Predator drones

[Rocket-footed kolarov]

What does it say on your blog? "I am 20 years old and a free thinker who loves peace."

Well we all love peace and your thinking is certainly free. Of any depth or insight. No doubt you'd have been an appeaser in 1936 and presumably were quite happy to leave the Falkland Islanders to the mercy of the Argentinian military junta.

Absolutely and utterly pathetic.
So yet another poster is accused of having Nazi sympathies by you for having the audacity to oppose Israel's state sponsored terrorism.
TMQ is right - your complete inability to discuss anything regarding Israel objectively is simply embarrassing.
I can't be bothered even trying to reason with you anymore, because all you will do is find some spurious reason to ban me, as usual, and I'm sure Ric is getting fed up of having to rescind your groundless decisions by now, so I'll leave you to your sorry and shameful bullying of a decent young lad who has principles and values that you could only dream of having.

Drone, drone, drone, drone drone, drone, drone, drone, drone, drone, drone drone, drone, drone, drone, drone, drone, drone drone, drone, drone, drone...

You really are a complete and utter bore, as Blue Purgatory rightly said, a post which you had the nerve to report. Laughably so given the unwarranted abuse you persistently hand out to people. You give it out but can't take it. You are the most shameful bully on here you sanctimonious troll. And of your 9 bans, I've only issued 1 of them as far as I can see. Having got that out of the way, let's answer your post.

Where did Israel come into this? He made the claim that he loved peace (man). Well surely we all do don't we? But in 1936 many people who thought the same way didn't want to go to war & some may well have been Nazi sympathisers but many weren't, including Chamberlain and many around him. They believed in a policy of appeasement and that giving Hitler what he wanted would keep us out of a war. They wanted peace ("Peace in our time") and people like Churchill were labelled as warmongers for suggesting there was another moral choice.

Well we now know who was right and who was wrong and millions & millions of people had to die, mostly innocent civilians, to prove the point. Had France and England acted in 1936, lives would have been lost but millions more would have been saved. Those who "loved peace" were well-meaning but naive and stupid and were culpable for the loss of those lives. The point being that sometimes you have to make difficult moral choices in which there are no clear winners.

I wonder what the view of those who are arguing so vehemently against the killing of children is on abortion?

You say this if there is only ever one interpretation of history, and it is always easier to analyse with the benefit of hindsight. The culpability point can also be turned on its head Pat Buchanan's assertion is that Britain in guaranteeing Poland created tension that did not have to exist; Hitler wanted an alliance with Poland against the soviets, it may be concluded that if he had it, the destruction would have been on a lesser scale. The ultimate effect was that under the cover of war with Russia the Nazi's were able to carry out the Holocaust, the number of Jews killed may have been less had the war not followed the path that it did. Churchill and Britain had opportunities to conduct a peace settlement with Germany and rejected them can we now blame Churchill for the deaths of innocents. The idea that WW2 was a "just war" is not a solid irrefutable fact.

You shamelessly brought up Israel and an implied reference to the holocaust to justify your own ends. why was it necessary to compare conflicts with low accuracy munitions to a campaign with high accuracy weaponry with a much lower ratio of civilians to enemy combatants deaths? Using other conflicts in your argument that have little similarity in terms of how they were fought, regular forces, civilian casualties is not particularly a good thing to do.
I must admit I have some sympathy with the idea of a utilitarian justification, but you could n't stop there; you had to carry out a smear campaign against "Nazi sympathisers".

Your point on abortion is just absurd.

 

[MCFC1993]

Absolutely and utterly pathetic.
So yet another poster is accused of having Nazi sympathies by you for having the audacity to oppose Israel's state sponsored terrorism.
TMQ is right - your complete inability to discuss anything regarding Israel objectively is simply embarrassing.
I can't be bothered even trying to reason with you anymore, because all you will do is find some spurious reason to ban me, as usual, and I'm sure Ric is getting fed up of having to rescind your groundless decisions by now, so I'll leave you to your sorry and shameful bullying of a decent young lad who has principles and values that you could only dream of having.

Drone, drone, drone, drone drone, drone, drone, drone, drone, drone, drone drone, drone, drone, drone, drone, drone, drone drone, drone, drone, drone...

