking at, rather then with the other posters. I'm used to it ... I lived with a pontificating, hectoring and censorious mother and having been brought up with her and survived it, it doesn't bother me. But I can see where it might put peoples' backs up. |
| Miriam Binder |
Posted - 22/06/2008 : 11:29:41
Pardon my pedantry Anubis but I think that you are claiming for 'truth' something that is a matter of opinion. I hold that we cannot say whether or not terrorist threats would have been any more or less had we not entered the Middle East aggressions so actively. We can at best make an educated guess at it and form an opinion. Further I feel it is the very linking of the admittedly highly exaggerated threat of terrorism with the active Middle Eastern aggressive presence that is lending weight to the argument that the government uses to increasingly curtail civil liberties and justifies the increasing surveillance that we are living under.
Hence my signature BTW. |
| Anubis |
Posted - 22/06/2008 : 11:16:02
quote:
Originally posted by Miriam Binder
Call me dim if you like Anubis but I really cannot see how Daveb's post as quoted by you above could be viewed as a personal attack.
I wrote in the plural, Miriam: it is a pity when postings become slanging matches. As well as being an 'ignoramus' ... which may indeed be the case, but is hardly an argument .... more recent notes are largely sarcasm for the sake of sarcasm:
Regarding your later posting. Of course you are correct. The terrorist threat (so-called) is greatly exaggerated by the government; this is the justification required to convince the general public it is necessary (if unfortunate, sob, sob) having to make this a super-surveillance society. This tactic was used by both sides during the cold war to justify the extensive wastage of money on the production of armaments -- the permanent war economy, the most profitable industry ever invented by capitalist and state-capitalist societies.
Having said that, what I said was that, thanks to our recent intensified Middle East aggressions, we now live in a society more liable to be attacked by terrorists than ever before .... and that statement remains true. |
| Miriam Binder |
Posted - 22/06/2008 : 10:39:54
Having said that, I agree that the invasion of Iraq was senseless and had very little to do with safeguarding our national security. I do not agree that had we not invaded that the terrorist threat - which is highly exaggerated in my opinion - would have been any less or different. Scumbags are actually those individuals who cannot see the difference between the tool and the operator ... it wasn't the soldiers that elected to go to Iraq! |
| Miriam Binder |
Posted - 22/06/2008 : 10:35:08
Call me dim if you like Anubis but I really cannot see how Daveb's post as quoted by you above could be viewed as a personal attack. |
| Anubis |
Posted - 22/06/2008 : 10:29:40
quote:
Originally posted by Daveb
For further clarity on the ungrateful some of the initial comments on this link would be in that category:-
http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/generalnews/display.var.2355932.0.family_pay_tribute_to_soldier_killed_in_afghanistan.php
Others may include;-
Those that pontificate about freedom and have their freedom of speech protected when they owe it to the fallen but attack the armed forces. (From further comments on the argus site I am not the only one with this view)
Those that attack the people who serve or have served in the armed forces because they think that they are above such people and unaffected by the rest of the worlds events.
If anyone feels that the above includes themselves then, yes that is who I would call the ungrateful.
Others would include some of the Falkland Islanders who encouraged their kids to throw stones at service personnel once the Argentines had gone.
It is always the case how liberating forces can turn into the invaders.
Cannot understand why these postings are always a personal attack on Anubis.
(1) Anubis was a member of the armed services and was a volunteer, not a conscript. Anubis has never 'attacked' members of the forces of any country -- if he had, the 'attack' would obviously be applicable to himself.
(2) I don't know what is meant by 'pontificating' about freedom of speech, but I am very concerned at the withering away of individual freedom in this country. The secret surveillance of citizens in this country is now greater than existed in either Hitler's Germany or the DDR's stasi ... and now, against the wishes of senior judiciary, suspects can be held without charge for longer than anywhere else, including the USA.
(3) Our freedoms 'safeguarded' by our military actions? Following the illegal attack on Iraq, a country that offered no threat to this country, and had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack on the USA and had no WMD (even George W Bush has admitted both these facts now), this country is understandably seen by the Arab world as an aggressor state. The actions of our armed forces (whose job it is is to obey orders, nothing more, nothing less) have made our country more liable to be attacked by terrorists than ever before. It certainly isn't made safer by Gordon Brown going to Saudi Arabia (the home of the 9/11 terrorists), selling them advanced weaponry and begging them to increase oil production.
(4) Sorry to be so thick. I still don't know whom posters have in mind when they refer to the 'scumbags' benefiting from the actions of our soldiers invading Iraq. Every single one of us now lives in a more dangerous country than ever it has been before and we are paying the economic penalties every time we visit a superstore or a petrol station.
