The Political Thread

[Professor Bear]

What is it with him and porkies?

[Grugz]

I just realised, the hotel advert with the puppets... the one coming out of the shower looks like Cameron!
a random thought I know but I just had to share.now if any clever folk can post a pic so you can see what I mean?

[Spikes]

[Grugz]

cheers! now you won't be able to unsee!!!!!

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

That's too human looking to be Cameron.

[Taryn Tailz]

cheers! now you won't be able to unsee!!!!!

I've always thought that to, ever since the first time I saw it.

[Steven Denton]

By the time Bin Laden was killed it's been suggested that he was little more than a figure head. If he had been taken alive a trial would have been something of an ideological coup as it would probably have been a more effective way of dealing with whatever tactical importance he had left to the organisation. Arresting him would have been fantastic but he was rather asking to be shot in the face. I haven't really read into it, was it a hit or was it an operation to capture or kill him that just went down the kill road? 

When it's OK to kill is one of any society's core moral questions. The argument, unfortunately, tends to quickly descend into one side saying when you fight monsters you should take care not to become monsters yourself and the other saying so you want to give (insert mass murderer/ genocide regime) a cup of tea and a hug you god damn hippy, see how much you like it when they shoot your mum in her face and then punch a kitten. 

[Jimmy Baker's Assistant]

(nabbed from twitter)

[COMMANDO FORCES]

That's work finished and sleep over with, so on with the replies!

First up, the way the US went after Bin Laden. Any type of mission is fraught with danger and these types are ranked quite highly in the list. From start to finish numerous things can go wrong (the helicopter going down didn't help for a start). No matter how much tactical info the assault teams have, it will never be enough.

The soldier who entered the room Bin Laden was in had to instantly take in the situation of all potential threats in the room and decide which is the most dangerous to himself and the mission. For instance, someone holding a pistol is less dangerous to someone holding a submachine gun. What direction they are facing (take into account lighting, flickering telly, smoke, etc....) and if they are raising the weapon to attack.

Then you have the possibility of a Dead Man switch, is someone reaching for what could be a device like that, which would bring the building down. As we've seen, certain people don't mind killing themselves, so long as it takes down more of the enemy. It's a different mind set.

There are other things to take into account but in the end, it all boils down to the person who went through that door putting his life on the line to capture or terminate, we will never truly know, so all we can do is speculate. If it had been me and I saw any threat to myself or the team I would not hesitate to take down the threat, no matter what it was!

Sadly too many people have seen too many films and think everything happens like what is shown in them.

If you want to see tactical fire and movement, then watch the bank robbery in Heat as that is perfect.
If you want to watch British soldiers moaning constantly while they are on exercise, then watch the first part of Dog Soldiers, as that was spot on.

If you want to watch absolute bollocks the watch something like Hurt Locker as nobody would be allowed in a Bomb Disposal unit behaving like that. I was in such a unit for about 4 years and the shit would hit the fan if anyone behaved like that.

Now on to the laws and whys and wherefores. The leaders give out the orders and the people below follow those orders (obviously not in a Nazi sort of way) but this conflict was and is classed as a war. We could go into a massive debate on if these are illegal or not but if that's above the pay scale of the people on the ground.

As for the civilian deaths, I can assure you that the British military don't just go shooting streets up to take down a target but sadly during a war innocent lives are lost. I wonder what the breakdown is of deaths by suicide bombs in market places, mosques, etc... is compared to allied actions. The British military go out of it's way to not inflict civilian casualties.

Another point was mentioned about a General saying that the army should stage a coup if old JC got into power. I can assure you that the British military would never do such a thing. You have to remember that all 'squaddies' are civilians first and they do a job for the country, even if you don't believe in the military, they will, if needs be lay down their lives defending the UK.

Looking back at all my mates, I couldn't see anyone ever thinking it would be right for the UK to be run by a military dictator.

One final thing. As daft as it seems, none of my mates looked forward to going into a conflict zone. We would watch the news and hope that it would be resolved peacefully but if you volunteer to sign up then if you are ordered to do your job, then off you go. It's a job (can become a way of life for some, who then cannot adjust back to civilian life) and the better trained you are the better you become at the job. The amount of training takes you so far and if the shit hits the fan, then relying on your skills and teamwork helps a lot.

That last paragraph is a bit mixed up but the point is in there somewhere!

I think that about covers it all. I must dash as I'm about to watch my copy of 10 Years of 2000 AD

[TordelBack]

Thanks for that thoughtful post, CF. If I seemed to imply that I thought arresting Bin Laden would be like something off the telly, I didn't intend it. I know very well military personnel would probably have died in what would be a difficult rocess, my point was that a very large number of people have died in pursuit of a different response to 9/11.  I struggle to understand why their thousands of lives could be expended as a matter of course in the 'war on terror', but arresting the bastard who kicked the whole bloody mess off was deemed too costly. The approach adopted can be seen as the legitimization of summary execution, and a rejection of due process. That's all I was trying to say.