You really are a complete and utter bore, as Blue Purgatory rightly said, a post which you had the nerve to report. Laughably so given the unwarranted abuse you persistently hand out to people. You give it out but can't take it. You are the most shameful bully on here you sanctimonious troll. And of your 9 bans, I've only issued 1 of them as far as I can see. Having got that out of the way, let's answer your post.

Where did Israel come into this? He made the claim that he loved peace (man). Well surely we all do don't we? But in 1936 many people who thought the same way didn't want to go to war & some may well have been Nazi sympathisers but many weren't, including Chamberlain and many around him. They believed in a policy of appeasement and that giving Hitler what he wanted would keep us out of a war. They wanted peace ("Peace in our time") and people like Churchill were labelled as warmongers for suggesting there was another moral choice.

Well we now know who was right and who was wrong and millions & millions of people had to die, mostly innocent civilians, to prove the point. Had France and England acted in 1936, lives would have been lost but millions more would have been saved. Those who "loved peace" were well-meaning but naive and stupid and were culpable for the loss of those lives. The point being that sometimes you have to make difficult moral choices in which there are no clear winners.

I wonder what the view of those who are arguing so vehemently against the killing of children is on abortion?

You say this if there is only ever one interpretation of history, and it is always easier to analyse with the benefit of hindsight. The culpability point can also be turned on its head Pat Buchanan's assertion is that Britain in guaranteeing Poland created tension that did not have to exist; Hitler wanted an alliance with Poland against the soviets, it may be concluded that if he had it, the destruction would have been on a lesser scale. The ultimate effect was that under the cover of war with Russia the Nazi's were able to carry out the Holocaust, the number of Jews killed may have been less had the war not followed the path that it did. Churchill and Britain had opportunities to conduct a peace settlement with Germany and rejected them can we now blame Churchill for the deaths of innocents. The idea that WW2 was a "just war" is not a solid irrefutable fact.

You shamelessly brought up Israel and an implied reference to the holocaust to justify your own ends. why was it necessary to compare conflicts with low accuracy munitions to a campaign with high accuracy weaponry with a much lower ratio of civilians to enemy combatants deaths? Using other conflicts in your argument that have little similarity in terms of how they were fought, regular forces, civilian casualties is not particularly a good thing to do.
I must admit I have some sympathy with the idea of a utilitarian justification, but you couldn't stop there; you had to carry out a smear campaign against "Nazi sympathisers".

Your point on abortion is just absurd.

Reading that first paragraph it genuinely comes across that you're trying to make an excuse for Hitler.

Would less Jews really have been killed?
Would a peace settlement with Germany have worked?

At least we can say of them points mentioned in your post, the right decisions in hindsight.
...........


Not even comment on the topic of the actual thread because I've read 3 pages and can't honest believe the views of some people.

 

[ElanJo]

They tried ignoring it, President Clinton did very little despite increasing attacks which then cumulated with 9/11, like I said war is not pretty, but I do know they are not deliberately targeting civilians, I can't see they have any other option you can go on about US foreign policy, but the Jihadists are not fighting that, they are fighting what they consider to be a holy war against the west

Ok what if they called it a war on terror from the west rather than a holy war?

Same horse different jockey.

-- Sun Apr 28, 2013 9:04 pm --

We are fighting a dirty war against an enemy hell bent on hiding behind civilians whenever it suits.

Drones are the best weapon we have in targeting these individuals when we get the chance and yes, unfortunately innocent lives are often taken, tragically but instead of trying to blame our governments or armed forces here, try to blame the cowards that hide themselves in villages full of women and kids.

I would never blame the armed forces for anything they are instructed to do.

If the government said invade Germany tomorrow the Generals would not be asking are you sure they would be going well where do we hit first.

As someone once put it "Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die: Into the valley of Death"

I hope that the Generals are a bit smarter than that

 

[TCIB]

Until they make them look as cool as kit in knight rider i'm out :p

 

[nijinsky's fetlocks]

What does it say on your blog? "I am 20 years old and a free thinker who loves peace."

Well we all love peace and your thinking is certainly free. Of any depth or insight. No doubt you'd have been an appeaser in 1936 and presumably were quite happy to leave the Falkland Islanders to the mercy of the Argentinian military junta.

