grrclark Posted December 3, 2015 Report Share Posted December 3, 2015 The thread does make for interesting reading and is fairly polarised which is very much a reflection of public sentiment in general. I personally think that agreeing to join in the air campaign was the right thing to do, but I also accept that is largely a political statement and in itself will not achieve success. However I firmly believe that the political statement was necessary for a multitude of reasons. I don't believe there is such a thing as 'a solution' to peace in the Middle East, I think the best that we can hope for is relative stability for a period of time. ME history is certainly not anything that I would claim to have expert knowledge in, but I do know enough to understand that much like Europe there has always been periods of intense conflict and periods of stability. The region has been a crossing point of cultures, societies of religions for hundreds of years, but unlike much of Europe has robustly continued to follow what may be described a more extreme level of cultural, social and religious adherence. As significant parts of the world further embrace a mixing or dilution of cultural, social and religious identities, becoming more liberal in the process, that will always result in a greater likelihood of conflict between liberal and conservative. Perversely the increasing liberalisation of the majority tends to increase the level of conservatism of the minority, or vice versa. This is the reason why I believe there is no single solution, the issues are multiple and complex and so the solutions must be. Some of these solutions will involve force and some won't. The history of conflict and peace in the ME has been cyclical, this current phase is part of that cycle too, perhaps it is just unfortunate that it is the turn of our generations to have to live through this period of conflict and try to find some sort of path back to relative peace. Our evolution as a society has embraced and benefited from many things, including technology and ease of communication so we are now much more aware of world issues, hopefully this will allow us to evolve in a more global humanitarian capacity and have greater tolerance of different belief systems, but in that respect we are still in our infancy so despite the well wishing, naysaying, hand wringing, war mongering, idealism or whatever other emotive term we choose to describe either side of the argument we will sadly never see an end to conflict in all our lifetimes; if we do then it will be because of the ultimate conflict that will end all lifetimes. There is a healthy dose of confirmation bias taking place by those on both sides of this argument, which is largely to be expected, and there is little real debate taking place so this shall be my last contribution to the thread too. I daresay many will be grateful as I do waffle on Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FOXHUNTER1 Posted December 3, 2015 Report Share Posted December 3, 2015 Well the right decision was made .....my full support to the RAF lads .. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
malkiserow Posted December 4, 2015 Report Share Posted December 4, 2015 (edited) To me this a bit like a chess tournament: All players know the rules Some players obey the rules, some players use ancient versions of rules or just invent new ones to suit their game plan In the games, there are basically 2 types of player (player type 1= baseball cap wearing, player type 2= camo face veil wearing) All baseball cap team sit on one side of a 1 way mirror and they only see glass, the Camo Veil players see their opponents through the 1 way mirror All base ball cap team sit on glass chairs, they feel fairly solid but could break at any time and upset the players. All Camo Veil team are on segways, highly mobile and hard to topple Sometimes the chess pieces change colour but that is not always obvious to the baseball cap team The camo veil team also use some board squares that are invisible for their chess pieces to pause Check-mate is the end game of only one side, The camo veil team don't need to win a game to succeed, getting baseball cap team sitting on their glass chairs and at the table is enough Bishop pieces are coloured for one team but wear an invisibility cloak for the other. Pawns are not just 8 for one team and have a seemingly endless supply that appear from the invisible squares Castles are there as handy static targets for one team A queen is not all that useful on this board The baseball cap teams appear to not play one opponent, they appear to be playing a moving team on the other side of the glass mirror On occasions, one of the baseball team will cough and topple a fellow base ball team players' piece on a neighbouring table and say "oooops, sorry mate" The games in this tournament don't use clocks for timed moves..... in fact, all clocks have been removed from the room at the behest of the camo veil players, this tournament will take a long time to play out Edited December 4, 2015 by malkiserow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
islandgun Posted December 4, 2015 Report Share Posted December 4, 2015 Malki I think your explanation is as good as it gets, it certainly increased my knowledge on the subject Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hamster Posted December 4, 2015 Report Share Posted December 4, 2015 You literally couldn't make it up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
overandunder2012 Posted December 4, 2015 Report Share Posted December 4, 2015 (edited) i struggle to believe russia america the uk france and god know who else couldn't end this **** in a month if they wanted to after all they are supposed to have the best troops equipment and training and a bunch of ***** have been walking around giving them the bird for years!!!! if all those countries combined can't take those ***** out they are worse than useless. Edited December 4, 2015 by overandunder2012 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
overandunder2012 Posted December 4, 2015 Report Share Posted December 4, 2015 (edited) the solution is to tell the Chinese jihadist testicals are aphrodisiacs then they will be extinct in 5 years lol Edited December 4, 2015 by overandunder2012 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poontang Posted December 4, 2015 Report Share Posted December 4, 2015 You literally couldn't make it up. To be fair what he actually said was that Russia bombing the Assad opposition forces was the problem and would increase radicalisation, and that the Russians should join the forces attacking ISIS. He's still a *** though...and I'm still a #terroristsympathiser Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STOTTO Posted December 4, 2015 Report Share Posted December 4, 2015 This is just 12 minutes long, beats 12 weeks of Western governments propaganda : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6kdi1UXxhY&oref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Do6kdi1UXxhY&has_verified=1 Not so much news as confirmation as to the wisdom of forming a political strategy based upon “Military Intelligence”. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digger Posted December 4, 2015 Report Share Posted December 4, 2015 As an aside I read about the technical capabilities of the various jets in use there at the moment. Seems ours is the slowest at mach 1.8 whilst all the others do 2.0. Also how does one missile cost £100 k someone's making a hell of a lot of money from this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KFC Posted December 4, 2015 Report Share Posted December 4, 2015 As an aside I read about the technical capabilities of the various jets in use there at the moment. Seems ours is the slowest at mach 1.8 whilst all the others do 2.0. Also how does one missile cost £100 k someone's making a hell of a lot of money from this. Good reason to keep wars going Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dawntredder Posted December 4, 2015 Report Share Posted December 4, 2015 Sort them Isis dummy's out with the bombing raids but we need to get the lads boots on the ground I really think this is what they would be up for....in my experience apart from afganistan which seems like it is a never ending war and nee one has ever beat them,but like Bosnia and Iraq we pretty much had it nipped in the bud...my opinion is that these guys in Isis would down there guns and run for the hills like Saddam's pussys did...just drop in 20,000 mixed soldiers and there would be no compition!!! 3 commando god dress you & shine on you!...PS...Bosnia took a bit longer but it could of went on much longer! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fenboy Posted December 4, 2015 Report Share Posted December 4, 2015 the solution is to tell the Chinese jihadist testicals are aphrodisiacs then they will be extinct in 5 years lol You sir are a genious , a nobel peace prize winner for sure Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
old man Posted December 5, 2015 Report Share Posted December 5, 2015 despite my limited knowledge of the M.E and the military, it still seems to me that instead of bombing the place, peeing off the locals, explaining away collaterol damage, inciting yet more people to sign up to terrorism, and witnessing the funerals of our own military, we could spend the money and time depriving isis of arms,money,fuel and food. rigourously protecting our own borders and seeking out the militants that already live here Absolutely correct IMHO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluesj Posted December 6, 2015 Report Share Posted December 6, 2015 There was a bloke on the news that had come from Syria some years ago and working in a Syrian shop saying that the uk should not be bombing Syrian and IS as it wasn't anything to do with the UK it was there fight. Just a shame that the interviewer didn't ask why he wasn't there fighting it or any of the young male so call refugees but maybe they don't think there own homes are worth fighting for! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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