Palestine

[Archied]

1 hour ago, DarkFruitsRam7 said:

Sounds familiar👀

Not really , people on the streets over stuff that is happening TO THEM in they’re own country , like having they’re freedoms and rights taken , see old or dying relatives , earn a living , be allowed out of these homes , forced to take vaccinations under duress of losing jobs , and many many more stupid things ,,,, versus people on the streets over stuff they no nothing about , does not impact on them , is in countries thousands of miles away ,

yeah sounds familiar 😂😂😂😂😂😂

 

[Highgate]

2 hours ago, Leeds Ram said:

Yes the post war planning for the Iraq was terribly incompetent. Some have argued however the 'freedom agenda' laid the groundwork for the Arab Springs which Obama failed to support on any consistent level. 

It was terribly incompetent, but I think the problems with that war are far deeper than just post war planning, as inept as that was. Not wishing to defend Obama's record in the least, but I'm not sure there is any such thing as being 'worse than George W. Bush' in the Middle East. 

[GboroRam]

🎣

 

 

[Archied]

16 minutes ago, GboroRam said:

🎣

 

 

Are you suggesting someone is trolling in a thread as sensitive and important as this one ?

bit sad really , still people dying needlessly doesn’t come anywhere near getting pronoun s wrong 🤷🏻‍♂️

Edited November 9, 2023 by Archied

[GboroRam]

13 minutes ago, Archied said:

Are you suggesting someone is trolling in a thread as sensitive and important as this one ?

bit sad really , still people dying needlessly doesn’t come anywhere near getting pronoun s wrong 🤷🏻‍♂️

What, me, accuse a fellow mod of trolling? No chance. 

[Alph]

2 hours ago, Rev said:

 

Good find mate. 

I was dubious with it being Australian as their coverage seems like the work of Suella Braverman. Can't say I "enjoyed" it but you know what I mean. It was pretty fair. 

[Leeds Ram]

2 hours ago, Highgate said:

It was terribly incompetent, but I think the problems with that war are far deeper than just post war planning, as inept as that was. Not wishing to defend Obama's record in the least, but I'm not sure there is any such thing as being 'worse than George W. Bush' in the Middle East. 

There really is. You can make an easy argument to say Obama let the biggest opening for democracy in the region in a generation go by the wayside. His open support for authoritarians is one of the big reasons why we are where we are in the region. Much more so than Bush's incomplete freedom agenda. 

[Highgate]

40 minutes ago, Leeds Ram said:

There really is. You can make an easy argument to say Obama let the biggest opening for democracy in the region in a generation go by the wayside. His open support for authoritarians is one of the big reasons why we are where we are in the region. Much more so than Bush's incomplete freedom agenda. 

'Bush's incomplete freedom agenda?'

That's how you are summing up his Middle East legacy?  I'm not sure we have enough common ground for a fruitful debate here.. 🤔

Edited November 10, 2023 by Highgate

[Leeds Ram]

7 hours ago, Highgate said:

'Bush's incomplete freedom agenda?'

That's how you are summing up his Middle East legacy?  I'm not sure we have enough common ground for a fruitful debate here.. 🤔

Pretty much yes. The war on terror consuming much of Bush's doctrine had two main planks. The elimination of terrorist groups via military action and the growth of democracy in the region. The Bush administration believed terrorism grew in states which were overly authoritarian due to the lack of political space and also the tendency of authoritarianism actually to be quite poor governors of states themselves. This is pretty correct, and if you read the academic literature on terrorism, they're not that far wrong. Authoritarianism breeds poor resilience for states to act, lowering capacity to deal with problems when they emerge due to poor decision-making, cronyism, and using the military as a police force.

The second plank was using military action to stop terrorism. This involved measures with dubious legality such as extraordinary rendition but also using a doctrine called 'pre-emptive self defence'. This was the belief that rather than waiting for someone to attack you, who you know is going to attack you, you attack them first. This is much more controversial and led to the mistaken belief Iraq had WMD. Of course, this doctrine also plays into the fact that authoritarians oftentimes try to look stronger than they really are. However, even though the Iraq invasion was handled terribly, by 2008, post-surge, the country actually had relative stability until the collapse of Syria and the rise of IS which continues to have a lasting effect. 

