Blown to Brits

[David Johnson]

Well here we go with the same old jingoistic shite as the News of the World praises "our boys" with a headline "Blown to Brits". This is not a party political point. We got the same crap with the Iraq war.

The main hospital in Benghazi announced that there were 94 deaths as a result of Gaddafi's attack on the rebel held town yesterday.

Apparently there were 112 Tomahawk cruise missiles alone fired by the Allies. Now I would be surprised if the deaths from the entire firepower offloaded yesterday and overnight were not in their thousands. Some poor bugger who joined the Army to avoid starving, a maintenance engineer for whom non-arrival at work would have meant a bullet in his head and someone's mother incinerated as she worked preparing food etc etc etc.

But hey we are killing people to avoid Gaddafi killing people. The question that is bugging me is what happens when the no-fly zone has been imposed. Gaddafi will have human shields around all his remaining positions. His troops, artillery and tanks will be embedded in towns with large civilian populations.

What happens then? Aircraft are pretty useless in that scenario. Do the Allies put in troops to engage in street fighting as happened in Iraq? Cue the whole of Libya opposing the "Crusaders" just as the support in Basra turned against the British Army and the Catholics in the Bogside moved from welcoming the British soldiers sent to defend them from the Prods to attacking them.

I'm beginning to get a bad feeling about how all this might end up.

Cheers
D

[Sam Slater]

Name me one country that has fought for democracy and basic freedoms where it's come cheap.

We killed lots of people to stop Hitler killing lots of people, let's not forget. We killed lots of people to stop Milosovic killing lots of people. Lots of British subjects killed a lot of other British subjects which wasn't even about anyone stopping killing people. That war being the American war of Independence.

Given your views on every war we've had the past 10 years I'm guessing you'd have still had the Americas as a British colony, Hitler still in control of Europe and Milosovic managing to exterminate every Muslim in Yugoslavia.

We've had this argument before and I've been very consistent in my view. I think using our wealth and technology to defend another group from genocide, or emancipate them from cruel, fascist-like authoritarian rule is the right thing to do.

Do I want the US and UK to police the world? No. But if the UN stands by and lets mass murder continually happen then I think we should step in their shoes. You'll disagree here, I'm certain, but I'm more sickened by us doing nothing in Rwanda and Darfur. The US and UK did urge the UN to do something about these conflicts and genocide but it took the UN at least 6 years before admitting they could have done more to protect the Tutsis in Rwanda.......even longer to finally admit what happened should be classed as a genocide. And I'm not talking quick deaths from bombs and bullets. Women and children were gang raped, tortured and hacked to death with machetes. An estimated 800,000 killed within 3 months and a million over a year. These things should be bigger stains on our record than Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.

Sometimes the bigger crime is doing nothing.

[David Johnson]

Noble words and I am glad you have got them off your chest, but obviously nothing at all to do with my posts.

You state
"Given your views on every war we've had the past 10 years I'm guessing you'd have still had the Americas as a British colony, Hitler still in control of Europe and Milosovic managing to exterminate every Muslim in Yugoslavia."

If you had bothered to read my posts (plural) on this subject you would see that the above statement is bilge.

"You'll disagree here, I'm certain, but I'm more sickened by us doing nothing in Rwanda and Darfur. "

You have absolutely no evidence to support this statement in any of my posts. As usual your points are dreadfully simplistic.

As I pointed out in another post,

"For example, In the last 20 years we have been involved in wars such as the first Gulf War, Bosnia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Iraq and now Libya. Sometimes with the support of a UN resolution, sometimes without. Often against people we have been flogging arms to over the entire period.
Has Gaddafi become a ruthless dictator only recently? I don't think so. He has always been a ruthless dictator with a prediliction to murdering significant numbers of his own people. Where's the logic in this process? Did we have a military involvement in Rwanda, Mugabe's Zimbabwe, the Sudan where huge numbers of people have been slaughtered? Have we threatened the Burmese government about the slaughtering of its own people? Did we propose military intervention against Sri Lanka when they attacked the Tamils and slaughtered many. Are we due to bring a UN resolution attacking the use of Saudi troops in oppressing a Shia majority in Bahrain? Are we going to get involved in every country's internal affairs when a war breaks out within their own borders? As Afghanistan shows, it is very easy to get involved in a war, but can be very, very, difficult to extricate ourselves. I can see the hypocrisy. What I can't see is the logic."

Do I say that we should not have had an involvement in Rwanda? No.
Do I say that there is no such thing as a just war e.g. war against Hitler? No
Do I say we should never get involved in a war? No.


Cheers
D

[Sam Slater]

[quote]If you had bothered to read my posts (plural) on this subject you would see that the above statement is bilge.[/quote]

Of course it's bilge. I was being facetious due to your misgivings of recent wars.

[quote]Do I say that we should not have had an involvement in Rwanda? No.
Do I say that there is no such thing as a just war e.g. war against Hitler? No
Do I say we should never get involved in a war? No.[/quote]

Fair enough, David. However, the general gist I get from the paragraph you quoted from your other post is that you're more of the opinion "We didn't go to war in places w, x and y, so why are we now at war in z?"

