Give this a read, and think about it!!

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Hmm, light blue touch paper and retreat rapidly!

Credit to all for not descending into a bun fight - so far - over a complex and many sided debate.

 

I feel partly responsible for that. Apologies

 

I've said my bit, you know my feelings ...so I am leaving

 

Then I am sorry IMAZ for getting out of my pram!! Having been in the forces, maybe a long time ago it still upsets me when my fellow services men get the piss taken out of them!

 

Yes, you may be right MATT,but I must, although maybe wrong if you are living here in a Free country (I think) then go and fight for what one believes in! That it as far as I am concerned!1 Now on to football, do we all think that we will stay up this season????????

 

The three Musketeers doesn't count

 

I agree with the sentiment James but this is not the place to air it. This is a football site about our club QPR.

 

World War 2 was different and because it did carry a direct threat to our collective freedom it was a necessary and completely worthy cause and I have nothing but respect and gratitude for those that served - your self included.

This one is not our war.

That's all I'll say on the matter.

I think we'll thrive in the league this year. No problem avoiding relegation and a nice 50 points in the bag.

 

I'm with you pal....!!

 

We wont be anywhere near the relegation spots next season....reckon we will be safe by September

 

The motive for fighting in the first place was Al Qaeda was headquartered in Afganistan, morally and materially supported by the Taliban 'government', with training bases for more attacks on the West. In the aftermath of 9/11 it is quite clear and understandable why we attacked it - revenge and self protection. Whether these are worthy motives, or whether the response was proportionate are different questions. As is whether it has been a success/ worth it.
James you are living proof that age does not bring wisdom.

 

My two cents worth, with a personal disclaimer to start: I have friends and family that are currently in the forces, and some of those friends and family I will not see again in this life.

Death is an inevitable by-product of conflict. It's sad to put it in such cold words, but it is true. People fight - whether for an ideaology, a country, a cause, a strip of land, whatever. It's been the case since time began. And where you have people willing to fight for such things, people will die for them too.

Ultimately, though, in war people don't fight for king and country. People fight for the bloke stood next to them.

Life and death, especially premature death, is a very human event that causes grief, sadness and sorrow that touches everyone in different ways. A terrible but harsh reality of servicemen's deaths is that unless you know them personally, you get numbed to the individual tragedies by the sheer numbers, and by the fact that despite 24/7 news coverage, most of us have never been in such a situation ourselves. And so their deaths somehow impact us less, despite understanding that it's very often because of their service and sacrifice that we will never need to go into battle ourselves.

However, when a celebrity brings about their own demise, or is killed in an accident or homicide, these things are thrown at us by the media much more readily because (as has been said) they sell papers on their names. And we, as the general public, feel we know them through their music / movies / 'public' lives. On this board, we all feel greater sadness over Macca's death, or Kiyan's death, or Ray Jones' death, because they were a very real part of our lives. That's what drives the celebrity culture, and that's why the media will play on the deaths of every singer / actor every time they take enough of any substance to push them over the edge. It's sad, and it's an indictment on our culture and media, but it's true.

Until we finally tire of living our lives vicariously through some drunken warbler's music, or the soap actors that infest our screens, this won't change. sadly, nor will bringing the troops home before the job they are there (rightly or wrongly) to do, is completed.

Trying to drag people's minds back to the issues by means of guilt, by listing dead servicemen's names on unconnected message boards, does nobody any good, and in my view dishonours their sacrifice and memory.

 

Like that Swords! You are getting better at the jokes! you will soon be as good as me!!!!!!!!!!!1

 

Thank you for your remark regarding my age, thats OK with me but remember I have forgotten what you know!! this is for FFS73 still a young man I would think, but then I do not always think just act on feelings!!

 

I'm 51, still young enough to know I don't know everything and working hard, paying tax to give you a state pension in Portugal. Enjoy it.
Did you volunteer for the forces or were you drafted like hundreds of thousands of others in the 50s and 60s when we still had conscription?

 

Well dear FFS 73, It is so nice to know that you are working and paying your taxes as I did and still do over £5000 per year, as I get taxed on my pension I paid into it a lot more then one does as a company Director and Chairman, you paid more into the state found. I started working when I was 15 and never had a penny off the state! Yes, I was called up like 1000`s of others at 18, did you miss it? I was also on the tail end of that very quick war with Egypt 1956! When the yanks told our great country (then) to stop?? Anything else you would like to know about the past that you missed? Have a super week-end , I will over here in Portugal, Just Sun, Sea & some sex!! (if i am lucky) James Trew .

 

I bet you needed a nappy change when you thought you was gonna be thrown into the front line of that one.

Jim, your treatment of Imaz and his people on here is disgraceful. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Is your real name Nick Griffin?

 

So predictable!!

 

Credit where its due an' all that, I did notice that you weren't one of the ones that ganged up on the Euro Host Nations. I have a feeling you have a suspicion of the media too, esp the BBC.

Now I don't agree with most of what Nick Griffin says but I watched BBC's Question Time's pre-meditated ambush on him and I thought: Pathetic. They had all sorts of stuff regurgitated and distorted and at the ready. They even had the audience hand-picked to harangue and heckle him every time he spoke. They stitched him up like a right kipper so they did. The whole episode reminded me a little of the Terry/Ferdinand debacle with the Leftie gang out for vengeance and baying for blood.

I think you'll agree COL, that the great institution of the BBC is not what it used to be.