Absolutely and utterly pathetic.
So yet another poster is accused of having Nazi sympathies by you for having the audacity to oppose Israel's state sponsored terrorism.
TMQ is right - your complete inability to discuss anything regarding Israel objectively is simply embarrassing.
I can't be bothered even trying to reason with you anymore, because all you will do is find some spurious reason to ban me, as usual, and I'm sure Ric is getting fed up of having to rescind your groundless decisions by now, so I'll leave you to your sorry and shameful bullying of a decent young lad who has principles and values that you could only dream of having.

Drone, drone, drone, drone drone, drone, drone, drone, drone, drone, drone drone, drone, drone, drone, drone, drone, drone drone, drone, drone, drone...

You really are a complete and utter bore, as Blue Purgatory rightly said, a post which you had the nerve to report. Laughably so given the unwarranted abuse you persistently hand out to people. You give it out but can't take it. You are the most shameful bully on here you sanctimonious troll. And of your 9 bans, I've only issued 1 of them as far as I can see. Having got that out of the way, let's answer your post.

Where did Israel come into this? He made the claim that he loved peace (man). Well surely we all do don't we? But in 1936 many people who thought the same way didn't want to go to war & some may well have been Nazi sympathisers but many weren't, including Chamberlain and many around him. They believed in a policy of appeasement and that giving Hitler what he wanted would keep us out of a war. They wanted peace ("Peace in our time") and people like Churchill were labelled as warmongers for suggesting there was another moral choice.

Well we now know who was right and who was wrong and millions & millions of people had to die, mostly innocent civilians, to prove the point. Had France and England acted in 1936, lives would have been lost but millions more would have been saved. Those who "loved peace" were well-meaning but naive and stupid and were culpable for the loss of those lives. The point being that sometimes you have to make difficult moral choices in which there are no clear winners.

I wonder what the view of those who are arguing so vehemently against the killing of children is on abortion?

You just keep heaping strawman upon strawman, don't you?
And when the argument is lost, you are the first to resort to insults, then run and hide behind your shiny moderators badge.
I reported Blue Purgatory because he spent half the fucking weekend trolling me from thread to thread.
You simply are not capable of debating Israel in a rational manner, and your attempts to justify the wholesale killing of innocent civilians and children are morally repugnant.
Anyone who takes issue with you is a Nazi sympathiser in your simplistic black and white world.
I was accused because I was brought up a Roman Catholic, despite being atheist for 40 years.
Skashion was compared to one of the most despicable human beings in history.
Now it's Josh's turn to face the predictable wrath of your impotent rage by being compared to Nazi appeasers.
Who will be the next one to be branded?
It is simply laughable and embarrassing, and the logic of the playground.
And now you bring abortion into the debate, apropos of fuck all.
What on earth relevance does abortion have to do with Israeli foreign policy?
I doubt anybody takes you seriously anymore after this latest outburst, because even by your standards you have lost the plot on an epic scale here.

 

[Rocket-footed kolarov]

Drone, drone, drone, drone drone, drone, drone, drone, drone, drone, drone drone, drone, drone, drone, drone, drone, drone drone, drone, drone, drone...

You really are a complete and utter bore, as Blue Purgatory rightly said, a post which you had the nerve to report. Laughably so given the unwarranted abuse you persistently hand out to people. You give it out but can't take it. You are the most shameful bully on here you sanctimonious troll. And of your 9 bans, I've only issued 1 of them as far as I can see. Having got that out of the way, let's answer your post.

Where did Israel come into this? He made the claim that he loved peace (man). Well surely we all do don't we? But in 1936 many people who thought the same way didn't want to go to war & some may well have been Nazi sympathisers but many weren't, including Chamberlain and many around him. They believed in a policy of appeasement and that giving Hitler what he wanted would keep us out of a war. They wanted peace ("Peace in our time") and people like Churchill were labelled as warmongers for suggesting there was another moral choice.

Well we now know who was right and who was wrong and millions & millions of people had to die, mostly innocent civilians, to prove the point. Had France and England acted in 1936, lives would have been lost but millions more would have been saved. Those who "loved peace" were well-meaning but naive and stupid and were culpable for the loss of those lives. The point being that sometimes you have to make difficult moral choices in which there are no clear winners.

I wonder what the view of those who are arguing so vehemently against the killing of children is on abortion?

