Re: Mail on Sunday
 

No nation is an island and for better or worse we live in an international community and have obligations that arise from that. The war in Afghanistan was clearly UN mandated and it is clear to me that to wait for extremists to bring the fight to home soil is extremely short sighted.

Those who repeatedly say that the war is nothing to do with home security seem to have their heads buried in the sand hoping it will go away if you ask me. The fact that the cost is so high is indication that the extremists are well armed and well organised...what do you think will happen if we ignore what they are up to in Afghanistan and elsewhere?

The war in Iraq is clearly a different set of circumstances, but as has been pointed out over and over, the soldiers don't have a say in where they get sent. They do a necessary job, one that I wouldn't want to have to do, they do it professionally, under difficult circumstances, and to sit in the peanut gallery and make smartarse comments about the troops because you dislike the politics that put them there is just beyond despicable in my opinion. I have lost a good deal of respect for some of the people posting in this thread. Disagree with the politics and protest the war by all means, but don't badmouth the soldiers on the ground.

Re: Mail on Sunday
 

I didn't say they are lesser people, just lesser subjects. The French, for example, are not lesser people despite not being subjects at all.

Re: Mail on Sunday
 

I'm not badmouthing them, if they want to go and fight I suppose that's their choice, my objection is just to their claim on the sympathy of the public; invading Afghanistan, Iraq or for that matter the US isn't something they are doing on my behalf nor on behalf of the British public. I think indifference to them is the appropriate response.

Re: Mail on Sunday
 

How do you define lesser subjects then: Does this mean in your oppinion that if you were not born on the UK mainland you cannot be British.

Re: Mail on Sunday
 

Indifference implies that you dont think what they do matters at all.

Re: Mail on Sunday
 

If you'd like a complete run down on the different legal statuses that count as "British" talk to JAJ, there are subjects, citizens, residents of overseas territories etc. etc. Place of birth has little to do with it as there are classes dependent on ancestry.

As I see it, people who are not British citizens resident in the UK (who hold some sort of British status) are politically lesser subjects, subject to the whims of the government of the day. Many cannot vote, pension provisions are different and the government may or may not send the troops to defend them.

Re: Mail on Sunday
 

I think that's fair. Getting into a war in Afghanistan, Vietnam, Iraq, the Falklands won't ultimately change the world, it generates a few jobs, some people get killed, but looked at even fifty years later it only matters to the people who were there.

Re: Mail on Sunday
 

Might as well disband the UN and scrap all the peace keeping missions now then.

I wonder how the world will look in 50 years time if nations stop cooperating together and just look at issues when they have flared up enough that its having a local impact.

Hang on, that sounds a lot like how the world was in 1914, or 1939...

In your opinion I suppose WW1 and WW2 also ultimatley only mattered to those who where there, or made money from selling munitions.

Re: Mail on Sunday
 

I think it's a bit strong to suggest that nations are currently cooperating but we're straying. The issue is whether or not we should feel a debt of emotional gratitude to people who choose to fight for a living; I think that the wars in which they fight have at best a tenuous connection to the public in the western world and so we need not. I think most of the respect the troops command in the colonies derives from their distant history and not from their actions in recent decades. It may be that soliders put themselves at risk but they choose to do so and I don't think we need commend them just for that, to paraphrase my scolding Mother "if Maggie told you to put your head in a gas oven, would you do it?"

Re: Mail on Sunday
 

Bayer ? Part of the Nazi industrial machine. Still doing a fair bit of business nowadays I hear.

If we cared so much, they'd never have been allowed to continue. Old henry Ford was pro-nazi, tried to stop the US from getting involved. Sell a few cars, I heard.

It's a heap of old BS and we., the sheeple, are the victims every single time.

Oh and regarding Afghanistan, the Taliban cut down the supply of heroin into western Europe by many times. Now it's back to the free world running the show, heroin is flooding into Europe at record rates and has something like 5 times the supply to demand ratio. Which is why there are so many new, skanky, smacked out people in key cities in Europe.

So, what's right, and what's wrong ?

R.

Re: Mail on Sunday
 

WW1, probably so. WW2 is the exceptional war now used to garner emotional support for all manner of dubious police actions.

Re: Mail on Sunday
 

There are a lot of nations that don't cooperate together now. That's why we have war.
IMHO it's greed and the need to control that is the problem.
I think that WW 1 and WW2 were fought over different ideals to what are fought over now.

Re: Mail on Sunday
 

Sure, nations still disagree, but currently if two nations start to wage war, the UN more often than not steps in, passes a resolution and often peace keeping troops are sent in to prevent things spreading.

Lets not forget the action in Afghanistan was UN sanctioned, and involved 34 nations with NATO leadership. If you take Nato and the UN seriously, then you cant pick and choose your involvment.

If you expect other nations to step in and resolve issues through the UN in your own back yard, or to combine resources through NATO, then you have to be prepared to step in overseas when the call comes. If you start to pick and choose, then the whole idea of international cooperation to resolve issues is undermined, and frankly it already looks pretty fragmented.

Re: Mail on Sunday
 

I don't think that some countries do take the UN and NATO seriously if it affects their agenda of the day, and that sanctions are often ignored or vetoed. I only wish this was not the case, maybe the world could be a more friendlier place.
Totally agree with your fragmentation remarks.

Re: Mail on Sunday
 

Personally I think an instinct for self-preservation is worthy of more respect than pointlessly putting your life at risk. Cowardice is a severely underrated quality.