Politics & Stuff

[kellzfresh 7,229]

That's a good point and I think it has a bit in common with the football hooligans of the 1980s. Take The Firm for example (great Alan Clarke film, Gary Oldman is amazing in it). It was about guys who in their normal lives were average men, somewhat powerless, emasculated and pathetic in some ways but as part of this 'gang' they were powerful, They commanded respect amongst their peers in a way they didn't elsewhere.

Others have echoed that sentiment, that maybe these men travelling to fight simply don't have that purpose to their lives and extremist Islam takes advantage of that. But I (and many others based on my experiences) don't give a fuck about that anymore. Our sympathy has dissipated. You can look at the rise of Hitler in the 1930s and trace it back to the punitive measures the Treaty of Versailles inflicted on the German people, but that doesn't mean I feel bad about us going to war with them.

What we have now is an evil ideology that needs to be combatted and it will happen, somehow.

More and more people will get sick of it and It will be combated sooner or later sadly. That's why I'm hoping the areas of Islamic doctrine that preach non violence should be made public so that people will stop increasing on the other side.

That is why people are not showing as much concern as there should be on those poor people dying in Gaza, because they include them among the terrorists bracket if they help hamas.

[Fulham Broadway 17,333]

We seem to have moved away from politics to religion, but this is understandable as the lines are often blurred.

In the UK and other western countries we have privileged, pampered so called 'Royal families'. These groups descendants justified their rule and slaughter of all competitors in that they were 'ordained by God'. People say they are now an anachronism, a quaint legacy. The truth is the 'Crown' wields immense power. People in the uk are not legally citizens, but 'subjects'. There are 1500-2000 unelected senior civil servants, answering directly to 'the Crown', who remain in their positions of power regardless of which party is voted in, and determine uk policy. The government of the day, which when elected has to ask the queen to form a government, are generally a mouthpiece for the civil servants loyal to 'the crown' policies.

ISIS, Saudi Royal family, and others believe they have a right to behave as they do, again because they are 'ordained' and have divine right by their God. Israel believes that the land was given to them by their God. No wonder its fucked up.

This prompts the age old question Athens or Jerusalem ? Secularism, the separation of God from all State affairs is so much preferable to my mind. The lines get blurred though, and distorted when pseudo religous justification occurs. Israel now think theyre morally superior, so called Christians in the White House, spurred on by Texan fundamental Christian Republicans and Israeli billionaires, carpet bomb with impunity, and muslim extremists distort the Quran to suit their agenda.

After 9/11 there were twice as many people bombed in Afghanistan 3 months later than were killed in the Trade Centres. People with no internet, no news, yet were prime suspects or 'associates' even though teh US had concrete evidence the (dead) suspects were Saudis. Prior to this the Taliban were courted and feted in the US.

The main problems in the middle east stem from Western intervention, from the carving up of Iraq creating Kuwait in the 1920s, to the installation of Israel, to the bombing and opening up of Iraq in the 1990s and 2000s, opening a hornets nest of released ethnicities.

This modern day colonialism, can be crystallised last week when you have a more than likely, London college educated young man chopping off the head of an American college educated man, in a country thousands of miles away, that neither should be fighting over.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

muslim extremists distort the Quran to suit their agenda.

Actually, ISIS said that the current one has been distorted and are now writing their own Quran. I kid you not!

http://www.14publications.com/blog/isis-want-to-change-quran/

http://www.pakistantv.tv/2014/08/04/daesh-isis-want-rewrite-quran/#sthash.YWwtySi2.dpbs

[The Skipper 20,609]

Actually, ISIS said that the current one has been distorted and are now writing their own Quran. I kid you not!

http://www.14publications.com/blog/isis-want-to-change-quran/

http://www.pakistantv.tv/2014/08/04/daesh-isis-want-rewrite-quran/#sthash.YWwtySi2.dpbs

Wow. Incredible if true.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

Wow. Incredible if true.

That's nothing. They plan to destroy the Kaaba (you know that big square black thing that thousands of Muslims pilgrims pray around each year)

Don't even ask me to explain why because I honestly don't get it. This last Fitr Eid (it's the Muslim holiday at the end of the holy month of fasting, Ramadan) they prevented mosques from doing the Eid prayer (a very famous Muslim tradition).

It's really not defending or making excuses for Islam when one says that ISIS are not Muslim.