(5) The fact that all these consequences of being Bush's 'lapdog' stare us in the face while the government's answer is to increase forces invading Afghanistan and so ensure we are hated still more in the Arab world, and yet there is no mass angry grass-roots opposition to these daily attacks on our living standards and freedoms indicates the extent to which apathy now grips our nation.
(6) What a farce this so-called 'democracy' is anyway. It's an open secret, Brown won his latest vote on detention by giving a billion, yes a billion, pounds to the Irish MPs in exchange for their votes for measures they opposed the week before! If readers really believe this is 'democracy', there is absolutely no point in discussing this further. As the Daily Telegraph reported the vote, "The bribes to the right were more numerous and higher than the bribes to the left" !! My definition of democracy is rather different -- you'll find it in the OED. |
| Daveb |
Posted - 21/06/2008 : 19:47:58
For further clarity on the ungrateful some of the initial comments on this link would be in that category:-
http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/generalnews/display.var.2355932.0.family_pay_tribute_to_soldier_killed_in_afghanistan.php
Others may include;-
Those that pontificate about freedom and have their freedom of speech protected when they owe it to the fallen but attack the armed forces. (From further comments on the argus site I am not the only one with this view)
Those that attack the people who serve or have served in the armed forces because they think that they are above such people and unaffected by the rest of the worlds events.
If anyone feels that the above includes themselves then, yes that is who I would call the ungrateful.
Others would include some of the Falkland Islanders who encouraged their kids to throw stones at service personnel once the Argentines had gone.
It is always the case how liberating forces can turn into the invaders.
|
| Miriam Binder |
Posted - 11/06/2008 : 20:32:05
Assuredly! |
| Daveb |
Posted - 11/06/2008 : 19:36:43
Just in case Anubis has any trouble working it out here are some clues:-
Scumbag
Scumbag
Scumbags
|
| thedelboy |
Posted - 10/06/2008 : 18:58:23
Green Fields of France
Well how do you do there young Willie Mc bride do you mind If I sit here down by your graveside. I see by your gravestone you were only 19 when you joined the great fall in 1916.I hope you died well and i hope you died clean or young willie mcbride was it slow and obscene?
|
| Daveb |
Posted - 10/06/2008 : 18:08:46
Anubis claims to be a clever chap. Let him work it out for himself. |
| thedelboy |
Posted - 10/06/2008 : 17:58:17
I SEE ,So you only read what you want and ignore what is in front of you Anubis? perhaps you should be a politician |
| Anubis |
Posted - 10/06/2008 : 17:47:43
quote:
Originally posted by thedelboy
I am not speaking for Daveb but my understanding of his post is those who would rather the "Taliban " and other insurgents get a free rein ! those who would rather roll over than accept something had to be done in Afghanistan and Iraq(Ok the war in Iraq was under false pretences,but it was on the cards to happen anyway with Saddam deliberately goading the Americans and the rest of the western world ) as a retired soldier I find it offensive that troops coming home can be jeered by the so called peace lobby(what is peacefull about jeering?) When you join the "Armed forces" you do not join to cause war you join to be a peace keeeper,to stop war no one wants to fight we want a safer environment ;yes sometimes it means using force. hopefully this will have answered your question
It doesn't even address my question -- let alone answer it ! |
| Miriam Binder |
Posted - 10/06/2008 : 15:04:56
The fact remains that as unpalatable it may be these forces are not the ones who made the decision to go to war. Taking it out on them by either jeering at them or treating them as pariah is not really addressing the issue of an unwanted or unwarranted war but 'kicking' the horse because the rider has a crop! |
| gcrkfrd |
Posted - 10/06/2008 : 14:46:00
In Flanders Fields the Poppies blow
Between the Crosses row on row |
| thedelboy |
Posted - 10/06/2008 : 13:27:35
I am not speaking for Daveb but my understanding of his post is those who would rather the "Taliban " and other insurgents get a free rein ! those who would rather roll over than accept something had to be done in Afghanistan and Iraq(Ok the war in Iraq was under false pretences,but it was on the cards to happen anyway with Saddam deliberately goading the Americans and the rest of the western world ) as a retired soldier I find it offensive that troops coming home can be jeered by the so called peace lobby(what is peacefull about jeering?) When you join the "Armed forces" you do not join to cause war you join to be a peace keeeper,to stop war no one wants to fight we want a safer environment ;yes sometimes it means using force. hopefully this will have answered your question |
