Well Iraq was illegal, Fez, just as Putin’s invasion is illegal. As for Libya, we only had interest there because of Libyan oil. I’m not defending Putin, I think he’s a totally immoral despot, but we aren’t afraid of illegal invasion. What sanctions have been taken against Saudi Arabia in respect of Yemen bombing, blockade and subsequent famine? E.g. Cuban Missile Crisis.
To raise the Russian flag at this time, and for the inane reasons they've raised it, is just ****ing stupid. Do they really put their football club ahead of the lives of innocent people killed? And the probably very young, many essentially innocent, soldiers too.
On a different but related note. In Berlin there are about a thousand refugees arriving daily, with 4,000 this weekend. Tegel airport terminal has accomodation for up to 3,000 and the trade fair centre has accomodation for 1,000 but both of these are only for a maximum of 3 days - they then need to be allotted regular accomodation in the city. Up to now Berlin has taken in more than the rest of Germany combined - though some of those there will go further afield in due course. The city is obviously the first port of call in the West for those moving on from Poland. They are appealing for clowns to work in Berlin's central station in order to lift the spirits of arriving children - I would have been tempted by this in my younger years but not now. My wife's son and his wife and kids live in Berlin and have taken in a Ukrainian family in their adjoining flat - a Ukrainian woman, Azerbaijani man and their two daughters - 15 and 17 (only the last two speak some English, and none of them speak German). For a family of 4 the apartment is little bigger than a rabbit hutch but this is typical for Berlin. Everwhere people are wanting to take others under their roofs - the thousands of homeless in the city have never known such a thing.
Didn't think for a nanosecond that you thought putin was anything else. Can't possibly take sanctions against our #1 trading partner for our #1 export now, can we?
I don’t want you to think that I support Putin. I don’t. My point is that all our leaders, across the world, with very few exceptions, are total ****s. Putin is definitely a **** for what he is doing to the Ukrainians. Johnson is a self-serving ****. The US are ****s for trying to turn every country in the world into a US puppet state. The Saudis are definitely ****s for what they do to the Yemenis. The Israelis are definitely ****s for what they are doing to Palestinians. I thought the Jonathan Pie apposite point about Putin exploiting our greed was disturbing. Excellent video. And it is all, or probably most, world leaders strategising to destabilise others’ regimes to their own (usually short-term) ends that I find so depressing.
Quite right. And it’s ****ing depressing. Do you know what? I genuinely forgot that was the term used by Pie. Perhaps I took it in subliminally. But it is how I feel. And I feel we are so helpless. That’s why I can’t believe we live in a democracy. Just before Brexit happened, the majority of the country were against it, but we went ahead. **** democracy, there are pockets to line. The amount of money this country has made through e.g. BAE selling Tornados and Typhoons, used by Saudis to bomb Yemeni children sickens me. The facilitating of laundering oligarch’s money in London’s banks sickens me. The failure to act against Putin sickens me. The cosying up to the Yanks sickens me. I’m fed up with the whole ****ing lot of them. I’ve spent years trying to change things through the ballot box and **** all happens. It’s a ****ing mess and I hate all of them. I wish Putin and his cronies, the Saudi hierarchy, the Israeli hierarchy… I’ll stop ranting there, but you get my drift?
I think we need to make sure we're not talking past each other ** I wrote that earlier and forgot that I had not deleted that comment! I agree with that, but have you read Hamas constitution? The Palestinian "hierarchy" has plenty to answer for, a bigger enemy of the Palestinian people than even the likes of netanyahu and his band of thuggish land thieves. The current mess in Ukraine is also certainly a consequence of the most corrupt American government ever, almost absolutely certainly passing secrets over to putin about the state of affairs in the region. tRump tried to get the Ukraine to lie about Biden to influence their election. I'm not keen on cosying up to the U.S.government either but we are seeing what happens when they don't particularly want to cosy up to us!
I had a generalised knowledge of the Hamas constitution, but I’ve just read it in full. How excellent was the Moslem poet, Mohamed Ikbal, when he wrote: "If faith is lost, there is no security and there is no life for him who does not adhere to religion. He who accepts life without religion, has taken annihilation as his companion for life." I’m in the poop, then. Sorry to those who are religious on this forum, but this document is based on, to my mind, archaic nonsense. Calls for genocide based on archaic nonsense. Article Nine reads: The Islamic Resistance Movement found itself at a time when Islam has disappeared from life. Thus rules shook, concepts were upset, values changed and evil people took control, oppression and darkness prevailed, cowards became like tigers: homelands were usurped, people were scattered and were caused to wander all over the world, the state of justice disappeared and the state of falsehood replaced it. Nothing remained in its right place. Thus, when Islam is absent from the arena, everything changes. From this state of affairs the incentives are drawn. The bit in bold I agree with, but I dispute that this is an absence of Islam as its root. It is the absence of morality, which is a concept, imho, distinct from religion (in practice). And this is where we find ourselves now, in Ukraine, in Yemen, in Afghanistan, in Iraq… the list goes on. This is why I link these atrocities, Fez. And our governments (where are all the atheist politicians? Which I say because so many see fit to make clear their religious sensibilities) indulge in proxy aggravation of areas of the world to satisfy our greed. What I find impossible to swallow is the disingenuous holding up of hands in despair that governments across the world play-act, when their agency has instigated/aggravated much of the hostility. Large numbers of people walk this earth thinking that the governments they elected have nothing to do with the strife that devastates the lives of innocent civilians in other countries (let alone their own). I disagree.
please log in to view this image please log in to view this image Is this a normal response if you have your home broken into?
They watered their document down a couple of years ago. The old version calls for outright genocide, this is really a minor "legal" adjustment in the light of stricter international law: the core meaning and their own interpretation remain the same. I make no apology for "offending" the religious. Offence is only taken and they do not have the right not to be offended. Indeed agnostic, atheist and anti-theist politicians are far too far and few between, let alone apistevists (the rejection of Faith) like me. The only reason that there are poor people in the world is because the rich can't be satisfied. Whilst I would agree that the lines between the various conflicts around the world can be demonstrated to be blurred, for the sake of this forum I think it is necessary to make the distinction and draw a boundary around the putin aggression and stick with the outfall from the invasion as the topic.
Fez, the Russian conditions for withdrawal from the Ukraine include a written guarantee as to the long term neutrality of that country ie. that they will never join Nato or have US military establishments stationed there. So this discussion automatically involves enlargement of the debate to discuss the role of Nato in the World and whether we see it as a truly peace keeping defensive organisation or as a kind of catspaw serving the interests of the USA. For an organization which professes to be only a defensive one it has been involved in enough invasions of other countries sovereignty for the Russians to see it as a threat.
It shouldn't be up to the Russians to set any conditions. They have invaded a country that has every right to set its own alliances. Do we really want to see countries that have different values try to impose their views by military force all the time? The Ukraine only started talking about joining Nato after the invasion, and this is not about that. From what I see this is Putin trying the regain his empire.
Sorry, ofh, but Ukraine started formal NATO discussion over thirty years ago, according to the NATO website. I wouldn’t deny them that right, but just as Kennedy reacted in the Cuban missile crisis, Russia might react similarly.