The freedom agenda was incomplete precisely because the US tried to work with authoritarian regimes in the region undermining their moral credibility in pursuing more democractic governments. That and the morally dubious, extra legal methods used to address terrorist organisations further hindered their ability to pursue meaningful change. However, if the US had gone in harder, such as tackling Syria, along with Iraq, cleaning up the fascist Ba'ath states once and for all, this would, in my opinion, have made life much easier for the US in Iraq and made the region a much better place. The Arab Springs which brought about the possibility of widespread change would have had more of a chance of success if Bush had established a clearer and better track record of delivering democracy to the region. 

[Anon]

14 hours ago, Archied said:

It’s really quite scary, people out on the streets protesting and not the slightest clue of events to even base a judgement on 🤷🏻‍♂️

I'm hoping to see the queers for Palestine out again. They're my favourites.

[Archied]

33 minutes ago, Anon said:

I'm hoping to see the queers for Palestine out again. They're my favourites.

It really is bizarre, you just see so many people on both sides of the issues today and from both sides of what’s called the left and the right just picking a side , picking a side they think they should be on without so much as an attempt to explore the issues and form they’re own opinion , one of the most worrying parts is that education and universities seem to be breeding this one sided no debate culture which is very worrying for the future ,

I personally enjoy gb news ( yes I know ) where you get people like James Schneider and Arron bastani ( spelling ?) who are often wrongly labelled woke or far left by many thrash out issues with people wrongly labelled far right ,

these marches should be calling for an end to the bombing of Gaza , an end to the rockets fired at Israel , immediate return of hostages , an end to Israel expansion wrong doing , an end to hammas , an end to the mindless hate and killing , only then do we see possible light at the end of the tunnel 🤷🏻‍♂️

Edited November 10, 2023 by Archied

[Eddie]

2 hours ago, Leeds Ram said:

and led to the mistaken belief Iraq had WMD.

Powell: "This is a prefabricated building. It could be used to manufacture WMD. This is a railway line. It could be used to transport WMD. This is a person in a lab coat. He could be a WMD scientist."

Bush (and Blair and the rest of them) : "Yep. Totally convincing. FIRE!!!!!""

[Eddie]

2 hours ago, Anon said:

I'm hoping to see the queers for Palestine out again. They're my favourites.

Your sexuality is your business. What is this - a dating site?

[Alph]

2 hours ago, Leeds Ram said:

Pretty much yes. The war on terror consuming much of Bush's doctrine had two main planks. The elimination of terrorist groups via military action and the growth of democracy in the region. The Bush administration believed terrorism grew in states which were overly authoritarian due to the lack of political space and also the tendency of authoritarianism actually to be quite poor governors of states themselves. This is pretty correct, and if you read the academic literature on terrorism, they're not that far wrong. Authoritarianism breeds poor resilience for states to act, lowering capacity to deal with problems when they emerge due to poor decision-making, cronyism, and using the military as a police force.

The second plank was using military action to stop terrorism. This involved measures with dubious legality such as extraordinary rendition but also using a doctrine called 'pre-emptive self defence'. This was the belief that rather than waiting for someone to attack you, who you know is going to attack you, you attack them first. This is much more controversial and led to the mistaken belief Iraq had WMD. Of course, this doctrine also plays into the fact that authoritarians oftentimes try to look stronger than they really are. However, even though the Iraq invasion was handled terribly, by 2008, post-surge, the country actually had relative stability until the collapse of Syria and the rise of IS which continues to have a lasting effect. 

