egafd.com

"David, typically trying to blame the west for ISIS atrocities......."

Wrong. They are guilty of their atrocities. We are all responsible for the results of our actions either directly or indirectly.

"and if we'd let Saddam alone he'd be banging on about how we are to blame for Saddam's atrocities"

Maybe yes. Maybe no, but totally irrelevant to my point.

"To say Saddam would stop ISIS without countering it against the tens of thousands of his own people he murdered himself make the point mute."

Wrong. ISIS did not exist when Saddam was ruler of Iraq. A totally meaningless statement. Like our Western leaders you enjoy playing God, Slater.

He thinks it's deep and cosmopolitan thinking."

Wrong. It is what I believe. You were in favour of the Iraq invasion. It has been a disaster. You were in favour of the Libyan bombing and destruction of their infrastructure. It has been a disaster. You were in favour of 14 years spent at war in Afghanistan. That looks as if it is a disaster waiting to happen when all the troops leave.

"I think it's taking away their responsibility and treating them like bad little puppies who chew the furniture and just don't know any better - it's dehumanising them as much as any racist would.?

ANd being responsible directly or indirectly for killing hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians - men, women, little boys and girls is not a "dehumanising act".


"For me, they are human beings - bad human beings."

Correct. Well spotted.

"But David balks at criticising their religion for fear of being thought of as an Islamophobe."

Once again you are totally confused. I suspect as a result of your upbringing which has left you in some kind of no man's land. You totally and absolutely fail to explain any of the points I have put to you many times e.g. if it is the religion that is evil and that you hate, why are the streets of the UK not awash with the blood of hundreds of thousands of Christians killed by the British Muslims who are undoubtedly true believers in their religion?

I see the last Akhund (or wali = ruler) of Swat died last week. Before he passed
away this venerable 84 year old had seen the Taliban take over his part of
the North-West Frontier. He was very sad. In the Akhund`s time he had
permitted schools for girls and ruled under a benevolent despotism. His view
of the Taliban was that it was impossible to reason with them. They know
only a rigid and brutal intolerance for non-believers and anyone opposing
their view of Wahhabi Islam.

It hardly matters whether we are talking of the Mahdi in the 1890s who spoke
of a worldwide jihad embracing making all Britons followers of the Faith -
or whether we speak of ISIS today, also hell bent on world jihad. The
Victorians realised that it is utterly impossible to reason, in any sense of the
word a Westerner might comprehend, with these people. There is absolutely
no alternative but to stop pussy-footing around and destroy them ! The West
needs to wake up if it wants to protect its so-called values and way of life. We
simply cannot go on thinking we can be nice with everybody. Moslem
fundamentalists spit at this ! The only answer is to face facts and defeat ISIS
militarily and with over-whelming force.

[quote]What should we do? Nothing. It isn't our problem.[/quote]

It's not our problem in your world because you're right-wing and all about looking after number one.

Given our economy and infrastructure is run on oil, it becomes our problem when a bunch of religious fanatics who want us all dead get their hands on the taps. It becomes our problem when hundreds of thousands of more refugees flee to Europe and need to be protected and cared for.

But mainly, it's our problem because we are a rich, advanced nation who can save some people from ethnic cleansing. Some of these Yazidis and other minority tribes have roots going back over 6000 years and they could be wiped out. Are you saying we should not interfere with ethnic cleansing?

Or let's ask another question: If the English were being ethnically cleansed by a European superstate, would you want an America, China or other nation who had the capability to help you?

You're doing what you accused me of and replying to someone else but I suspect that's deliberate.

To your points:

I'm not right-wing. I have voted Labour more often than any other party and have never voted Conservative.

You've changed my mind with your devastating logic. Yes we should definitely get involved because it worked out so well in Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq before.

And don't forget Islamic State are the same ones Cameron wanted to help topple President Assad in Syria. Now they are the enemy...

So, no we should not get involved. I don't see Germany getting involved and they are far richer than us even when Germans are fighting for Isis/Islamic State.

DJ wrote: '...I was trying to be ironic.'