You say this if there is only ever one interpretation of history, and it is always easier to analyse with the benefit of hindsight. The culpability point can also be turned on its head Pat Buchanan's assertion is that Britain in guaranteeing Poland created tension that did not have to exist; Hitler wanted an alliance with Poland against the soviets, it may be concluded that if he had it, the destruction would have been on a lesser scale. The ultimate effect was that under the cover of war with Russia the Nazi's were able to carry out the Holocaust, the number of Jews killed may have been less had the war not followed the path that it did. Churchill and Britain had opportunities to conduct a peace settlement with Germany and rejected them can we now blame Churchill for the deaths of innocents. The idea that WW2 was a "just war" is not a solid irrefutable fact.

You shamelessly brought up Israel and an implied reference to the holocaust to justify your own ends. why was it necessary to compare conflicts with low accuracy munitions to a campaign with high accuracy weaponry with a much lower ratio of civilians to enemy combatants deaths? Using other conflicts in your argument that have little similarity in terms of how they were fought, regular forces, civilian casualties is not particularly a good thing to do.
I must admit I have some sympathy with the idea of a utilitarian justification, but you couldn't stop there; you had to carry out a smear campaign against "Nazi sympathisers".

Your point on abortion is just absurd.

Reading that first paragraph it genuinely comes across that you're trying to make an excuse for Hitler.

Would less Jews really have been killed?
Would a peace settlement with Germany have worked?

At least we can say of them points mentioned in your post, the right decisions in hindsight.
...........


Not even comment on the topic of the actual thread because I've read 3 pages and can't honest believe the views of some people.

No of course I am not trying to do that, I was trying to summarise an argument in as few words as possible, which was a summary it self because it was of wiki. I have n't read the book but it was something Christopher Hitchens was talking about and it appeared to be of some relevance to what PB was talking about. Pat Buchanan's argument along with Nicholson Baker's book human smoke challenges the idea that the allies wanted to avoid war at all costs. I haven't read either but the point is History can often be misinterpreted to some extent (I am not saying it was here, just exploring the possibility that could have been) e.g. Henry VII and Richard III because it is in the victor's interest to see that it is.

your point about Hindsight, maybe we can say the right decisions were made, maybe we can't?; sometimes what looked like the best option was actually the worse, and vice versa. Political diplomacy/foreign policy and moral virtue don't always go hand in hand. I don't want to get into it further because I haven't studied History for a few years now, I just thought that it was Irrelevant of PB to bring up WW2 and Israel.

 

[Chris in London]

You say this if there is only ever one interpretation of history, and it is always easier to analyse with the benefit of hindsight. The culpability point can also be turned on its head Pat Buchanan's assertion is that Britain in guaranteeing Poland created tension that did not have to exist; Hitler wanted an alliance with Poland against the soviets, it may be concluded that if he had it, the destruction would have been on a lesser scale. The ultimate effect was that under the cover of war with Russia the Nazi's were able to carry out the Holocaust, the number of Jews killed may have been less had the war not followed the path that it did. Churchill and Britain had opportunities to conduct a peace settlement with Germany and rejected them can we now blame Churchill for the deaths of innocents. The idea that WW2 was a "just war" is not a solid irrefutable fact.

You shamelessly brought up Israel and an implied reference to the holocaust to justify your own ends. why was it necessary to compare conflicts with low accuracy munitions to a campaign with high accuracy weaponry with a much lower ratio of civilians to enemy combatants deaths? Using other conflicts in your argument that have little similarity in terms of how they were fought, regular forces, civilian casualties is not particularly a good thing to do.
I must admit I have some sympathy with the idea of a utilitarian justification, but you couldn't stop there; you had to carry out a smear campaign against "Nazi sympathisers".

Your point on abortion is just absurd.

Reading that first paragraph it genuinely comes across that you're trying to make an excuse for Hitler.

Would less Jews really have been killed?
Would a peace settlement with Germany have worked?

At least we can say of them points mentioned in your post, the right decisions in hindsight.
...........


Not even comment on the topic of the actual thread because I've read 3 pages and can't honest believe the views of some people.

