The Political Thread

[JOE SOAP]

I was a little confused by that too and assumed it was a general reference to Barack Obama continuing George's Bush's mass murder policy. Though I don't even think Bush openly worked with Al Qaeda.

I don't think you could realistically call Obama a peace-maker - increased drone-strikes etc. - which is the reason I suppose they awarded him the prize before he ever did anything.

[Buttonman]

And when it comes to "illegal acts", I think we're entitled to expect a higher standard of behaviour in that regard when it comes to peoiple in blue uniforms

Heartily disagree here - if one side sets the agenda they can't complain (or at least justifiably) if they get the same in return. I had a work colleague try to advance an arguement that it was acceptable for the IRA to kill who they liked but government forces should 'play by the rules'. Fook that. Same applies to drone attacks - if Al Qaeda wants to declare war on the West and kill indiscriminately I'm all for anything that wipes them out.

[TordelBack]

That Nobel Peace Prize is a fickle ol' bird.

my brain is sludgy with flu germs but I don't get it - what's the link between the NPP and that picture? I thought it had been awarded to the whole of europe this year (which is odd enough....)

Friend Barack was awarded the NPP in 2009 for:

...his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.

The pic I posted is of said PotUS overseeing the killing of bin Laden and sundry of his family, staff and their families.  Not that I'll miss the evil scrote myself, but it is an odd interpretation of 'diplomacy and cooperation between peoples'.

[JOE SOAP]

Same applies to drone attacks - if Al Qaeda wants to declare war on the West and kill indiscriminately I'm all for anything that wipes them out.

What you're saying is you agree with indiscriminate killing.

[TordelBack]

What you're saying is you agree with indiscriminate killing.

I doubt that's what BM meant at all (although it's a fair reading of the sentence), but I'd be more concerned by the notion that drone attacks will wipe Al Queda, or more generally Islamic terrorism, out.  I'd have thought quite the opposite, much like Israeli strikes on Hamas chiefs.  Asymmetric warfare has its downsides for both sides.

[Professor Bear]

Heartily disagree here - if one side sets the agenda they can't complain (or at least justifiably) if they get the same in return.

Some quarters already believe that the British government and military had a shoot to kill policy with suspected IRA members - if so, it wasn't very successful, certainly not for that 8 year old they shot dead a couple of hundred yards from where I'm sitting because he was playing with a toy gun that has yet to turn up.  The po-po are employed specifically to enforce the law and see it isn't broken, even by their own number, likewise, there's a reason you don't hear much about those politicians running for office on a platform of getting back at Arabs by slaughtering children in their beds via an organised campaign of suicide bombings.

An eye for an eye doesn't work.

[Buttonman]

Same applies to drone attacks - if Al Qaeda wants to declare war on the West and kill indiscriminately I'm all for anything that wipes them out.

What you're saying is you agree with indiscriminate killing.

No, that's what you're saying I'm saying.

Your liberal agenda is fine but if the people who would rather see us and our way of life dead don't suscribe to it, we might as well run up the white flag right now.

As far as I know the drones are tageted and operated onto targets remotely - indiscriminate would be a blunter tool - say a 747 into a tower block?

As for the shoot to kill policy you're being naive if you don't think Thatcher could have wiped out the IRA command in a single night - the SAS will always have better training, guns and intelligence. What she needed was some kind of settlement to stop Ireland from ripping itself apart  for ever more.

[TordelBack]

Seems like I'm always disagreeing with you this evening, BM, please be assured that it isn't intentional, but...

Isn't one of the important things about 'our way of life' that we believe in the rule of law, and its universal application?

It also seems to me that your points re: the IRA and Al Queda are arguing against each other.  If the problem of Islamic terrorism can be eliminated by drone strikes, then why couldn't the threat of Republican terrorism be dealt with by your SAS-in-one-night model? 

[COMMANDO FORCES]

because the SAS ain't thousands upon thousands strong. It ain't the movies you know!

[TordelBack]

That minor issue aside...

[Buttonman]

Seems like I'm always disagreeing with you this evening, BM, please be assured that it isn't intentional, but...

Isn't one of the important things about 'our way of life' that we believe in the rule of law, and its universal application?

It also seems to me that your points re: the IRA and Al Queda are arguing against each other.  If the problem of Islamic terrorism can be eliminated by drone strikes, then why couldn't the threat of Republican terrorism be dealt with by your SAS-in-one-night model?

Haha - Like Lionel Ritchie I can take it all night long!

You misinterpret me - I'm all for going toe to toe with the bad guys and wiping them out. With Al Qaeda that's an option and one the powers that be are embracing. With Ireland the political will wasn't there so they didn't despite the provocation. If the government had went on the offensive I'd have supported them (retrospectively I was about 10) but horses for courses I guess.

[JOE SOAP]

Your liberal agenda is fine but if the people who would rather see us and our way of life dead don't suscribe to it, we might as well run up the white flag right now.

As far as I know the drones are tageted and operated onto targets remotely - indiscriminate would be a blunter tool - say a 747 into a tower block?

As for the shoot to kill policy you're being naive if you don't think Thatcher could have wiped out the IRA command in a single night - the SAS will always have better training, guns and intelligence. What she needed was some kind of settlement to stop Ireland from ripping itself apart  for ever more.

I don't have an agenda any more than you do and Ireland wasn't ripping itself apart; the South were as ignorant as much as any on the British mainland. Wiping out the IRA in a single night would have compounded the problem just like it perpetually does in the Middle-East, there's always someone else. It's a naive appraisal of what was actually going on in Northern Ireland, an appraisal that fits the news reports but not the actualities and back-street politics of the time.

What she needed was some kind of settlement to stop Ireland from ripping itself apart for ever more.

Clearly she wasn't the person to do it.

[COMMANDO FORCES]

I'm parked up now so I can tell you some amazing news I just heard on Radio5 (that's a BBC station for anyone not in the UK).
If Labour get in at the next election, they promise to give the long term unemployed jobs for 6 months, on the minimum wage and if they don't accept the job they lose their benefits. What a bunch of Nazis

[JOE SOAP]

I recommend they get rid of the welfare state.

[Stan]

As far as I know the drones are tageted and operated onto targets remotely - indiscriminate would be a blunter tool - say a 747 into a tower block?

The towers were targeted by passengers jets. Just as drones target funerals, weddings, raves or basically anywhere else you find lots of civilians. Both sides are just as vile as each other as far as I'm concerned.

Don't worry though. Politicians have bunkers and bodyguards so next time Al Qaeda blow something up it'll just be the proles who catch shrapnel.