For Christ’s sake, this isn’t the bloody telegraph you know!

And your point is ? Did I sign off as “Angry of Tubridge Wells” ?
All I was saying was that (weather or not you believe UN sanction still holds any sway) by siding with Bush and going into Iraq without it, Blair lost any moral high ground he may have had.
As a nation if we ‘feel’ we are ‘right’ we will fight to the end. If we don’t have that feeling it leaves a nasty taste, particularly when the bodybags come home.

I missed Alex’s post (the one that Grey Area has turned red….. maybe just as well) but I assume from further reading that it alluded to some lack of sympathy for the victims.

I still ocasionally fill in and do some work for the people I use to work with/for.
For those who don’t know I used to be a Trade Union Official ( Teamsters for our US cousins ).
Today I was ‘manning the office’ for a while and I spent a good hour on the phone talking to someone in a neighbouring Branch (Local [US]) who lost somebody last Thursday.
Two hours later following a welfare enquiry call from elsewhere (and after a couple of calls to ‘the Met hotline’) I put two and two together and I had to phone the same person back and tell them that another member of their Branch was listed as ‘missing’, and by all accounts probably still buried in the wreakage at Kings Cross.

I didn’t know either of the people involved but don’t think that I don’t feel it, far from it.
It has not been an easy day.

P.

Read the openening thread. He is already running with a white flag.

Well you may have read Alexz33 it but you obviously didn’t understand it.
If you think I am running then I will stand still, you catch me up and try and take the flag that you think I am holding off this Englishman, you will regret the attempt I promise you. 😡 I hope you are able to grasp the concept of ‘figure of speech’ 🙁
To those of you saying ‘nieve’ I was being sarcastic, I know it will never happen, as some of you say ‘No integrity’.

Quite rightly Vortex said that Al Queda listed Great Britain as a target but then they listed every allied nation that took part in the first Gulf War as a target (although I am not quite sure what he means by the “sounds like 1930’s Britain the way you wanted it” part, perhaps Vortex could explain) for an appeaser I am not !

What Blair missed was the opportunity to prevent Bush falling into the trap Osama bin Laden and Al Queda had set for him.
To stand my country beside a gung ho US president and allow it to fall into the same hole is unforgivable.

To go into Iraq a second time and without UN sanction was sheer folly and shows a complete mis-understanding of the Arab mindset (regardless of his/her religion).
“Any attack on my brother is an attack on me” It’s deep rooted from birth and ‘in the blood’.

Flattening villages in Afghanistan may eliminate a few target individuals but it also turns the mind of the innocents that also suffer.
Invading Iraq because Saddam gave sactuary to terrorists (true) or on the grounds of WMD (un-proven and certanly not deliverable to the West in any great quantity nor would thay have ever been at Saddam’s behest, he was quite happy just being in power and a constant thorn in the West’s side) has not solved the situation. It has had the opposite effect.

Where did all the ‘terrorists’ that he harboured go ?
They were long gone before a single GI or British Squaddie stood (or lost their lives) on Iraqi sand.
Where are the WMD ?
Conveniently forgotten about, as is the paper trail that leads back to many large corporations and company’s in the West that had dealings with Saddam.

What are we left with ?

A nation in total turmoil, a magnet to every US hating extremist group, a people who deep down may be glad to see the back of Saddam but don’t feel good about it because thousands of their people died in the process.
A process undertaken by the US and her allies, hate one hate all.

By ‘going in’ without UN sanction it has made it far easier for Osama and/or Al Queda to justify ‘reprisals’.

Somewhere in the UK, in respectable street, in a quiet suburban neighbourhood there are people who know how Thursdays deeds were done.
In the communities they live in there will be some who ‘know’, but they will never tell.
What are we to do ? Flatten swaithes of Luton or Bradford or the parts of London with high concentations of Molsems because our intelligence services say that someone there has connections that prove they must know whodunnit ? Unthinkable behaviour yes, but don’t forget it’s the first hand experience of many innocents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

F-18 Hamburger writes
“love me flame me, i don’t care. If you ask me, I think the British gov’t should continue supporting the war on terror because they are partially responsible for the whole mess in the first place, a long time ago that is. It was the British (along with the French) that sought to hasten the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire (where conflicts between Jews and Muslims were nowhere near as bad as today), manipulate the situation in Egypt, made many irresponsible policies over Palestine/Israel, and their adventures in Iran. The latter two problems being transplated to the Americans.”

I have to agree with him to an extent.
The British Empire was in many cases an awful thing to fall under. We made dreadful mistakes at the end of WW2 regarding Palestine and the same in the vast bulk of the middle east in the 1920’s however, we eventually realised that you cannot impose your will on nations that will not be imposed upon. In esscence we met our equals, eventually realised it and ingloriously withdrew leaving them to it.
With the benefit of hindsight what we left behind may not have turned out the best but (bear in mind that warring tribes and factions, power struggles and terrorist bombings are nothing new) it was the best that could be done at the time.
Today things are different. The Grandfathers of those affected in those times did not have the power of projection that today’s freedom fighter has.
If they had posessed it then, the ‘Flying Scotsman’ train or the Queen Elizabeth ocean liner would probably have been blasted in reprisal.

Regarding ‘transplanted to the Americans’.
I don’t take sides but I see an odd difference between American reaction to Israeli armoured bulldozers demolishing an entire Palestinian township and an RPG fired into a Israeli settlement usually built on legally occupied Palestinain ground that was probably forcebly taken away in the first place.
The people on the ground don’t care about marking or insignia but they are wise enough to realise that the death from the sky that usually follows comes from an American built helecopter gunship or F15/16 fighter bomber.
It only serves to reinforce the hatred.

The British learned that if you leave well alone you will not be bothered.
You may not like what other people do but that is their part of the world, let them get on with it for if you prevoke them you will face a long and drawn out struggle.
Unfortunately our attitude became far too relaxed and the end of the conflict that we celebrate the 60th anniversary this year resulted.

Today we (should) be wiser and I think European wise we are. For other matters we also learned that “softly softly catchy monkey” is the better way. Leave it to the dark and quiet worlds of MI5 & MI6, eventually they will get the job done withiout too much fuss.

The point that I make is that Blair should have remembered all of this and not poodled up to Bush without realising that one day death and destuction would come to Londons streets.
Don’t look upset now Tony, we the nation knew it would come.
Come one come all, we will never be beaten for we are British, our resolve is solid.
We British (just like any other) will fight and defend what we believe to right, if we beleive that we are in ‘the right’.
We now know that we were not ‘in the right’ on two counts ( lack of UN sanction and WMD) yet our leaders still caused the country to make sacrifice.
It is something that sits uneasy with us as a whole nation, and now we pay the heavy price.

Erez, you post dropped in before I had finished composing mine. Thankyou for your thoughts for our lost and injured ones. Peace be with you and your family.

I have remained quiet until now for a good reason.
Now I know that three people I hold dear are safe I give thanks and my thoughts are with those who have lost loved ones or have people involved on this terrible day.

I will not bring politics into the debate, but this day need not have happened.

Well done to all concerned. Drinks all round everybody ! 🙂

Whilst much of his music might be dismissed as romantic, a bit soppy and stuff that only appealed to the ladies, for millions of blokes around the world he sang the words they were too shy to say. A sad loss indeed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/4643381.stm

Kerimeski in Finland is the place where you will find the worlds biggest church made of wood.

There is a city called Rome on every continent.