No of course I am not trying to do that, I was trying to summarise an argument in as few words as possible, which was a summary it self because it was of wiki. I have n't read the book but it was something Christopher Hitchens was talking about and it appeared to be of some relevance to what PB was talking about. Pat Buchanan's argument along with Nicholson Baker's book human smoke challenges the idea that the allies wanted to avoid war at all costs. I haven't read either but the point is History can often be misinterpreted to some extent (I am not saying it was here, just exploring the possibility that could have been) e.g. Henry VII and Richard III because it is in the victor's interest to see that it is.

your point about Hindsight, maybe we can say the right decisions were made, maybe we can't?; sometimes what looked like the best option was actually the worse, and vice versa. Political diplomacy/foreign policy and moral virtue don't always go hand in hand. I don't want to get into it further because I haven't studied History for a few years now, I just thought that it was Irrelevant of PB to bring up WW2 and Israel.

Of course history is written by the victors, the RichardIII/Henry VII thing being a case in point. There are many others. During the american war of independence for instance one of the american patriots was a man called Paul Revere. He is widely revered in America as a major figure in the revolution, but most contemporaneous historical sources display him as being a fuckwit of the highest order. Yet it was politic in post independence America to have heroes rather than idiots, and so his part in the revolution has passed into folklore.

However there is a distinct advantage in considering recent history because the volume of contemporaneous material is vast in comparison to studying fifteenth century politocs. So we have a much clearer idea of what was going on in the second half of the thirties.

Undoubtedly there was a split in the British government's position. There were those who advocated appeasement, those who advocated sanctions, those who broadly sympathised with Hitler's objectives. Hitler himself had no appetite for war with Britain: he regarded the northern european nations as racially alike and regarded Britain with a degree of respect he withheld from for instance the french and the Italians. The fact that Hitler did not seek a confrontation with Britain meant that the 'appeasement' faction had something tangible to work with. However as time went by within the British government there was a gradual shift in the mainstay of opinion. The pursuit of lebensraum gradually led to a hardening of attitude on the part of the British government, to the point where Poland was seen as crossing a rubicon of sorts.

Of course earleir intervention would probably have saved lives. It would also have given Hitler 3 years' less time to arm and mobilise his forces. But by contrast further appeasement following the invasion of Poland might have given Hitler yet more time to arm and prepare for war. So any delay in bringing about the war might have saved lives in one way but cost more in another.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Is it safe to come out yet or is there a Fetlocks MkII drone still looking for me?

We've sort of moved off the topic but I guess I started this to illustrate the point I was trying to make. As a result of the post WWI treaties (Versailles & Locarno) the Rhineland was meant to be demilitarised. However, despite specific treaty clauses forbidding it, the Germans occupied this ares in 1936. This was clearly defiend as a "hostile act". The French could have mobilised enough troops to crush Germany at that time but there was no appetite for war and France, like the rest of Europe, was still recovering from the Great Depression. Mobilising might well have broken them financially.

There was a general consensus in the UK that we didn't want to go to war over this so the Allied powers effectively accepted this as a fait accompli, as they did subsequent German expansion until the invasion of Poland. Had France resisted the occupation of the Rhineland and taken it itself, they would have been placed to threaten the industrial heartland of Germany, which would have made further German remilitarisation difficult. It would also have sent out a message that France would take its treaty obligations very seriously. I'm not 100% sure of my ground here but I believe it was the Franco-Polish treaty that brought France to war in 1939 and then our separate treaty obligation to France that brought us in.

The point was that I was hysterically accused of laballing people on here Nazis but the majority appeasement faction in the 1930's were not Nazis or even sympathisers but put their national interests before what, in hindsight, was the greater good.

Now if we look at the wole scenario of post WWII foreign military policy, we can see things have almost moved full circle, with the Korean War, Vietnam War, the Falklands, the Gulf Wars and Afghanistan so that the "national interest" of the West (or certainly the USA & UK) has been, rightly or wrongly, to act decisively where it thinks it can or where it believes its strategic interests are threatened rather than accept a fait accompli. But, as we know, the involvement of ground forces generally leads to political unrest in many cases when the coffins come home.

Plus there's also a strong suspicion that the countries in which drones are being used (Pakistan & Yemen) have covertly encouraged their use against those who would seek to de-stabilise them. It's the perfect political scenario where the governments of these places can denounce their use for public consumption while being secretly delighted that they can effectively outsource elimination of their internal enemies to the USA. It's hard to believe that the theoretically more liberal Obama administration would take a much more aggressive stance on the use of drones than the hawkish Bush administration without significant co-operation from Pakistan.

