(no subject)

[johnny9fingers]

 

I don't know what to say.
I've argued for an end to this idiocy, but.... I do feel we can't leave the Yanks holding the baby without giving proper assistance. It should be both sets of forces, or none. Alas for our damnable ex-leader, but we started this together, and should end it together. Criticising one's ally's policy in order to attempt to change opinion and thereby influence policy is one thing: deserting them quite another.

When sanity becomes dishonourable, I'd opt for madness: but that's just me.

Not certain about this at all.

Comments

I think Steve has once again underlined the glorious absurdity of the whole venture

[ankh156.livejournal.com]

(The absurdity is just about the only glorious thing about it.)

He was on 'Any Questions' last week, and said he's grateful to George W Bush... Grateful to him for looking like a monkey, walkig like a monkey, and talking like a monkey.

Abandoning them to it ? Why not ? They let Bush occupy the Whitehouse, which led us all into this pit of steaming bullshit. Ill advised, ill advised, ill advised... and just a million times more grave now they've gone and done it. I can quite sympathise with Mr Brrroooon for grumpily picking his ball up and stalking off home with it.

"Sod this for a game of soldiers !"

As for the americans... let them eat kack.

In 8 years Bush has set human destiny back several centuries.

We don't owe them loyalty. They owe us (and the whole world) a grovelling, shit-eating apology.

Re: I think Steve has once again underlined the glorious absurdity of the whole venture

[e-compass-rosa.livejournal.com]

I'm with ankh on this one.

Re: I think Steve has once again underlined the glorious absurdity of the whole venture

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Steve is a genius. But (as redpill says) this particular way of doing things doesn't sit well with me.
I would have hoped for a more elegant solution, dammit. And I'd say it's not the Americans en masse who are the folk the rest of the world find objectionable, but the policies of this Republican administration: many of the Republican Americans on LJ don't really approve of them. In fact, many of the Republican Americans in both houses don't approve of them either.
We might not owe them loyalty, but we should stand by our commitments....however, this may effect some change in Washington, which is perhaps its only justification.
As I said, I'm not certain about any of this at all.

Re: I think Steve has once again underlined the glorious absurdity of the whole venture

[ankh156.livejournal.com]

Sorry for the bile, old thing. This whole subject touches a very jumpy nerve that's on a hair-trigger with all the time this has been dragging on. And all the time it's just creating a smokescreen for the real problem in the Middle East - Israel and it's illegal occupation of what's left of Palestine. As for Afghanistan - I never saw any logic in those attacks and bombings. (As you know, I think Bush's band of neocon miscreants had a major hand in the New York attacks anyway, which could mean the whole fucking shooting-match is based on a fiction.)

[red-pill.livejournal.com]

whilst it dosent sit well with me either, part of the issue is over strech. this has been an issue for years, and with both iraq and afgistan, somethings got to give to stop burnout.

wether theres a more elegent soulstion to this problem...i dont know. certenyl, this seems sencble to me. drawing back of troops is happning everywere but afgistan, and places were we have like, 8 blokes and a landrover.

off corse, if germany and co in nato would take a bit more of fighting effort in afganistan, this might not be an issue...

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

I'm honestly surprised, given 9/11, that more NATO troops haven't been sent to Afghanistan. That's one particular conflict that I feel was justified from the start, inasmuch as conflict is ever justified.

Iraq's been a disaster all round.
And now we're doubly compromised.

Shit. I want to kick Tony Blair all the way round Wimbledon Common, despite the good he did in Northern Ireland. Again that's just me.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

That's one particular conflict that I feel was justified from the start

The Afghanistan government didn't attack us. Nonetheless we killed as many Afghan _civilians_ in the first year of bombing (2002) as we lost on 9/11/01 - you'd think we were even by then or at least our taste for revenge would subside. When did Afghanistan declare war on us again? By this logic, Panama has every right to bomb Los Angeles.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

The Afghan government gave sanctuary to the folk that attacked the US on a number of occasions.
And the Taliban as government committed outrages against culture and crimes against women.
Despite this you have a point about the civilians killed. We don't target accurately enough, and therefore are in some ways just as bad as the terrorists, but... if someone attacked me or mine, killing folk dear to me and then boasting about it: and I knew where they were staying....and they were being sheltered by folk who knew what they had done....sorry, I don't care too much about the niceties of the thing.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

I've argued for an end to this idiocy,

Idiocy and/or a criminal act?

I do feel we can't leave the Yanks holding the baby without giving proper assistance

The yanks are raping the baby and stealing its inheritance.

It should be both sets of forces, or none.

I vote for none.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Criminal act yes. Idiocy, yes.

But if neccessary, we should be there

I'd vote for both sets of forces to pull out, but we should have worked harder to change policy in both the US and the UK.
I feel the UK and US should act in concert.
The Atlantic Alliance is more than just a military construct.
Alas, I think this war has damaged a lot more than Iraq, and I'm deeply unhappy about that.
If it has significantly damaged the relationship between our two nations then I really will kick Blair should I ever see him.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Criminal act yes & we should be there = ?????

I don't think the yanks are the right military to help.
We are basically incapable of helping even if the will was present.
I have a hard time making this case to Americans.