On the internet? On BGAFD? In a thread about anything? Are you MAD?

"Are you saying we should not interfere with ethnic cleansing?"

This statement by Mr. Slater brilliantly sums up the viewpoint of childish simplistic thought, totally unable to grasp the concept of nuance and unintended consequences.

The Slater thought process is as follows:

1. Gaddafi is going to massacre people in Benghazi. The West must intervene and bomb the forces of Gaddafi and destroy the infrastructure.

2. Saddam Hussein has carried out attacks on minority groups in Iraq. The West must intervene and destroy Saddam.

And what has been the results of these actions? A year after the fall of Gaddafi the American ambassador in Benghazi, the town that the Allies intervened in Libya to defend, is killed by Islamic militants.

And as for ethnic cleansing in Libya?



The situation for the innocents in Libya now is far worse than it was under Gaddafi's reign in terms of chaos, fear, attacks and the struggles to live on a day to day basis.

And the same can be said without question in Iraq. A complete and utter disaster as the country has fallen into chaos after the Allied intervention.

And what is Slater's typical explanation? Oh, that is all down to that evil Islam religion The kind Allies kill a few hundred thousand in Iraq, give the country democracy and then they make a complete mess of it.

Unfuckingbelievable. The bottom line is that every case of potential intervention in ethnic cleansing has to be met by a considered review of the risks and consequences, intended or unintended of that intervention to avoid a situation in which the Allies make a bad situation far, far worse as they have done in Iraq, Libya and could well do in Afghanistan when they pull out.

[quote]You're doing what you accused me of and replying to someone else but I suspect that's deliberate.[/quote]

Uh? I replied to you. I quoted you directly. What are you on about, man?

[quote]I'm not right-wing. I have voted Labour more often than any other party and have never voted Conservative.[/quote]

Taking into account your views on most subjects over the few years you've been on here, you come across as more right-wing than left-wing. Lots of people vote Labour or Conservative dependent on class. Many working class people will vote Labour, for instance, despite having traditionalist, conservative views on many things.

[quote]You've changed my mind with your devastating logic.[/quote]

I'm glad, and thank you for being so receptive.

[quote]Yes we should definitely get involved because it worked out so well in Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq before.[/quote]

Ahhh.......the tiresome, unbalanced, clich?d response. For every conflict we've got involved in, which hasn't turned out as well as we thought, there is another conflict we stayed out of which turned to shit. Rwanda for instance.

Kurdistan now one of the most liberal regions in the Muslim world and the best place to be right now for art, literature or just a young girl looking for an education. It has a majority socialist/secular government and all because we crushed the regime that nearly wiped them out through ethnic cleansing.

Libya gave up tonnes and tonnes of chemical weapons as well as a nuclear programme when they saw what happened to Saddam Hussain. And Libya was already in a civil war when we got involved. What we do know is that when Gaddafi decided he was losing, his last resort was hiding in a tunnel instead of poisoning half the country with the hundreds of tonnes of chemical weapons he'd stockpiled. He gave them all us because of what he saw happening in Iraq.

Iraq was always going to come to this, but our intervention was at least an attempt at giving the country a chance. Saddam was 69 when he was put to death. If left alone he'd be 77 now. He might be dead already had we left him to his own devices and God knows what he would have done in that mean time - especially if he knew he was old and dying and had nothing to lose anymore. That is, unless one of Qusay or Uday Hussain didn't overthrow their weak old man first. Uday, was suspected supervisor of the Republican Guard and involved in the war crimes against the Shiite population after the 1st Gulf War and murdering political activists just like his father. Qusay was a complete nutjob. Torturing Iraqi athletes, beating his own military officials to death when they wouldn't let him dance with their wives and going round Baghdad intruding on weddings and raping the brides for a laugh..........yeah, Iraq would have carried on in complete normality with those two fighting over who should run the place. What could possibly go wrong?