 

[Rocket-footed kolarov]

Reading that first paragraph it genuinely comes across that you're trying to make an excuse for Hitler.

Would less Jews really have been killed?
Would a peace settlement with Germany have worked?

At least we can say of them points mentioned in your post, the right decisions in hindsight.
...........


Not even comment on the topic of the actual thread because I've read 3 pages and can't honest believe the views of some people.

No of course I am not trying to do that, I was trying to summarise an argument in as few words as possible, which was a summary it self because it was of wiki. I have n't read the book but it was something Christopher Hitchens was talking about and it appeared to be of some relevance to what PB was talking about. Pat Buchanan's argument along with Nicholson Baker's book human smoke challenges the idea that the allies wanted to avoid war at all costs. I haven't read either but the point is History can often be misinterpreted to some extent (I am not saying it was here, just exploring the possibility that could have been) e.g. Henry VII and Richard III because it is in the victor's interest to see that it is.

your point about Hindsight, maybe we can say the right decisions were made, maybe we can't?; sometimes what looked like the best option was actually the worse, and vice versa. Political diplomacy/foreign policy and moral virtue don't always go hand in hand. I don't want to get into it further because I haven't studied History for a few years now, I just thought that it was Irrelevant of PB to bring up WW2 and Israel.

Of course history is written by the victors, the RichardIII/Henry VII thing being a case in point. There are many others. During the american war of independence for instance one of the american patriots was a man called Paul Revere. He is widely revered in America as a major figure in the revolution, but most contemporaneous historical sources display him as being a fuckwit of the highest order. Yet it was politic in post independence America to have heroes rather than idiots, and so his part in the revolution has passed into folklore.

However there is a distinct advantage in considering recent history because the volume of contemporaneous material is vast in comparison to studying fifteenth century politocs. So we have a much clearer idea of what was going on in the second half of the thirties.

Undoubtedly there was a split in the British government's position. There were those who advocated appeasement, those who advocated sanctions, those who broadly sympathised with Hitler's objectives. Hitler himself had no appetite for war with Britain: he regarded the northern european nations as racially alike and regarded Britain with a degree of respect he withheld from for instance the french and the Italians. The fact that Hitler did not seek a confrontation with Britain meant that the 'appeasement' faction had something tangible to work with. However as time went by within the British government there was a gradual shift in the mainstay of opinion. The pursuit of lebensraum gradually led to a hardening of attitude on the part of the British government, to the point where Poland was seen as crossing a rubicon of sorts.

Of course earleir intervention would probably have saved lives. It would also have given Hitler 3 years' less time to arm and mobilise his forces. But by contrast further appeasement following the invasion of Poland might have given Hitler yet more time to arm and prepare for war. So any delay in bringing about the war might have saved lives in one way but cost more in another.

You are right, I only brought this argument up because I thought it may be of relevance not because it was my own, or because it is what I think. An important part is that appeasement to Hitler made him stronger because he had been given industrial resources to build up his Army and so even if the Western Powers wanted to avoid war they were only delaying the inevitable and the effect was greater destruction than had they acted earlier.

This is what Christopher Hitchens thought of the book; Churchill, Hitler and the unnecessary war.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2008/06/14/a-war-worth-fighting.html

It seems Buchanan took a very narrow view of history to reach his conclusions, and has ulterior motives for doing so. I still think that there is little relevance of WW2 to the actual thread topic because averting terrorist attacks and preventing mass genocide is a poor analogy.

 

[Chris in London]

I always think the 'what if ' school of history is fascinating. If we had taken a stronger line in 36/7 would it have brought war 2 years earlier with the Germans having less time to arm & prepare? Would the Germans have put off a war at that stage for those very reasons for four or five years, with the effect that Hitler might have had even more time to strengthen?

What if we had not drawn our line in the sand in 39 about Poland? Would that have left us in a stronger position? Would we have faced the same problems in the Spring of 40 when Hitler invaded Benelux and France?

There are never right or wrong answers, but there is a difference between 'what might have happened' which is a fascinating if unknown quantity, and what actually happened, which is well documented.