There was an article in one of the broadsheets a couple of days ago arguing the point that there is absolutley no point in having a defence review until there has been a thorough foreign policy rerview.

The oft committed mistakes of review after review going back to the 1950s is that governmnents always put cost before policy.

We need to debate what our foreign policy objectives are for the next 20/30 years and then align our defence spending to those requirements. Defence policy cannot be decided in isolation. The problem is that it is so easy for governments to cut expenditure but much, much more difficult and much more dangerous to make committments to our global relationships years hence.

A police sergeant has been accused of cruelty after it took two shots to dispatch an injured kangaroo..do you think it was cruelty or the humane thing to do??

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/cop-accused-of-cruelty-after-taking-two-shots-to-kill-kangaroo/story-e6frf7jx-1225823920905

Steve, is it me, or is there someting about the stories you always seem to link from the Herald Sun…..??:eek:

Totally agree about Shawshank – brilliant. And I am glad I was not tempted to the stage version – it sounded a bummer!

Everybody I worked with at the time (In the MoD, DoD) knew we were going in to finish the job and kill off the idiot. We couldn’t understand the need for the spin on the 45 mins etc. apart from the fact that we don’t like to be seen as over-throwers. So, lies were made up in order to sell to a delicate and PC brainwashed public. If we had Churchill standing up and demanding the head of Sad Huss then it would have been fine.

I don’t think you are far off the mark with that blunt assessment. Churchill would have struggled with and been frustrated by late 20th century obfuscation.

Disagree that the War in Iraq at that time and for the stated aims was right.

If however the stated aims had been we’re going to go in and remove this guy because we should have done it back in ’91, then i would have agreed and supported the action.
As it stands the government at the time took Britain into a war for supurious reasons and very murky, unclear aims. At least that’s what i expect the enquiry to conclude! 😉

Edit:
Should also add that many many people stated at the time that the “intelligence” was pure hockum, a guy also died because he said the “intelligence” was wrong.

I suspect that there were a number of the military, diplomats and politicians on both sides of the Atlantic determined to find a way of finishing the unfinished job of the First Gulf War.

WMD became a tool to do the the job and then a red herring. Extinguishing Saddam was always the key objective but because this could never be overtly discussed neither could the post-overthrow plan be discussed.

The venture was doomed from the start and the aftermath inevitable. Having said that those deep seated critics never believed that Iraq in 2010 would be the nation that it is. It is imperfect but the lives of its people improve by the month and it is no worse a democracy than dozens of other democracies.

A fair judgment can be made on Iraq in another 10 years.

Moggy

“Absolutely. I read that on the internet too. Just makes my point.”

Exactly, and it just proves how selective you have to be when browsing so that you can distinguish between the serious and the flippant, to avoid repeating your mistake of linking the seriously accepted non-existence of man made climate change ( or global warming, to reinstate the correct description ) with fraudulent footage of man landing on the moon.

This is starting to wander off into another thread…….

The lure of a nice BBQ and cold drink in the beautiful summer sunshine..would you take a sickie??
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/aussies-set-sickie-record-before-australia-day/story-e6frf7jo-1225823426846

If you lost a day’s pay for your sickie, I doubt so many would be “sick”. Everyone’s conning everyone else so it would be easier to formalise the holiday and be done with it, wouldn’t it?

Oh for heavens sake!

Titanic never sank, Kennedy and Elvis are having a same-sex relationship on a Pacific Island as neither of them are dead, there is no such thing as man-made climate change, the moon landings were all filmed on a Hollywood back lot

How many times do you guys need to be told?

Moggy

Ah, Moggy, you just had to slip “no such thing as man-made climate change” into your otherwise excellent list of frauds!:rolleyes: Whereas of course we all know that there is no such thing as man made climate change.;)