Our occupation causes problems and not only by being too trigger happy, but by simply having an American flag displayed on the equipment.

IKE was warning us about the effects of the military industrial complex, this seems a textbook example.

You folks showed some good faith in US, but its pearls before swine I'm afraid.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

I rather hoped that we did ameliorate whatever excesses the US troops were inclined to after being let off the leash by this administration. Can't always be the case, but in general people behave better when there are third parties (even if they're allies) present.

I believe my present state is one of cognitive dissonance. One set of values says one thing....which is one reason why I think that we should be bloody careful about who confront and why: if we're not in the right we shouldn't be there; if we are right we shouldn't stop until the job's finished.
We shouldn't be in Iraq in the first place. But having gone in as an ally we should not withdraw unilaterally.
I really hate the bastards that put us in this situation. Really hate them.
Excuse me while I retire in fugue.

[hazardous-filth.livejournal.com]

The US is to stupid to cut losses and leave, there is nothing wrong with leaving because one realises staying is the most stupid option, especially if one even disagrees with the initial reasons for going there. About a third way into this war a friend mentioned a lecturers talk on bankrupts, gamblers etc, how many really stupid people are unable to cut their losses & leave and will give the losses so far as justification for continuing. "We've invested so much!" About a week later Bush or some government military official was on tv saying they couldn't leave due to all the soldiers lives lost so far.

Throwing money (or money and soldiers here) at a situation won't eventually lead to resolution, somethings are not possible and will just be sinkholes. People need to learn to identify them and pull out while the losses don't hurt so bad. Otherwise you end up with bankrupt entrepeneurs, investors, gamblers ... or governments

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

You speak sense....but sometimes these things ain't about sense. Of course the notion of honour is madness, and of course I understand this intellectually.
But then again, sense is also keeping quiet and keeping your head down, and never ever speaking out against what you perceive as wrong.
Honour demands that you stand up and be counted in many ways, alas: but it also means commitments are commitments.

There is no way for me to express the division in my thoughts and feelings right now.

[hazardous-filth.livejournal.com]

It's not about keeping quiet and your head down. It's about identifying goals and doing them but realising when you are screwing yourself over. If you over invest in one venture which fails you won't be able to invest in another one later which could had worked. Or with war, they lose all their money, soldiers and any international positive feelings towards them and on something most agree shouldn't have been done to begin with. A real big bad threat comes along, rather than just a whim to finish daddy's fight and get some oil, and they'll be fucked.

[masquedbunny.livejournal.com]

I do feel we can't leave the Yanks holding the baby

Better put a safety net under that baby--likely to drop it on its head.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

As most Americans I know are the sort of people I like, and also, as most of them don't appear to approve of the actions of their administration, I'm still amazed that we're in this situation.
(I know it's a self-selecting sample, but still....)
Mind you, most British folk don't seem to approve of us being in Iraq either.
Damn our perfidious leaders. Damn the bastards that put us in this situation. May they go to hell.

(As an aside, I love your icons.)

[sancho543216789.livejournal.com]

I'm mildly perturbed by emotional appeals in opinions concerning the wars. That aside, the only standard for merit in decisions concerning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan I can discern is the civilian casaulty list. If British citizens conclude that retreat from Iraq best preserves the civilian population in all nations involved, it of course falls most heavily on the Iraqis, then such action is perfectly honorable. Perhaps then my country would be forced to pull back. I know plenty of us want to retreat.
I don't understand the reasons for beginning the Iraq war or it's continuation. I certainly get the idea from what I've read in the papers and heard from instructors, and others in general, that what is on some level just real politiking around Iran is harmful and dangerously unwieldy. But I don't know much about politics beyond a few lessons and a collection of buzzwords.
What immediately came to mind when I first heard that my country was going to war against Iraq was that it seemed a bit late to reinforce any US friendlies as they were killed by Saddam after the first war against Iraq supposedly resolved in the rescue of Kuwait, the conditional return of Sadamm to power and all that grand... stuff ... maybe shit would be more apt diction.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

For one so young, you have a very good head on those shoulders.
We're all ignorant of at least some of the details about all of these things. Even when those of us (like me) try to keep informed, we misinterpret and read according to our own perspectives.
However we analyse we are liable to be swayed by our own prejudices; and I'm a middle-aged Englishman with previous Anarcho-Syndicalist sympathies, now reformed and recanted....so, what do I know?
I do know you are right in at least one respect: the civilian death toll is the thing to get really angry about. All this talk of Honour obfuscates that single important issue.
It may be that the British retreat (as far as it has gone) will give us data about the differences in death-rates and the stability of the area from which we've retreated. Alas, this is an academically inclined way of testing the situation, and doesn't deal with the suffering on the ground, but is the best my feeble brain can come up with.
I would that there were a dynamic theory that was applicable and implementable, but I think we should be building one, given the data we should have already accumulated. There should be some branch of the intelligence services within whose brief such analysis would fall.
I hate being governed by folk who kow-tow to lowest common denominator politics, rather than attempting to find the best realistic solutions to the problems we face. Of course 'best' is always open to interpretation.