The freedom agenda was incomplete precisely because the US tried to work with authoritarian regimes in the region undermining their moral credibility in pursuing more democractic governments. That and the morally dubious, extra legal methods used to address terrorist organisations further hindered their ability to pursue meaningful change. However, if the US had gone in harder, such as tackling Syria, along with Iraq, cleaning up the fascist Ba'ath states once and for all, this would, in my opinion, have made life much easier for the US in Iraq and made the region a much better place. The Arab Springs which brought about the possibility of widespread change would have had more of a chance of success if Bush had established a clearer and better track record of delivering democracy to the region. 

Is your first name Tony?

[Alph]

2 hours ago, Archied said:

 

these marches should be calling for an end to the bombing of Gaza , an end to the rockets fired at Israel , immediate return of hostages , an end to Israel expansion wrong doing , an end to hammas , an end to the mindless hate and killing , only then do we see possible light at the end of the tunnel 🤷🏻‍♂️

There is no light at the end of the tunnel for Palestinians. They're very much in the way. And Iran etc quite like that. While there's angry Palestinians then there will always be a resistance for Iran to tap into. And there will always be angry Palestinians because of Israel. So for those people there will never be a happy ending. 

It's always interesting though when people are more angry about a protest for a ceasefire than they are about the conditions in the region that are suffering. 

[Alph]

3 hours ago, Anon said:

I'm hoping to see the queers for Palestine out again. They're my favourites.

That's one you could start. But right now I think a lot people believe that what's happening in Gaza is a war crime and the work of an Apartheid Zionist regime carrying out Ethnic cleansing. 

There's thousands of people in the dark trying to pick people out of rubble. People with injuries that can't be treated. People that have no food, water and are unable to flee. People that are critically ill. 

I think widespread calls for a ceasefire are a good thing. Even if idiots that don't know what they're talking about are jumping on a trend, I would say that it's still pretty ok to be against the indiscriminate bombing of a fenced in area the size of Glasgow where the average age is 18. 

I hope the protests continue to be carried out peacefully (I know we've had some exceptions but on the whole hundreds of thousands including Jews have marched peacefully) 

The fact the protests are now more of a talking point than what's going on in Gaza and the very rarely mentioned West Bank (where 180 people have also been killed) is pretty sad. 

[ariotofmyown]

23 minutes ago, Alpha said:

The fact the protests are now more of a talking point than what's going on in Gaza and the very rarely mentioned West Bank (where 180 people have also been killed) is pretty sad. 

The whole protest debate is surely just down to hopeless/reckless political leadership.

How difficult is it for a politician to clearly articulate both sides of the coin:

"The Hamas attacks that started all this off were barbaric and Israel needs to take steps to prevent this happening again.

The Israel response has been barbaric too and the 1000s of deaths are no way to prevent further terror attacks.

The UK will be pressurising Israel to stop killing masses of innocent people/children whilst also helping them prevent a repeat of the Hamas attacks.

The UK will be pressuring both sides to proceed with the 2 state solution formally agreed by both parties."

 

Edited November 10, 2023 by ariotofmyown

[Anon]

1 hour ago, Eddie said:

Your sexuality is your business. What is this - a dating site?

To paraphrase Groucho Marx, I don't want to belong to any club that want me to accept their members.

[Highgate]

5 hours ago, Leeds Ram said:

However, if the US had gone in harder, such as tackling Syria, along with Iraq, cleaning up the fascist Ba'ath states once and for all, this would, in my opinion, have made life much easier for the US in Iraq and made the region a much better place. The Arab Springs which brought about the possibility of widespread change would have had more of a chance of success if Bush had established a clearer and better track record of delivering democracy to the region. 

I'm starting to realize I should be grateful that it was President Bush in charge and not President Leeds Ram. 😂 I mean what could possibly go wrong with the US invading Russia's biggest ally in the region as well as Iraq?  Scary stuff. 

[Mostyn6]

I'm not sure you need to have in depth knowledge of anything you deem unfair, immoral or evil to be allowed to say is should stop.

I know nothing about testing on animals, but I'd like it to stop. I know nothing about FGM but would like it to stop. I don't know the finer details of many things, but I'd like them to stop.

That journalist asking those protesters for knowledge and them offering little doesn't invalidate their feelings that what's happening is wrong.