British jihadists killed in RAF drone strike

[Damocles]

You and I don't agree on much, but I'm all for self determination until I'm not.

We see the folks voting in a government in Baghdad as legitimate, fair enough, it resembles us, but the Kurds don't, they want their own country and ISIS don't they want a country ruled by Sharia, they swear their allegiance to a god .

ISIS stands for Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. You could view them as George Washington and his patriots fighting the red coats or the Vietcong fighting the Yanks but it doesn't get you very far. Our problem, and I mean our problem, is that until recently we saw liberation struggles as people striving for self determination, and we defined self determination as being like us. Then we changed our tack and saw liberation struggles as people striving for self determination, unless the people striving were Communists, then that was not self determination but oppression, now we see liberation struggles and we don't know what to think.

The old political maxims don't seem to fit in the 21st Century.

That's an extremely illustrative point. Self determination within certain guidelines is not really self determination at all but a differing type of tyranny. A sort of "you can do what you want as long as we find it acceptable". Our true test of both freedom and self determination comes from our acceptance of the paths that we already know lead to danger and evil. We act against a power when it becomes evil rather on the off chance that it might be, otherwise the world stands on shaky foundations.

I'm a big believer in the idea that liberty is something earned and not given. You can't just walk into a country and say "you're free now, build a McDonalds, create a stock market and stop that whole bigotry thing". It wasn't how we developed culturally and I don't believe that it's realistic that others can just co-opt that. We removed the dictator from Iraq which was absolutely the correct thing to do from a moral standpoint and left it in the hands of the Iraqi population. At some point we in the West must understand that the best course of action is to allow the natural desire for freedom from tyranny and persecution build into their own civil wars rather than constant interventionism that just continues the cycle for one more turn of the wheel.

The former Caliphate lands can never become the secular, tolerant democracies unless we allow them the same freedom to develop their culture as we had. Even the Americans had their central moment of self determination which created their national mythology about freedom and in Western Europe almost all major populations have had theirs. We're condemning ourselves to a period of uncertainty and potentially violence but until ISIS becomes a legitimate force which we can wage wars against rather than a loosely collated group of tribal federations whose allegiances drift in and out then we are on a road to nowhere.

Western policy on the Middle East is constantly one of micro-management and it has failed at almost every possible turn. It's time for something different and I'm not sure using robots to murder people is real;ly that new avenue we're all searching for.

 

[SWP's back]

My point is we don't know anything, if the Solicitor General said the action was legal then surely we can be told what that legal basis was. In the absence of such information we are left with what little we think we know, or more succinctly what is circulating in the public domain. and not just on Facebook and blogs but in the Times and the Mail, and that is that the intel related to VE day in May, Armed Forces day in June and VJ day commemorations in mid-August.

But nothing happened on those days.

So the guys were killed in September for plotting to do something in May, June and August that didn't happen? If that is the case, what was the "imminent" danger then?

You're happy to leave it at that?

I assume you must be happy with that, and if so, that is the difference between you and me.

They were killed August 21st.

What happened today out of interest?

 

[Sir peace frog]

when things are not clear,its best to nuke or drone the fuckers ,wait for the dust to settle and see what's left.its easy this political stuff

 

[SWP's back]

Why do you think the opinion of the governments legal advisor should be made public in this instance when there is no precedence for this and to do so will clearly require making secret information public and thus compromising individuals and techniques used to provide national security? What makes you and the very small number who agree with you more important than the security of the nation?
Far from a victor, you sound like a self entitled fool who is simply taking up a contrary view to massage his ego.

Absolutely this.

 

[hilts]

when things are not clear,its best to nuke or drone the fuckers ,wait for the dust to settle and see what's left.its easy this political stuff

I have been out most of the day, have we nuked someone today, the news seem to have missed it

 

[SWP's back]

I know you're generally a tongue in cheek type of poster but the idea that the Government can essentially execute whomever they want at whatever time they want and then use a blanket excuse of intelligence should be extremely alarming for everybody in the country.