[quote]And don't forget Islamic State are the same ones Cameron wanted to help topple President Assad in Syria. Now they are the enemy...[/quote]

I know. But Assad was killing his own people at a faster rate than the people who were being killed in Iraq during the 2nd Gulf War. People always talk about unintended consequences with smug looks on their faces, failing to see that there are unintended consequences for inaction too. The unintended consequences of playing rugby 3 times a week could be a broken neck. The unintended consequences of giving up rugby and sitting safely on the sofa for years could be obesity and dying of a heart attack. Again, back to Rwanda, where the unintended consequences of turning a blind eye to what was happening ended up being up to 1 million people being killed in a 3 month period. That's nearly 10,000 people a day. A DAY! It's not as simple as just saying "nothing to do with us" and "we'll make it worse". We didn't make it worse for the Kurds. We didn't make it worse for the Bosniaks or Kosovars. It couldn't have got any worse for the Rwandan Tutsis who had 70% of their population wiped out.

[quote]So, no we should not get involved. I don't see Germany getting involved and they are far richer than us even when Germans are fighting for Isis/Islamic State.[/quote]

The Germans are also in the Euro. You want to follow their lead there too?

"Ahhh.......the tiresome, unbalanced, clich?d response. For every conflict we've got involved in, which hasn't turned out as well as we thought, there is another conflict we stayed out of which turned to shit. Rwanda for instance."

It's not a tiresome, unbalanced clich?d response for the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women and children that were slaughtered directly or indirectly by the Allied invasion of Iraq. The point that you have clearly missed Mr Slater is that the Allied invasion not only made Iraq far, far worse it also killed hundreds of thousands of innocents.

"Kurdistan now one of the most liberal regions in the Muslim world and the best place to be right now for art, literature or just a young girl looking for an education. It has a majority socialist/secular government and all because we crushed the regime that nearly wiped them out through ethnic cleansing."

The hundreds of thousands of innocents killed as a result of the invasion will no doubt be delighted with this news. As will the Yazidis who's lot has become far, far worse post the Iraqi war than it was under Saddam.

" Libya gave up tonnes and tonnes of chemical weapons as well as a nuclear programme when they saw what happened to Saddam Hussain."

Hardly the whole story, Mr Slater....

This from Wikipedu
ia "Eventually Gaddafi grew disillusioned with the things that the West offered Libya. He considered it too small of a reward for Libya for giving up its nuclear weapons program. Gaddafi was also dissatisfied at the United States' slowness in normalizing relations with Libya and in pressuring Israel to denuclearize. According to Gaddafi's son Saif, this was one the main reasons why Gaddafi temporarily suspended shipping Libya's enriched uranium abroad in 2009 like he promised he would in 2003. Gaddafi wanted to use the remains of his nuclear weapons program to gain more leverage. As of September 2013, 1.6 metric tons of mustard blister agent loaded in artillery rounds, 2.5 metric tons of congealed mustard agent, and 846 metric tons of chemical weapons ingredients remain to be destroyed"


" And Libya was already in a civil war when we got involved. What we do know is that when Gaddafi decided he was losing, his last resort was hiding in a tunnel instead of poisoning half the country with the hundreds of tonnes of chemical weapons he'd stockpiled. He gave them all us because of what he saw happening in Iraq."

ON the subject of chemical weapons, this is nonsense as I highlight above. Logically, it is also nonsense. What the West's dealings with Libya show to the likes of North Korea is that you must never, never give up a nuclear programme, otherwise you leave yourself open to get bombed by the West, deposed and killed. It is clear that Saddam would have defeated the opposition without the involvement of the Allied bombing campaign. Since then Libya has slipped into total chaos like Iraq and whereas there was no violent Islamic force in Libya when Gaddafi ruled, now there is a real threat to the West.

" Iraq was always going to come to this, but our intervention was at least an attempt at giving the country a chance. Saddam was 69 when he was put to death. If left alone he'd be 77 now. He might be dead already had we left him to his own devices and God knows what he would have done in that mean time - especially if he knew he was old and dying and had nothing to lose anymore. That is, unless one of Qusay or Uday Hussain didn't overthrow their weak old man first. Uday, was suspected supervisor of the Republican Guard and involved in the war crimes against the Shiite population after the 1st Gulf War and murdering political activists just like his father. Qusay was a complete nutjob. Torturing Iraqi athletes, beating his own military officials to death when they wouldn't let him dance with their wives and going round Baghdad intruding on weddings and raping the brides for a laugh..........yeah, Iraq would have carried on in complete normality with those two fighting over who should run the place. What could possibly go wrong?"