[The Skipper 20,609]

That's nothing. They plan to destroy the Kaaba (you know that big square black thing that thousands of Muslims pilgrims pray around each year)

Don't even ask me to explain why because I honestly don't get it. This last Fitr Eid (it's the Muslim holiday at the end of the holy month of fasting, Ramadan) they prevented mosques from doing the Eid prayer (a very famous Muslim tradition).

It's really not defending or making excuses for Islam when one says that ISIS are not Muslim.

Yeah, I have muslim friends and know a lot about how treasured all those events and places are since I used to have a lot of debates with them but wow... That's awful. I wouldn't even remotely affiliate IS with Islam anymore, that's shocking.

[Fulham Broadway 17,333]

Actually, ISIS said that the current one has been distorted and are now writing their own Quran. I kid you not!

http://www.14publications.com/blog/isis-want-to-change-quran/

http://www.pakistantv.tv/2014/08/04/daesh-isis-want-rewrite-quran/#sthash.YWwtySi2.dpbs

A theme echoed through history. In the UK we are taught about the 'Reformation'.

Basically Henry VIII married to Catherine of Aragon, wanted to fuck Anne Boleyn, but the Catholic Church and Papal doctrine forbade any divorce. So what did old Enry do ? Set up his own religion, The Church of England. So then he got divorced, married Anne Boleyn and chopped her head off. The Church of Psychotic Bastards, more like.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

A theme echoed through history. In the UK we are taught about the 'Reformation'.

Basically Henry VIII married to Catherine of Aragon, wanted to fuck Anne Boleyn, but the Catholic Church and Papal doctrine forbade any divorce. So what did old Enry do ? Set up his own religion, The Church of England. So then he got divorced, married Anne Boleyn and chopped her head off. The Church of Psychotic Bastards, more like.

Yes, except those lot want to kill more people. They want to remove the part about Islam being a choice and not something that people have to follow.

[Fulham Broadway 17,333]

Yes, except those lot want to kill more people. They want to remove the part about Islam being a choice and not something that people have to follow.

Do you think sunnis and other muslims will attack or nullify them ? Is this preferable to US bombing ?Washington already allegedly opening up diologue with shia Iran along the lines of "my enemies enemy is my friend."

[CHOULO19 24,332]

Do you think sunnis and other muslims will attack or nullify them ? Is this preferable to US bombing ?Washington already allegedly opening up diologue with shia Iran along the lines of "my enemies enemy is my friend."

I think ISIS are temporary by force of human nature. It's not a matter of religion or culture or civilization. You only need to be human to reject them. Hence they are doomed to be rejected like a cancerous cell from their birth.

The only question is when will they start to recede. That, unfortunately, is a political question. Because, let's be honest, if everyone wanted them gone, they will be gone. They are currently a political card used to put pressure on the opponents by both sides. A very wild and violent political pressure card but still only a tool.

I suspect the beginning of their end to be as part of a regional political agreement from Iran to Syria to Iraq to Lebanon even to Palestine. Because only a KSA-Iran agreement (and by KSA I mean USA) can end ISIS. But that is going to be a very slow procedure. I'm talking months, maybe even years.

And slightly off the political radar, people will continue to die by the thousands, unfortunately.

[The only place to be 11,313]

In the UK and other western countries we have privileged, pampered so called 'Royal families'. These groups descendants justified their rule and slaughter of all competitors in that they were 'ordained by God'. People say they are now an anachronism, a quaint legacy. The truth is the 'Crown' wields immense power. People in the uk are not legally citizens, but 'subjects'. There are 1500-2000 unelected senior civil servants, answering directly to 'the Crown', who remain in their positions of power regardless of which party is voted in, and determine uk policy. The government of the day, which when elected has to ask the queen to form a government, are generally a mouthpiece for the civil servants loyal to 'the crown' policies.

Scary....except not true. Let's not pretend that anything you've uttered there actually has any basis in reality. The Crown does not 'wield immense power' for fuck's sake.

In fact your whole post is very Ben Elton circa-1987 in that it's tremendously right-on (with all due respect) but doesn't really deal with things as they exist in a real way. Yes the British Empire did some horrible things and we have a hand in the state of the Middle East, but handwringing about white guilt doesn't actually address what we should do now.

I like you as a poster and you seem a sound bloke but I just think that we've moved beyond this type of thinking and actually have to look at how we deal with the issues as they exist in reality, not in a classroom or textbook.

[The Skipper 20,609]

Hamas Finally admitted they killed the 3 Israel teenagers, and yesterday they killed this 4 year old kid

RIP to those 4 young people, and RIP to the 500 young Palestinians that IDF have killed.

