Today's discussion about the news
Comments
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It doesn't really work long term though unless the intervention stays and there is little political appetite to lose citizens and money in such an occupation.
Ultimately, it would be nice if the world did have some meaningful peace keeping forces. That's more likely to happen if other conflicts e.g. Israel/Palestine were sorted.
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I mean, let's stick to the region - the Saudi - Yemen war.
Britain has been supporting the Saudi-led war efforts there, and apparently have been directly involved in helping Saudi air strikes.
Since then, British ships have actively shelled Houthis ships and killed Houthis sailors and soldiers because they have been attacking civilian ships in the red sea.
But do we have some special parliament style meltdown about British involvement in that? Do we have leaders of the house of commons and MPs under constant death threats from both sides
Do we have labour local councillors resigning because they're uncomfortable with British backed saudi war effort creating a:
a "humanitarian disaster"[23] or "humanitarian catastrophe". The war has contributed to the famine in Yemen which has threatened over 17 million people, according to the UN, as well as an outbreak of cholera which has infected hundreds of thousands.[79][256][257]
Are they f*ck.
The Americans even spell it out themselves:
US Representative Ted Lieu has criticized the Saudi-led attacks on Yemen: "Some of these strikes look like war crimes to me, and I want to get answers as to why the US appears to be assisting in the execution of war crimes in Yemen."
The saudis have bombed schools, aid organisations, they've attacked hospitals and airports and have shelled the most densely populated parts of Yemen.
The British have their special forces *on the ground* in Yemen.
Where is the handwringing about this one?!
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There's your naivety again. The UN has never done anything "armed-to-the-teeth". They roll in to keep the peace, and roll out if the going gets tough. The UN is well aware of Sudan and is doing....?
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
A perfect example. The Saudis buy weapons from us. We are bombing the Houthis to protect our shipping.
Looking after our own interests, which was my point.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
I was pretty young but I remember the UN peacekeeping force in Kosovo being pretty well armed. Wasn't without its problems, and a lot of preventable lives were lost but I think strategically it was a success?
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Argh, if that's your point where are the interests in israel gaza? earlier you were saying it was for historical reasons. Which is it?
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I think you are confusing me with someone else on the historical point, but yeah, we bear a fair part of blame for setting the area up as it is after WWII.
Our current interests? We are an ally (see my earlier post) of America who definitely have interests in Israel. An argument could be made for lapdog instead of ally but that's another debate.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
All I see is a lot of moral handwringing about the humanitarian plight of Palestinians for which the Brits have minimal impact, but very little on the humanitarian plight of any other group for which the Brits have minimal impact, and even less on the plight of Yemenis for whom it can be argued the Brits have actually played a role. Let's not even get started with the Iraqis or Afgans.
I think the whole thing properly stinks. Furthermore, it's the kind of cynical hypocrisy autocrats are all to happy to point out, and ultimately I think it's self defeating as a result.
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I remember them being well armed but suspect that was more for personal protection as I do not remember them proactively engaging.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
And in Bosnia that had to literally stand and watch massacres. They weren't much help in Rwanda either.
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I guess my view is the lessons from that were not "let's not bother" but "let's give peacekeepers more teeth"
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Has that ever happened? If they intervene in any way other than to protect themselves they'll get criticised for taking sides.
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I would say Hamas is quite different from a company that makes some of its money from selling perfectly legal arms to a political ally.
Don't get me wrong, the international arms trade is pretty grubby and I can appreciate we all have our own views on it. Personally I work for a company that does a shedload of defense work, but try and avoid getting on those projects as much as possible.
It's more that apparently selling to Israel was some kind of special line, when I really don't see it.
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WWI.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
I stand corrected. Point stands too. 😉
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
Sorry, that was very rude.
But yes, carving up the Ottoman Empire with crayons was and promising mutually exclusive things to people was pretty much guaranteed to screw things up for a good few generations.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
No need to apologise. Unlike some I welcome constructive criticism.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
More accurately, the process started after WW1, but continued immediately after WW2.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Meanwhile, even the BBC gets Community Noted for calling 30p Lee's Islamophobic remarks 'criticism', while GB News carries on untroubled by worries over Ofcom.
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Oh look, the competition watchdog is investigating collusion between Barratt, Bellway, Berkeley, Bloor Homes, Persimmon, Redrow, Taylor Wimpey and Vistry.
Who could be surprised.
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Just reading about the Housing Bill and how the government promise to abolish leasehold seems to have evaporated. Apparantly England is one of (the only?) countries that has such a system.
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The level of violence farmers regularly reach when protesting would kill off sympathy to any other interest group for about a decade, but for some reason we tolerate it with farmers.
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????? What farmers are you talking about?
I'm not aware of any violent farmers protests goin on in the UK at present.
Even the French protests have been more about blocking the motorways, particularly the access motorways to the alpine resorts. I don't think they've been violent though.
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All over Western Europe. Been bubbling away in Netherlands for a couple of years but watching videos today of French farmers driving their tractors over people's cars in cities etc.
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Surely that's just a French reaction to protest in general? I doubt UK farmers would get any sympathy - I'm not feeling any for their reasonably peaceful protests in Wales against the Welsh government getting them to prioritise environmental initiatives in return for their grants. They seem to feel entitled to handouts even though they, on the whole, voted to kill the golden goose a few years back.
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A subset of UK farmers are just habitually violent in my experience, if you are perceived to be in any way an impediment. Same as any other group, only by the nature of the industry they tend to be in less well policed areas.
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Dutch farmers have been pretty extreme. Caused around 1,000km of cumulative traffic jams (can you imagine Xtinction rebellion doing that), they smashed down the door of the Groningen local government building and vandalised it, and have had a number of roaming scuffles and fights with police.
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Good. Glad they made this decision. Lets hope they enforce it fully.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-68414524
Sometimes. Maybe. Possibly.
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A rather amusing write up of the car crash that is Ben Houchen's Freeloader project. I'm pretty sure Private Eye will be on the case too... they're not letting go.
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