Off Topic Political Debate

The quote '' One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter'' depends entirely on which side you are on. The Mujaheddin in Afghanistan where considered as the 'goodies' and as freedom fighters as long as the enemy was the USSR, Osama Bin Ladin was one of them, and was trained and armed by the west. I also find it strange that only movements are 'terrorist' and not nations - nations can bomb civilians Worldwide with something as cowardly as drones yet manage to attach the epithet 'terrorists' only to their opponents.

 

Will the Labour Party's poor showing in the local elections this week be blamed on poor old Ken rather than the highjacking of the party by the far left?

 

Can't you change the record ?

 

I don't suppose you have thought up the excuses yet

 

Sadly as Cologne has said it is really not as simple as that.... and not even about Party politics. I had a minor role in the great game as British Consular Correspondent to Bhutan some years back which included a very interesting stay at the British Embassy in New Delhi and meetings with attaches etc.which I will not put in writing here.. but was an interesting eye opener
The great game has gone on for many years and to the common people it is hidden or at best headlined. With the deepest respect I think some of us on here can be mislead by these headlines fed out through the media.

For example the CIA supported Tibetan freedom fighters in Tibet in the 60s .. against Maoist Chinese invaders..... with arms and logistics... and then when the winds changed these freedom fighters were abandoned to imprisonment in death. The Chinese Govt has demonized any native Tibetan who speaks out against them. I have met and worked with many such people. A classic example was of a young Tibetan monk who escaped over the Himalaya to India. His group were shot at and used as target practice by Chinese border guards. By chance there were Western climbers nearby who filmed some of this... and I have been shown footage of the guards murdering people. The young monk survived and i have met him as he is now studying in the UK. Pretty much the same sort of stuff that Israeli soldiers dish out to young Palestinians. How much of this gets into the mainstream media? Who even cares?


In the modern area both Labour and Tory Govts openly consort with the Govts and resistance and other groups for their own ends. In real terms there is a paper thin difference in the actual foreign strategies employed by Labour or Tory Govts.

 

e.g. 'Arms to Iraq'
Quite right, yorkshire, the train keeps rolling in the same direction irrespective of who is in the cab.

Does your referring to Israeli soldiers make you an anti-Semite?

 

I think the 'Zionist mafia' would like to say so. No disrespect intended to those who are Jewish.

The same things happens with Islam.... and there seems to much more tolerance of the association between Islam and fundamentalism in the Western media. Interesting eh.....................

 

I really hope that this kills the damned thing stone dead - it's utterly outrageous.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...sial-trade-deal-say-campaigners-a7009896.html

 

And this is being negotiated by our beloved eu leaders that we cant kick out as they are running the regime as a undemocratic dictatorship

 

It is laughable that the 'remain' camp think they can ever assert any guidance over these fiddling eurocrats. They have their superstate agenda that will not be stopped whatever the consequences to the inhabitants of the EU. They are completely out of any democratic control.

 

In our out of the EU will make no diff to TTIP sadly IMO

 

Of course it would. If we are out then we wouldnt need to be a part of ttip...

 

But both the Tories and Labour are in favour of it - and the LibDems for what they're worth. In fact Cameron claims that it was his idea. So unless there is a landslide victory for Plaid Cymru or the Greens, you'd be stuck with it.

Leaving the EU will make no difference as it's more than likely that we'd remain as part of the European Single Market - and, as such, would still have to implement all of the changes in EU legislation that derive from TTIP.

 

True..........

 

Only if you choose to do so. Surely the use of drones to kill ISIS terrorists or Taliban terrorists in Pakistan that slaughter school girls because they should not be at school, is perfectly justified?

 

Well, Obama calls them 'targeted killings', the military calls them 'precise`, yet for the 41 targetted terrorists killed in Pakistan by them, 1,147 civilians have died as a result of these drones. That does not sound targeted or precise. It seems to me that if you are going to use these things, together with bombing from heights which are unreachable by anti aircraft defences, that it is inappropriate to use the description 'cowardly' to describe anyone elses actions. The tragic is that we think that we are more civilized than the middle ages - yet when Richard or Saladdin declared war, they themselves shared the risks of it. Maybe there would be less war now if the people who caused it were, themselves, thrown into the front line.....as in days past. We have found more and more ways of causing destruction from a distance.....where nobody on our side needs to die. Turning war into a kind of video event.....observed from a safe distance. Something which no medieval knight could have considered honourable.....yet over the hundreds of years we think we are superior to him ! How much longer are we going to waste so much ingenuity inventing new ways to kill people from a distance, without having to actually smell their blood ?

 

If the Taliban did not slaughter innocent children then there would be no need for drones or any other kind of bombs...but I suppose as they do it in the name of Islam, it can be ignored.

 

I am not condoning the Taliban W_Y. But of those 1,000 + civilians who died in those `so called`targeted killings, or the thousands more who have died as a result of western bombing you need to remember that they all represent families and circles of friends - how many of those remaining have gone to the Taliban as a result of our actions ? Drones have destroyed schools and even wedding parties up to now.....this all helps the Taliban in their recruitment. These are also being done without agreement from the Pakistani government.

 

I recommend the film Eye in the Sky Alan Rickman's last film and also with Helen Mirren... about a dilemma over a possible drone attack in Kenya... Surfaces the issues.....

 

I guess it was a bad night for Labour..... What I really do not understand is the politics in Scotland and the ability of a party (SNP) to continue its popularity despite complete failure in government on education, health, economy you name it every devolved power it has bee given it fails to use for the benefit of Scotland but persists in its spiteful divisive policy of chasing separatism... They are modern Nazis, stealthily gaining power with their hate England hate Westminster rhetoric... Sad.. very sad.