THE BRITISH THREAD II

After appointing a Justice Secretary who said the UK should have back hanging, and a Culture Secretary who calls the BBC licence fee a "poll tax", David Cameron today appointed anti-gay marriage MP Caroline Dinenage as equalities minister.

That's a strange boast. He appears always to read and react to mmy posts. I have not put Izzy on ignore, and while I usually find myself with a perspective that is different from his I usually don't react.

bip

bop

Hypocrisy, the buzz-word of the week. And the "Welfare Secretary" hasn't even got going yet.
Remember folks, we're "all in this together."

Thank you Mac. Kind words. Time passes but we endure. Still active and working, though considering retirement more often and getting impatient with challenges of work that once I found more satisfying.

I have finally succomed to my wife's complaints that I can't hear her or others and made an appointment to get an audiogram. I already know the result as it began to appear long ago - an occupational hazard around turbine engines.

I'm still interested in getting a better perspective on the recent UK election. Was it an endorsement of the policies of Cameron & the Tories or something else? Lots of things afoot in the world from the Mideast to Russia and the Baltics. to stresses in the EU and Eurozone ... all likely complicating long-standing tensions within the UK about Europe and its own governance.

We have a fairly complex situation here with sharper and more complex internal political divisions than I can recall in my lifetime.

It would be nice to get a handle on what this apparent UK weariness is all about. They used to take great pride in punching above their weight on the world stage for instance, and now they dont seem to care. The constant battles with the Irish? Following the USA into wars with muslims? Entering the Libyan civil war and making things worse? Have these fights, often non productive, tired them out?

My take? Honestly?

Blair fucked us well and truly on the World stage, by taking up the supine position of the war criminal Bush's poodle.
They (the awful, deceitful, smiling assassin New Labour exec) sexed up dossiers, ruined those who tried to expose, oversaw the so called "suicide" of David Kelly, and lied to us in order to drag us into the awful, despicable war with Iraq simply because the moronic Americans were straining at their gung ho leash.
We had hundreds of our fine young men killed and maimed because of you ******* Republicans and Halliburton, and since then we have been, as a nation, very very wary about being manipulated in any way, shape or form regarding conflict.
Since the criminal Bush led both our countries into such an ill thought out venture, Halliburton have registered record profits, the entire Middle East has been destabilised to such an extent that ISIS is easily pissing all over everyone and committing atrocities while they fill the glaring power vacuum caused by you warmongering morons, and Blair is feted as a hero on your after dinner circuit, eaning millions of filthy blood soaked dollars in the process.

To show you how Blair is reviled here, he idiotically attempted to attend a book signing of his fairy tale of an autobiography a year or so ago, and was nearly lynched by the public as he got out of his car. If Bush had been there as well, I would have paid good money to have travelled there myself with the serious intent on causing him harm. There would have been thousands of like minded people there, believe me.

So, you think we are all washed up and have no fight left. Just try coming over here and glorifying the Iraq war. Anyone over there who still thinks it was the right thing to have done is a ******* idiot.

I would love to see Blair and Bush tried at Le Hague for what they did.

La Hague would be fine, too, but La Haye would be more appropriate

I believe you have narrowed your perspective a bit as a way of rationalizing your views. The still operating power vacuum in the Middle East was the result of the Anglo French destruction of the Ottoman Empire during WW1. Iraq itself was a British invention with borders determined in the time-honored tradition of the British Empire to create an inherently unstable state (Sunni, Shia, Kurd) more easily able to be controlled by Britain. (the wiser Ottomans hasd distinct provinces for each). An organized Iraqi revolution in 1920 soundly defeated the British forces there significantly diluting British influence.

British propaganda and comnmercial interests (along with his own messianic view of himself) were a major factor in the Decision of our President Wilson to enter WWI on the side of the Allies. after a prolongued period of neutrality in what was, from our natural perspective, a meaningless European War. With that in mind I would suggest that Bush's persuasion of PM Blair in the 2nd Iraq conflict was just repayment in kind.