And the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents and the rise of ISIS which did not exist under Saddam is a big, big, improvement on your endless crystal ball gazing.

"Iraq was always going to come to this"

Preparing your laughable line for when Afghanistan goes tits up, are we Mr Slater? Strange. Can't remember you taking this line at the time for any of the many interventions you have been in favour of.

"Are you MAD?"

Probably.

And, as you can see, Essex Lad, that David will say anything thing to divert attention away from ISIS and all other atrocities that can be related to Islam. His first post on this thread was a dig at the west.

He'll even by disingenuous about Libya's current stockpile of chemical weapons as some sort of rebuttal of my point about Gaddafi handing over his chemical weapons because of Iraq. Just because some of the stockpile failed to be destroyed does not throw doubt on my point. We invaded Iraq in 2003. Gaddafi joined the Chemical Weapons convention in 2004 after decades of refusing to. If David want's to see that as coincidental, so be it. But we both know he'd have a job convincing himself outside this forum.

As an example of his disingenuous character, he quotes wikipedia:

"Eventually Gaddafi grew disillusioned with the things that the West offered Libya. He considered it too small of a reward for Libya for giving up its nuclear weapons program. Gaddafi was also dissatisfied at the United States' slowness in normalizing relations with Libya and in pressuring Israel to denuclearize. According to Gaddafi's son Saif, this was one the main reasons why Gaddafi temporarily suspended shipping Libya's enriched uranium abroad in 2009 like he promised he would in 2003. Gaddafi wanted to use the remains of his nuclear weapons program to gain more leverage. As of September 2013, 1.6 metric tons of mustard blister agent loaded in artillery rounds, 2.5 metric tons of congealed mustard agent, and 846 metric tons of chemical weapons ingredients remain to be destroyed"

Of course, what he didn't quote was this bit a few lines above, which gives vital context as to why those munitions haven't been destroyed:

"The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) supervised the destruction of Libya's chemical weapons caches through February 2011, when it was forced to suspend its operations due to the uprising against Gaddafi and the resulting deterioration of the country's stability. At this point the Libyan government had destroyed 40% of its precursor materials and 55% of its mustard gas, as well as 3500 chemical weapon munitions."

My point is safe.

March-May 2003 we invade Iraq.

December 2003 December 19, 2003: Libya?s Foreign Ministry publicly renounces the country?s WMD programs. Tripoli promises to eliminate its chemical and nuclear weapons programs, adhere to its commitments under the NPT and BWC, as well as accede to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). Libya also promises to limit the range and payloads of its missiles to conform to guidelines set by the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). Additionally, Libya agrees to conclude an additional protocol to its IAEA safeguards agreement. The protocol expands the IAEA?s authority to check for clandestine nuclear activities. Libya invites inspectors to verify compliance with the agreements and assist in the dismantling of its weapons programs.

January 6th 2004 Libya ratifies the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which prohibits the explosive testing of nuclear weapons. The treaty has not yet entered into force.

Tripoli also accedes to the CWC. Under the convention, Libya must completely destroy its chemical weapons stockpiles and production capacity by April 29, 2007. Upon joining the CWC, Libya declares the possession of its chemical weapons materials and capabilities as follows; 24.7 metric tonnes (MT) of sulfur mustard; 1,390 MT of precursor chemicals; 3,563 unloaded chemical weapons munitions (aerial bombs); and 3 former chemical weapons production facilities. The OPCW inspections verify these materials and capabilities.

February 2004 The OPCW begins oversight of chemical weapons destruction activities in Libya.

March 2004 The United States, with assistance from British and IAEA officials, arranges for 13 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, a fissile material, to be airlifted from Libya to Russia for disposal.