As somebody who used to mess about in the world of computer security and cryptography, a world that tends to do things that aren't illegal but that a Government doesn't like people doing unless they work for them directly, these types of things set off alarm bells in my head.

Most accept that the Government and the intelligence agencies will have 95% of the iceberg underwater. Glimpsing at how the 5% is now becoming gradually more vicious and illegal prmpts questions on what the bottom 5% are doing.

Wasn't tongue in cheek fella. These were people avowed to try and wage a war against this country, that released videos encouraging others to do the same. These were people where no UK rule of law applied, people that couldn't be picked up off the street and remanded in custody whilst a case was built against them.

They were part of ISIS, they thought they were safe to try and wage their war against anyone not in ISIS. These were part of the scum raping preteen sex slaves, throwing gay men off roof tops, putting prisoners in cars and blowing them up.

Fuck them.

 

[abu13]

In the words of the great Kenny Everett we need to " round them up, put them in a field an bomb the bastards"

 

[Damocles]

Wasn't tongue in cheek fella. These were people avowed to try and wage a war against this country, that released videos encouraging others to do the same. These were people where no UK rule of law applied, people that couldn't be picked up off the street and remanded in custody whilst a case was built against them.

They were part of ISIS, they thought they were safe to try and wage their war against anyone not in ISIS. These were part of the scum raping preteen sex slaves, throwing gay men off roof tops, putting prisoners in cars and blowing them up.

Fuck them.

You're missing the larger point; it isn't about them, it's about us. They have no rule of law and want to do terrible things. We're morally superior to them because our rule of law is sacrosanct and that protects our citizens, no matter what their opinions. Everybody is country is guilty of no crime until they have had the right to a trial.

If we're not morally superior to fascistic terrorists who want to murder innocent people then what the fuck is the point of any rule of law?

 

[somethingelse]

its fked,lets hope the Donald sorts it out, a John Wayne type approach

 

[The perfect fumble]

That's an extremely illustrative point. Self determination within certain guidelines is not really self determination at all but a differing type of tyranny. A sort of "you can do what you want as long as we find it acceptable". Our true test of both freedom and self determination comes from our acceptance of the paths that we already know lead to danger and evil. We act against a power when it becomes evil rather on the off chance that it might be, otherwise the world stands on shaky foundations.

I'm a big believer in the idea that liberty is something earned and not given. You can't just walk into a country and say "you're free now, build a McDonalds, create a stock market and stop that whole bigotry thing". It wasn't how we developed culturally and I don't believe that it's realistic that others can just co-opt that. We removed the dictator from Iraq which was absolutely the correct thing to do from a moral standpoint and left it in the hands of the Iraqi population. At some point we in the West must understand that the best course of action is to allow the natural desire for freedom from tyranny and persecution build into their own civil wars rather than constant interventionism that just continues the cycle for one more turn of the wheel.

The former Caliphate lands can never become the secular, tolerant democracies unless we allow them the same freedom to develop their culture as we had. Even the Americans had their central moment of self determination which created their national mythology about freedom and in Western Europe almost all major populations have had theirs. We're condemning ourselves to a period of uncertainty and potentially violence but until ISIS becomes a legitimate force which we can wage wars against rather than a loosely collated group of tribal federations whose allegiances drift in and out then we are on a road to nowhere.

Western policy on the Middle East is constantly one of micro-management and it has failed at almost every possible turn. It's time for something different and I'm not sure using robots to murder people is real;ly that new avenue we're all searching for.

I don't have any problems with this post, I agree almost entirely with it. Its central premise (I think) is that democracy is built from the ground up and democracy is what people strive for, maybe not at first, they might initially be hostile to it and they may be unaware of the journey they're on, but it is their final destination no matter how long it takes, because democracy is the finest example we presently have for personal and political freedom, and that is a journey we are all on, whether we know it or not.

I hope you're right.