WWI also saw the British-inspired Sunni Arab uprising, a central part of its effort to bring down the Ottoman Empire, creating a very big power vacuum that persists today. That and the subsequent betrayal of their Hashemite allies by the British as well as the commitment they made to the Rothchilds for the creation of a "Jewish homeland" in the Mideast it had not yet conquered set the stage for the permanent impasse we have today - a struggle which, like that also created by Britain in Northern Ireland, is likely to last for centuries.

British efforts to control Qajar Persia were initially motivated to protect its Indian posessions and later by the discovery of petroleum for which Britain got a 60 year concession under exceedingly favorable terms in around 1900. That continued with some ajustments under the Anglo Iranian Oil company (controlled by the British) until the mid 1950s when the Iranians under PM Moussadec atempted to force better terms such as were being obtained by the Saudis. Our then new President Eisenhower was induced by the British to execute a coup putting the malleable son of the British installed Reza Shah in power to restore British profits. (I believe Eisenhower later regretted his action and three years later reacted very differently when Britain, France and Israel invaded Egypt in 1956.

I'll readily agree that the war aginst Saddam's Iraq to drive him out of Kuwait was a great error - largely our own. Kuwait was itself a creation oif the British empire and had no historical legitamacy. Saddam was broke after a decade long war with Iran, a country with three times the population of Iraq and he needed the cash to continue his struggle with the Shia fanatics in Iran. Britain and the other European powers gladly joined us in this folly. I find it odd that you reject only the later invasion against Saddam without noting the original. Both were indeed great errors, as is all-too-evident today..

So it seems to me that perspective and the slice of history you use with which to rationalize your prejudices is the dominant factor here. There are other equally or more relevant perspectives - such as what I outlined above - that suggest a very different judgment.

With all due respect, georgeob, bollocks.

In the days before Desert Storm or whatever the **** the warmongering nutters in the USA called it in order to gorify the whole thing, Iraq was run by a tyrant but stable, so was Libya and Syria.

The USA was stunned by 9/11, and revenge was required. It was a novelty for you to have terrorism committed on your home soil, and your lot went ballistic.
If your people had experienced years and years of American funded bombings in their home towns and cities like we had, then maybe you would have just needed a good stock of pantyliners until you all calmed down and thought out a proper response.

To have our Prime Minister seemingly willing to bend down and get shafted by your Moron in Chief is shameful enough for me, but then to have him trot along to the British Parliament and connive and barefaced lie to them in order to lead us into war, is totally unforgivable.

**** WW1 and 2 and your patronising history lesson.....we were shafted by Halliburton, their puppets Bush and Cheney, and our own wannabe moron American-lite warmonger Prime Minister.

Blair, with one fell swoop, made modern Britain just as dishonorable as America on the world stage. I still feel the shame, embarrassment and anger.

Can you tell?

Le Hague, la Hague, tomarto tomayto.

He is just one guy, and he has no power now, so that is not really an explanation, at least not a full one. Is it that politicians in general are no longer trusted to enter global affairs competently so the people dont want to do anything? Is it more you all would like to be active but the bank accounts are running low? Are the rather large defense budget cuts since 2011 supported by the people and if so why?

I personally suspect that Libya was the last straw....yet again the politicians employed warfighting assets and only succeeded in making the nations situation worse. If the politicians continually show that they dont know enough about the world to be able to use the military wisely then perhaps it is time to do nothing. Is that what happened?

I told you what happened.

Stick it up your arse for all I care. It's what happened.

Almost certainly your defensiveness is caused by awareness of the critical flaws in your argument.

That's a laugh coming from the country that with all its military muscle and technology that still got its arse thoroughly kicked by 3rd World power North Vietnam.

I always wondered how that could have happened until I learned that Gob1 played an active role.

Says the man who wrote this just a couple of days ago.



You don't have an argument because you don't have a clue what's going on.

What are you now? A psychiatrist as well as a chickenhawk armchair general?

Your question was answered. What part of the fact that we are now very very wary of you psycho warmongering cnuts do you not understand?

They don't understand that we're still willing to fight, just not for American business interests. Going into a country and royally screwing things up just to make a few rich Americans even richer is something no British soldier should ever have to do again.

What was even worse than the decision to go into Iraq was the way it was carried out, no plan for post Saddam, no intelligence, (hailed as liberators,) and no understanding of the consequences other than making a quick buck. It was ill conceived and carried out by complete morons.