[Fulham Broadway 17,333]

Scary....except not true. Let's not pretend that anything you've uttered there actually has any basis in reality. The Crown does not 'wield immense power' for fuck's sake.

In fact your whole post is very Ben Elton circa-1987 in that it's tremendously right-on (with all due respect) but doesn't really deal with things as they exist in a real way. Yes the British Empire did some horrible things and we have a hand in the state of the Middle East, but handwringing about white guilt doesn't actually address what we should do now.

I like you as a poster and you seem a sound bloke but I just think that we've moved beyond this type of thinking and actually have to look at how we deal with the issues as they exist in reality, not in a classroom or textbook.

Haha Ben Elton nice one. I like you as a poster too, even though politically you sound like Bernard Manning circa 1985. There is plenty of evidence the Crown is very powerful in British politics, not the 'Crown' as in the Queen as I am sure you realise, but as an organisational body.

Quite disingeneous to dismiss classrooms and textbooks, and I know its cool, but I did study politics for four years, and like to think the professors were not lying.

The Crown, -one example, two MPs, one tory and one Labour, Geoffrey Dickens and Tony Benn (to give it balance) questioned the chief whips as to why they were not told they had sworn oaths to the Crown. They were told that the oaths didnt have to be sworn by them, but were 'administered' to them. They have no choice. I'll leave you to look up the rest.

[SinineUltra 1,170]

ISIS and Boko Haram should be put on an island and let them terminate eachother. Both represent the same relogion but it is naive to think that their actions are soley based on it.

[hjperdeath 2,226]

Trying to protect civilians, right?

http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/starve-or-surrender-cut-all-food-and-water-gaza-says-israeli-general

[Fulham Broadway 17,333]

Trying to protect civilians, right?

http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/starve-or-surrender-cut-all-food-and-water-gaza-says-israeli-general

At least theres a ceasefire of sorts now -even though Gaza is still in effect a prison camp.

Back to Iraq, -Bombing Iraq, as retired Air Force lieutenant colonel William Astore indicates, '' has become a national pastime.

It looks like Washington has finally created the perfect machine for the weapons industry.

Think of it this way: first Washington provides the Iraqi military with training and massive infusions of military equipment to the tune of $25 billion. Next that military, faced with its first serious opposition, the militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), numbering in the thousands against security forces in the hundreds of thousands, collapses. In June, two full divisions, 30,000 Iraqi troops, flee the city of Mosul, abandoning their posts in the face of the advance of ISIS fighters. In all, four divisions of the country’s 14-division army disintegrate throughout the north. Left behind is a massive trove of U.S.-supplied weaponry, including 1,500 Humvees, 52 U.S.-made M198 howitzers, tanks, trucks, rifles, and ammunition.

ISIS militants, who seem remarkably capable of operating such equipment without an American trainer or adviser in sight, then turn some of that weaponry (as well as weapons captured from the Syrian military) on U.S.-backed forces, including, in the north, Kurdish pesh merga militias. To save its Kurdish allies from disaster, the Obama administration then sends in the U.S. Air Force (both fighter-bombers and Predator drones) in close support of the beleaguered Kurdish forces. Doing what air power seems most capable of, the planes begin destroying the armored vehicles and artillery pieces ISIS has brought to bear in Kurdish areas. In other words, U.S. air power is called in to take out U.S. military equipment (and anyone manning it).

To complete the circle, both the Iraqis defending Baghdad and the Kurds now desperately need new weaponry, and Washington is already starting to supply it in the north and soon undoubtedly in the south as well. Can there be any question that this is a win-win situation for the American arms industry and the military-industrial complex? It gives new meaning to American bombing campaigns that, since 1991, have proven to be disastrous regional destabilizers. Think of this as an innovative profit center for American industry and a jobs-creation exercise of the first order: we provide the weapons, we destroy them, then we provide more''. but its a;so double bubble for the US because they ask Iraq to also pay for the weapons.

Washington has also put at least $50 billion in weaponry and training into Afghanistan’s security forces. So the future is bright.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

US 'slams' outside interference in Libya warning Egypt that airstrikes will only add to the chaos: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-s-slams-outside-interference-libya-wake-airstrikes-n188966

Good to see the folks in Washington have a sense of humor...

[The only place to be 11,313]

Haha Ben Elton nice one. I like you as a poster too, even though politically you sound like Bernard Manning circa 1985. There is plenty of evidence the Crown is very powerful in British politics, not the 'Crown' as in the Queen as I am sure you realise, but as an organisational body.