October 2005 Libya signs an agreement with Russian nuclear fuel manufacturer TVEL to provide its Tajoura research reactor with low-enriched uranium (LEU) as part of an effort to convert the reactor from using HEU to LEU.

July 2006 IAEA and U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration officials help remove the last remaining quantity of fresh HEU from Libya. Three kilograms of Russian-origin HEU from the Tajoura research reactor in Libya are returned to Russia for disposal.

December 2006 The OPCW establishes Dec. 31, 2010 as the deadline for Libya to destroy its mustard gas stockpiles and Dec. 31, 2011 as the deadline to destroy its remaining chemical weapon precursors.

June 2007 Libya annuls its contract on chemical weapons destruction with the United States due to dissatisfaction with its provisions on liability, financing, and facility ownership. Under its agreement with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, these chemicals must be eliminated by the end of 2010. Libya did not indicate how it intended to meet this commitment.

September 2008 An IAEA Board report says that the agency has completed its investigation of Libya?s past nuclear activities and found that Tripoli had addressed all of the outstanding issues related to its past nuclear activity.

December 2009 Libya allows a Russian-chartered plane to leave the country carrying the last of its HEU spent fuel stocks for disposal in Russia after a month-long delay.

December 2009 The OPCW approves Libya?s request to extend the deadline for the destruction of its mustard gas stockpiles from December 2010 to May 2011. According to the OPCW report for 2009, Libya destroyed 39% of its chemical weapons precursors by the end of the year but destruction of its 23 tons mustard gas had not yet begun.

July 2010 The State Department?s arms control Compliance Report says that Libya is complying with its Biological Weapons Convention and nuclear nonproliferation obligations. It also says that Libya has made progress destroying its chemical weapons stockpile but has not yet met its obligations to adopt legislation to implement the Chemical Weapons Convention.

February 23rd 2011 OPCW spokesperson Michael Luhan tells the Associated Press that Libya destroyed ?nearly 13.5 metric tons? of its mustard gas in 2010, accounting for ?about 54 percent of its stockpile.?

February 26th 2011 United Nations Security Council unanimously adopts Resolution 1970 condemning the lethal actions taken by Gaddafi forces against civilian political protesters. The resolution also places financial and travel restrictions on regime officials. ** The OPCW announced that machinery breakdowns brought to a halt ongoing destruction of sulfur mustard amid rising tensions.**

October 2011 Gaddafi is killed.

April 2012 OPCW announced it would restart the destruction of the mustard gas stockpile. Canada aids in the funding of the destruction.

May 2013 Libya completes the destruction of 22.3 metric tons of Category 1 chemical weapons, or nearly 85% of the total declared stocks under OPCW verification.

The remaining chemical weapon stockpile is comprised of about 2.45 metric tons of polymerised sulphur mustard and 1.6 metric tons of sulphur mustard loaded in projectiles, bombs and bomb cartridges, as well as 846 metric tons of precursor chemicals.

Jan 2014 Libya completes the destruction of its category 1 chemical weapons. The OPCW verifies that the destruction is completed.

----------------------------------End---------------------------

As you can see, David quoted the wiki article declaring the still remaining chemical weapons that needed to be destroyed, to make some sort of point that it was still around despite the Iraq invasion. What he didn't say (or may not have known) was that a month on from that date on Wikipedia it had finally been destroyed.

The delay was more about the civil war starting up and halting the destruction process.

And as for David saying there were no violent Islamic forces when Saddam and Gaddafi was in charge, of course there was. They were just living under authoritarian dictatorships where trouble causers were visited by government officials in the night and never seen again. And what does it say about Islam that it's followers have to be overseen by murderous tyrants just to keep them behaving themselves? David's kind of making my point for me here on the 'Islam is a death cult' hypothesis. I'll have to buy him a beer for that one one day.

And David constantly talks about 'innocent civilian deaths' because of our invasion of Iraq but until he accepts the 'innocent civilian deaths' caused by our inaction in Rwanda, it's a cheap point.

Again, 'unintended consequences' do not just come from acting, but inaction too. It's another one of those silly expressions that sound good actually shows you've not really thought about it that much.