Do you, like me, think we should have sent troops to Rwanda and Darfur, as we did with Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq and now Libya? If you're of the same opinion as me then I'll apologise.

[David Johnson]

"Fair enough, David. However, the general gist I get from the paragraph you quoted from your other post is that you're more of the opinion "We didn't go to war in places w, x and y, so why are we now at war in z?"

You misunderstood my post. I finish with "I can see the hypocrisy. What I can't see is the logic, " which is why to support that point, I included examples of when we did and did not go to war.

"Do you, like me, think we should have sent troops to Rwanda and Darfur, as we did with Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq and now Libya?"

This is more difficult to answer in the sense that in Darfur for instance, many thousand peacekeepers have been involved as part of a joint African Union/UN force. I would have liked to have seen that force beefed up sufficiently to have prevented the killing that went on. But for me the emphasis has to be on a multilateral region-wide approach rather than say, the US and British acting as global policemen for decade after decade.

In the case of Rwanda, I agree with what Kofi Annan said "The international community failed Rwanda and that must leave us always with a sense of bitter regret". The UN should have done much more and the main players in the Security Council should have pushed much harder.

Cheers
D

[Sam Slater]

[quote]You misunderstood my post. I finish with "I can see the hypocrisy. What I can't see is the logic, " which is why to support that point, I included examples of when we did and did not go to war.[/quote]

I don't see how your final points change the gist of your paragraph. You're giving out, to me, the impression you're not too keen on this latest intervention, and I know from plenty of other posts on here you were fully against military action in Iraq. I'm can't remember your thoughts on Afghanistan but you've not been vocal in supporting our war there. Given these things I took that paragraph you quoted as being, in general, against other nations (mainly the US and UK) getting involved militarily in other countries. While I might not agree, I understand your stance (if indeed I guessed right).

However, if I remember correctly you supported intervention in Yugoslavia. This is where I don't see your logic. You may point out the intervention in Yugoslavia had full UN backing, unlike Iraq - but so does the current conflict. And, I mention Rwanda and Darfur because if you're basing your logic and when and when not to go to war on UN decisions then the two African conflicts are recent(ish) examples of why one shouldn't base their opinions too heavily on how the UN judges these things.

I'm of the opinion that the developed world can use their wealth in far worse ways than policing the world, if the UN isn't up to the job (and, in my opinion it isn't. The UN is a lion without claws and teeth and needs the US and western Europe to prop it up.) This is why I supported the war in Yugoslavia, Iraq (twice), Afghanistan, and Libya. It is also why I'm ashamed we didn't intervene in Rwanda, Darfur and Zimbabwe, to name a few.

Of course, we haven't the money or resources to be everywhere at once and sadly we do have to pick and choose when and where we take action. These decisions may be based on our own interests, which, I admit, doesn't look good. But until either the UN and other nations pluck up the courage and help, or there aren't so many mad dictators and authoritarian regimes to quash, we will continually pick and choose based on what we can gain, economically, from said skirmishes.

Let's be honest here, because of the US's, and ours to a smaller degree, military might and wealth we are playing God whether we intervene or not. Because we have the power to intervene if we choose our decisions WILL affect the outcome of any conflict. We can't change that now. The 'we shouldn't be playing God around the world' argument is common but i'll-though out.

[quote]In the case of Rwanda, I agree with what Kofi Annan said "The international community failed Rwanda and that must leave us always with a sense of bitter regret". The UN should have done much more and the main players in the Security Council should have pushed much harder.[/quote]

But if the UN don't do anything we shouldn't either?

[David Johnson]

"I don't see how your final points change the gist of your paragraph. You're giving out, to me, the impression you're not too keen on this latest intervention, and I know from plenty of other posts on here you were fully against military action in Iraq. I'm can't remember your thoughts on Afghanistan but you've not been vocal in supporting our war there. Given these things I took that paragraph you quoted as being, in general, against other nations (mainly the US and UK) getting involved militarily in other countries. While I might not agree, I understand your stance (if indeed I guessed right)."

For the last time, the post was about the absence, to me, of any underlying logic as to when the UK would/would not get involved in war. No more no less. You are welcome, of course, to read as many other meanings as you want into it. None were intended other than the one I have stated.


"But if the UN don't do anything we shouldn't either?"

For the last time, I do not believe that the UK should act as a global policeman.

Cheers
D

[Sam Slater]

If that was only your point then why defend yourself so vociferously when I pointed out you wouldn't have liked intervention in Rwanda, for example?

You said, "Do I say that we should not have had an involvement in Rwanda? No." Now you're saying the UK shouldn't act as a global policeman..............so I was right, you didn't want us to take action in Rwanda. We could have saved all that typing if you'd just owned up in the first place.

So, according to you, if there's a major genocide of some poor, oppressed people, and the UN decide it's not worth their hassle to intervene, then fuck 'em and let 'em die. Not our problem.

Ok.