[TordelBack]

Or to put it another way: 13,000 dead, 30,000 wounded, 100s of 1000s of dead civilians, trillions of expenditure, but capturing Bin Laden was the thing that was deemed too risky?

[JOE SOAP]

It's been apparent for a long time Bin Laden was low priority amongst the swarming, gestating agendas that finally got pushed through the window of opportunity 9/11 had opened for so many interested parties - as is often expressed, never waste crisis.

I've no doubt there are many people with noble intentions caught up in all this mess but I fail to see how Shock & Awe, Camp X-Ray, permanent mega-bases in the Middle-East; Starbucks and Freedom Fries; Abu Ghraib and systematic sexual torture are intended to be about 'policing the world' - seems more like an industry of uranium shells, snacks and snuff-porn.

And then there's the Russians and ISIS.

[Steven Denton]

That's work finished and sleep over with, so on with the replies!

First up, the way the US went after Bin Laden. Any type of mission is fraught with danger and these types are ranked quite highly in the list. From start to finish numerous things can go wrong (the helicopter going down didn't help for a start). No matter how much tactical info the assault teams have, it will never be enough.

The soldier who entered the room Bin Laden was in had to instantly take in the situation of all potential threats in the room and decide which is the most dangerous to himself and the mission. For instance, someone holding a pistol is less dangerous to someone holding a submachine gun. What direction they are facing (take into account lighting, flickering telly, smoke, etc....) and if they are raising the weapon to attack.

Then you have the possibility of a Dead Man switch, is someone reaching for what could be a device like that, which would bring the building down. As we've seen, certain people don't mind killing themselves, so long as it takes down more of the enemy. It's a different mind set.

There are other things to take into account but in the end, it all boils down to the person who went through that door putting his life on the line to capture or terminate, we will never truly know, so all we can do is speculate. If it had been me and I saw any threat to myself or the team I would not hesitate to take down the threat, no matter what it was!

Sadly too many people have seen too many films and think everything happens like what is shown in them.

If you want to see tactical fire and movement, then watch the bank robbery in Heat as that is perfect.
If you want to watch British soldiers moaning constantly while they are on exercise, then watch the first part of Dog Soldiers, as that was spot on.

If you want to watch absolute bollocks the watch something like Hurt Locker as nobody would be allowed in a Bomb Disposal unit behaving like that. I was in such a unit for about 4 years and the shit would hit the fan if anyone behaved like that.

Now on to the laws and whys and wherefores. The leaders give out the orders and the people below follow those orders (obviously not in a Nazi sort of way) but this conflict was and is classed as a war. We could go into a massive debate on if these are illegal or not but if that's above the pay scale of the people on the ground.

As for the civilian deaths, I can assure you that the British military don't just go shooting streets up to take down a target but sadly during a war innocent lives are lost. I wonder what the breakdown is of deaths by suicide bombs in market places, mosques, etc... is compared to allied actions. The British military go out of it's way to not inflict civilian casualties.

Another point was mentioned about a General saying that the army should stage a coup if old JC got into power. I can assure you that the British military would never do such a thing. You have to remember that all 'squaddies' are civilians first and they do a job for the country, even if you don't believe in the military, they will, if needs be lay down their lives defending the UK.

Looking back at all my mates, I couldn't see anyone ever thinking it would be right for the UK to be run by a military dictator.

One final thing. As daft as it seems, none of my mates looked forward to going into a conflict zone. We would watch the news and hope that it would be resolved peacefully but if you volunteer to sign up then if you are ordered to do your job, then off you go. It's a job (can become a way of life for some, who then cannot adjust back to civilian life) and the better trained you are the better you become at the job. The amount of training takes you so far and if the shit hits the fan, then relying on your skills and teamwork helps a lot.

That last paragraph is a bit mixed up but the point is in there somewhere!

I think that about covers it all. I must dash as I'm about to watch my copy of 10 Years of 2000 AD

I like this post.

My feelings on armed conflicts are probably the most morally complex of any of my political views and probably where, in some ways I sit furthest to the right. I am in principle a pacifist but pragmatically less so. Extra Judicial killing concern me and I'm extremely weary of drone strikes for that purpose for reasons typified by this http://www.businessinsider.com/alwaki-son-yemen-16-drone-2012-10?IR=T

In many ways our meddling in the middle east in the past makes this shit storm our problem, how to deal with that shit storm with the lest lost of life and the least suffering is an excellent question. America fails pretty much every time because they want to set up a puppet government sympathetic to their ideology and because we tag along, to a lesser extent us too). It doesn't matter if the people we leave in charge hate us as long as the people want them they, don't hate their own population (preferably not even segments of their own population) and they have a decent human rights record and they don't want to start any wars.   

[sheridan]

If you want to watch British soldiers moaning constantly while they are on exercise, then watch the first part of Dog Soldiers, as that was spot on.

So you're saying the second half of that film isn't so accurate?  If only they had some Cassidium!

p.s. thanks for the in-depth reply.

[Richmond Clements]

http://voxpoliticalonline.com/tag/the-four-dark-judges/