I'm actually fairly liberal on most subjects from women's rights to drug laws to gay rights and free speech. But I'm sure that the Manning line was just a throwaway one that you didn't put much thought into and couldn't back up if I challenged you so I won't take it too personally.

As for the crown having influence, I think you're grossly overstating it. Institutions like that simply don't have the power they once did.

Quite disingeneous to dismiss classrooms and textbooks, and I know its cool, but I did study politics for four years, and like to think the professors were not lying.

Classrooms and textbooks are great, but should be taken in context. I'm sure your professors weren't lying but I guarantee they certainly weren't without bias and any source should be critically analysed.

I think some of your posts are very 'right-on' but sound utterly regurgitated and don't actually have much in terms of opinion or originality about them. That probably sounds a bit more critical then I meant it to but there's a lot of fluff to your posts. You clearly have an agenda against arms companies and see conspiracies in them, but I'd really like a straight answer to what you actually think about Islam.

I've been quite open about my views on it (and other religions) which has seen me labelled as Islamaphobic and 'Manning-esque', but what do you truly think about it?

[The only place to be 11,313]

At least theres a ceasefire of sorts now -even though Gaza is still in effect a prison camp.

Back to Iraq, -Bombing Iraq, as retired Air Force lieutenant colonel William Astore indicates, '' has become a national pastime.

It looks like Washington has finally created the perfect machine for the weapons industry.

Think of it this way: first Washington provides the Iraqi military with training and massive infusions of military equipment to the tune of $25 billion. Next that military, faced with its first serious opposition, the militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), numbering in the thousands against security forces in the hundreds of thousands, collapses. In June, two full divisions, 30,000 Iraqi troops, flee the city of Mosul, abandoning their posts in the face of the advance of ISIS fighters. In all, four divisions of the country’s 14-division army disintegrate throughout the north. Left behind is a massive trove of U.S.-supplied weaponry, including 1,500 Humvees, 52 U.S.-made M198 howitzers, tanks, trucks, rifles, and ammunition.

ISIS militants, who seem remarkably capable of operating such equipment without an American trainer or adviser in sight, then turn some of that weaponry (as well as weapons captured from the Syrian military) on U.S.-backed forces, including, in the north, Kurdish pesh merga militias. To save its Kurdish allies from disaster, the Obama administration then sends in the U.S. Air Force (both fighter-bombers and Predator drones) in close support of the beleaguered Kurdish forces. Doing what air power seems most capable of, the planes begin destroying the armored vehicles and artillery pieces ISIS has brought to bear in Kurdish areas. In other words, U.S. air power is called in to take out U.S. military equipment (and anyone manning it).

To complete the circle, both the Iraqis defending Baghdad and the Kurds now desperately need new weaponry, and Washington is already starting to supply it in the north and soon undoubtedly in the south as well. Can there be any question that this is a win-win situation for the American arms industry and the military-industrial complex? It gives new meaning to American bombing campaigns that, since 1991, have proven to be disastrous regional destabilizers. Think of this as an innovative profit center for American industry and a jobs-creation exercise of the first order: we provide the weapons, we destroy them, then we provide more''. but its a;so double bubble for the US because they ask Iraq to also pay for the weapons.

Washington has also put at least $50 billion in weaponry and training into Afghanistan’s security forces. So the future is bright.

So you have a problem with individuals or corporations who use political machinations to exploit or harm the masses for their own personal gain by co-opting natural/national resources for personal gain?

[Fulham Broadway 17,333]

I'm actually fairly liberal on most subjects from women's rights to drug laws to gay rights and free speech. But I'm sure that the Manning line was just a throwaway one that you didn't put much thought into and couldn't back up if I challenged you so I won't take it too personally.

As for the crown having influence, I think you're grossly overstating it. Institutions like that simply don't have the power they once did.

Classrooms and textbooks are great, but should be taken in context. I'm sure your professors weren't lying but I guarantee they certainly weren't without bias and any source should be critically analysed.

I think some of your posts are very 'right-on' but sound utterly regurgitated and don't actually have much in terms of opinion or originality about them. That probably sounds a bit more critical then I meant it to but there's a lot of fluff to your posts. You clearly have an agenda against arms companies and see conspiracies in them, but I'd really like a straight answer to what you actually think about Islam.

I've been quite open about my views on it (and other religions) which has seen me labelled as Islamaphobic and 'Manning-esque', but what do you truly think about it?

Islam and all religions I have a problem with but not people who are believers. Maybe we should open a religion thread, but it would probably be closed within an hour