Don’t forget to keep hydrated!

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So where does that leave Iraq?

As something for Blair to whine that he is innocent about?
I don’t know – I don’t have the answers. I do see, though, that whilst I don’t have the solution what I have seen was not the best way to have gone about things.

I don’t buy what David Cameron said today: that Britain is in danger from ISIS or from British ISIS fighters returning from Iraq or Syria.

My guess is that he believes that, once their mission in the Middle East is over, the survivors and their mates will try exporting their brand of religious hatred to other areas, Britain being one of them. That thinking should help boost Ukip’s fan base in time for the next election.

To my mind the only danger is if Britain starts to take military action, or supports military action against ISIS.

Maybe, but then again we have already stuck our heads above the parapet so any danger is already a possibility…

Britain should leave well alone. Let Muslim carry on killing Muslim in the centuries-old feud; I’m sure that in some quarters that the West will get the blame but there should be no military intervention whatsoever.

Whoa!!!
Are you not a member of the human race? Does not the killing of one man by another diminish you by association?
Yes, despite that thought there will always be feral swine who need to be culled, but the indiscriminate slaughter that generally takes place NEVER confines itself to just the militant wings of the two parties concerned – innocents always end up being involved.
That is not to say that we should get involved, but if someone doesn’t then there will be (sorry, is!) mass murder… History has shown that this is what has happened before, and will be what will happen in the future.

If ‘the World’ thinks that something should be done about it then let another Muslim country intervene; Saudi Arabia surely can afford to do something, even if it is only to take in the millions of refugees that this latest conflict will produce.

Good grief.
Sure, the Saudis would be happy to get more involved if they weren’t (most probably, since they are the main backers of the Syrian opposition) one of the ‘silent’ ISIS backers…

And the problem with refugees from one of this type of war zone is that insurgents hide amongst the legitimates, whether to recruit from the affected or help cause unrest in the camps. And many Arabic countries have displayed a distinct reluctance to be seen to get involved in case that stirs the ire of groups like ISIS.

Lots of room on roads to waste em between towns, shades of Kuwait… Their supply line must be getting pretty stretched to, cut it off at the Syrian border and they are screwed, if the Iranians etc get in behind them there screwed, bad move was killing Iraqi prisoners, once it’s known that if you surrender they will kill you, no one will ever ever surrender again, they will fight to the death.

…Or run away just that little bit faster.

Sure, it does focus the mind.

Happy summer…?

It’s that time of year again!

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The thread is about the St George’s flag but I think it’s the saltire for Andy isn’t it??!!;)

Not whilst he is the only hope for Great Britain…;o)

And the thread is about plastic flags on cars and, indirectly, the fall of the England team from the world cup. You taken the flag off your car yet?

You say that now, but I spy fingerprints on your monitor…;o)

You for coffee…;o)

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Always used to get the reply ‘no, you fer coffee!‘

No, it wouldn’t and most of the reason it wouldn’t was that almost every government and the UN thought that Saddam had WMD.

You sure about that? Really sure?
My belief, even after all this time, is that Bush strong-armed the UN into believing that Hans Blix was not playing for the team despite Saddam – eventually! – giving in to every search request, which came up negative.

I make no apology for quoting Wiki:

In March 2003 the United States government announced that “diplomacy has failed” and that it would proceed with a “coalition of the willing” to rid Iraq under Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction the US insisted it possessed…

…Prior to 2002, the Security Council had passed 16 resolutions on Iraq. In 2002, the Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1441.

In 2003, the governments of the US, Britain, and Spain proposed another resolution on Iraq, which they called the “eighteenth resolution” and others called the “second resolution.” This proposed resolution was subsequently withdrawn when it became clear that several permanent members of the Council would cast ‘no’ votes on any new resolution, thereby vetoing it. Had that occurred, it would have become even more difficult for those wishing to invade Iraq to argue that the Council had authorized the subsequent invasion. Regardless of the threatened or likely vetoes, it seems that the coalition at no time was assured any more than four affirmative votes in the Council—the US, Britain, Spain, and Bulgaria—well short of the requirement for nine affirmative votes.

On September 16, 2004 Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, speaking on the invasion, said, “I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN Charter. From our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal.”…

…Report of Hans Blix on February 14
UN Chief Inspector Hans Blix, on 14 February 2003, presented a report to the Security Council. Blix gave an update of the situation in Iraq, and he stated that the Iraqis were now more proactive in their cooperation. He also rebutted some of the arguments proposed by Powell. Blix questioned the interpretations of the satellite images put forward by Powell, and stated that alternate interpretations of the satellite images were credible. He also stated that the Iraqis have in fact never received early warning of the inspectors visiting any sites (an allegation made by Powell during his presentation). International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohammed ElBaradei also said that he did not believe the Iraqis have a nuclear weapons program, unlike what Powell had claimed.

This report of February 14 and the protests of February 16 appear to have created reluctance in some of the members of the Security Council over the proposed war on Iraq. A second resolution was being drafted with the intention that it would find Iraq in “material breach” and the “serious consequences” of Resolution 1441 should be implemented.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_and_the_Iraq_War

More a coalition of the coerced, not of the willing, thanks to the US’s arm twisting tactics.

This, of course, is why the UN voted for the invasion.

Um, no they didn’t. Really. They didn’t.

Look at the UN members sitting on the Security Council at the time:

I make that four from fifteen, with the rest either totally against but happy to continue the inspections or happy to invade with UN backing and continued inspections or had not yet made up their minds but still wanted inspections.
That is nowhere near the majority of nine required by UN requirements.

Remember Colin Powell? (The one who pronounced his name differently to every other Colin in the world! Thats Coh-lyn Powell, a bit like bowling with a strong ‘n’ and no ‘g’, the pretentious git)
In 2004 and 2005 he admitted he had given inaccurate information to the UN in the run up to the invasion:

I feel terrible … [giving the speech] … It’s a blot. I’m the one who presented it on behalf of the United States to the world, and [it] will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It’s painful now. Sep 8, 2005

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_and_the_Iraq_War

(As an aside, in 1968 he was charged with investigating claims about the My Lai massacre before it became widely publicised; apparently the Vietnamese people and the US Army had an excellent relationship which was a fact and refuted those terrible rumours. Then the letters got noticed, and when the pictures were published the backlash started against the military…)

And then there was the memo leak from GCHQ about the NSA hacking phones and emails of UN diplomats opposing the invasion which became a court case under the Official Secrets Act that, when Katherine Gun announced she would plead not guilty on the grounds that she was trying to prevent an illegal war, the prosecution pulled out without giving any evidence…

I, a Labour voter, was against the invasion and was pretty p!ssed off that a foot injury prevented me from going on the march. I thought it was wrong and I still think it was wrong.

Yeah, thought I didn’t see you there…;o)

Thank you for reminding us that a large majority here and at the UN and in many other countries too, were in favour. I suppose Blair is there as a scapegoat to salve the consciouses of some of that majority. A reaction I find both ludicrous and hysterical.

But they didn’t, Charlie. If only you did some research instead of going with your heart you wouldn’t be making such, ahem, ludicrous and hysterical claims.

Maybe, maybe not – but when someone posts a thread about a subject only to be told that it is on a thread about Duxford and also on a thread about flights in Spitfires when the incident concerned was not at Duxford nor in a Spitfire… Some should chill a little. Heyho.