Is there something about being quiet that prevents you from moving away from the random street corner these people were protesting at?
Personally, I'm offended because I believe that the two minutes silence at eleven o'clock on the eleventh day of the eleventh month is for World War I and II. The current wars can have a remembrance day when they finish and not a moment sooner. That remembrance day ought to cover both sides. Personally, I think about the sacrifices made by both the axis and the allies during the two world wars, don't confuse me with someone who likes the axis groups, but by God, don't confuse me with someone who's so wrapped up in "Support our troops" that I forget the other side are making the same sacrifices. I'm offended because of the way I treat Remembrance day, and how the symbol for it has been hijacked for an all encompassing "Remember all conflicts", rather than why it became the defacto symbol for Remembrance Day (Armistice or Veterans if you prefer). In Flanders Fields. If they want to use their freedom of speech to say what they feel, then they have to be allowed to. We are, they are. Remember the fallen - Troops, civilians, axis, allies - Hurl abuse if you must, but leave the poppy alone.
But they were living and dying every day before and being repressed. Maybe not quite so regularly but Saddam killed 800000 of his own people while in power let alone the hundreds of thousands or more that he arrested/tourtured etc etc. I'm not saying the current situation is good or what should have happened but if in 10 years time Iraq is a "relatively" peaceful democracy without a dictator then it will be better than what it was or what it would have continued being. This doesn't legitimise the war or forgive anyone for the deaths that have happened since but it’s not so black and white.
Dummy firmly spat. Could have just walked away and left it with the last shreds of dignity, but oh no...
I see that trolling right there, Where there is no need to bring that back up. I see the report button, I see it clicked.
Wait, for me or Stu? I really don't see why he had to edit every post in this thread to the same shouty message, so apologies if your issue's with me.
Sorry man, just bringing that up was totally pointless compared to the rest of the thread (Despite how high tension levels have been here lol)
No dummy spat. I don't want my personal information to be displayed in a forum I no longer intend to to be a member of. I have my dignity thanks, and I also know when people are just looking to prolong fights. Now what does it take to get an admin or mod to delete my account round here? I have asked nicely. EDIT: For the benefit of the admins and mods here, I have sent a few PM's to some of you guys, enquiring about having my account deleted. I was told by one mod that this was possible, but haven't had the account deleted yet. I would really appreciate it if one of you guys could let me know if this is possible please, and if so how long it will take? Sorry to be a nuisance, but this matter could do with sorting ASAP.
We looked into it but deleting an account is not possible as such (blame the software... Apparently this is a problem that many forums share). We can ban you, but that creates the impression that you were, well, banned and that would create all sorts of misunderstandings. When we 'delete' an account only the user name and personal details are deleted. The posts remain behind but are attributed to 'Guest'. It is not possible to actually delete all posts associated with the deleted account for all sorts of technical reasons. You'd have to remove them manually.
Agreed, the soldiers back then were truly fighting for our freedom. Personally i think Remembrance day should be focused on the reason why wars are so bad and how to avoid them if possible, not go around invading a few countries because a small group of people attacked us. I'm pretty sure the veterans from WW1 and WW2 would be turning in their graves if they could see the armed forces today and the reasons why they do what they do..
OK thanks Nexxo, I did wonder if this was the case. At least I know now. I'll just have to leave all other posts as is, deleting 1370 posts manually is too much like hard work for me, so I will leave the ones I haven't altered as is. No worries and best regards.
That's like saying it is OK to hit someone because others were beating on him anyway. Moreover, remember that we levered Saddam Hussein into power*. We then kept him there by selling him lots of weapons, including all those nasty chemicals to make WMD with. He was being nasty to his people then, and gassing Kurds, but that did not stop us. A few months after the world had expressed its outrage over the gassing of Halabja in 1988 the shipments of those chemicals resumed. The CIA meanwhile maintained that Halabja was accidentally gassed by Iran during a skirmish in the ongoing Iran-Iraq war (a bloody conflict that we helped prolong by selling weapons to both sides), when the wind suddenly turned in an unexpected direction. In 2003 the CIA revised its opinion and blamed Saddam. He was hanged in part for this crime. As I have posted before the Taliban is another problem we helped create by sponsoring fundamentalist Islamic schools to raise the next generation of freedom fighters against the Soviet occupation. In theory you could be right --in 10 years Iraq may be a peaceful democracy. In 10 years Afghanistan may be sorted out. Extremely unlikely and contrary to all history to date, but let's say it's possible. However even if that is true we have still decided over other people's lives. We have decided what is good for them and what sacrifices they should make to get their democracy, and when. We call the time of their dictators and we call when they should be overthrown. We call when they should live under tyranny and we call when they should be plunged into chaos so they can enjoy our idea of democracy, preferably by a government that has our approval. We are playing God over them. * To complete the picture, this was because of another result of our meddling. In 1953 the CIA (with cooperation of the UK) conspired to overthrow Iran's democratically elected Western-style secular government because it was planning to nationalise Iran's oil industry, and the predominantly American and British companies were not happy with the financial reimbursement. It was replaced by the Shah, which according to Amnesty International established one of the most brutal regimes in modern history. The CIA sent its secret police intructional videos like "How to torture female interrogation suspects". Eventually this regime was overthrown and unfortunately Ayatollah Khomeini managed to seize control instead. In response the CIA quickly levered Saddam Hussein into power to prevent Khomeini's popular firebrand fundamentalist ideology from spreading to Iraq, which would lose the West control over both the largest oil fields on Earth.
Your analogy in my opinion is flawed. Its more similar in my eyes to hostage situation. Terrorist are holding some hostages and kill a couple to keep control of them, the sas come in and frees the hostages but unfortunately the terrorists kill a few more hostages as does the sas. The terrorists were originally financed and trained by the sas but have since turned against them in this case. In relation the rest of your points while I acknowledge that the US and ourselves some of the blame for the creation of the situation, the empowering of Iraq and the unrest there doesnt mean we have no part to play in correcting it. In this case the correction was done for the wrong reasons and based on lies and was majorly screwed up by those involved. But to say that we are meddling in things that are none of our business is very wrong. If you make a product and it goes wrong hurting someone then you have a responsibility to compensate the person and correct the error. In this case as you say the US and the UK created the situation and therefore have some responsibility to sort it out. How far this responsiblity carries onto the next generation or goverment is very hard to determine (For example if I was american I would be against reperations for slavery as no one is alive today who had anything to do with that and alot of time has passed, although that doesn't mean america doesn't have issues that it needs to sort out in relation to equality for african americans. I would hope a country would have have equality for all, within reason). We have an element of responsbility for the creation of all this and especially after the invasion have a responsiblity to make things as right as is reasonable. This idea that we are playing god and that this is a bad I feel is highly spurious, if I am locked in cell and held hostage, regularly beaten would I care if during a rescue I was hurt, sure but I would still be thankful for the rescue. The idea of life outside may have shrunk from my mind and I have a bit of stockholm syndrome but before I was locked up if asked I would have wanted the rescue even if it hurt me. You describe it as if the Iraq's or Afgans know best for themselves but to be frank they don't. (Not that our goverments know all or do it in the way that I think would be best or as morally upright as they should be). Democracy is not a catch all cure for anything but to quote Churchill "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried." (I have a feeling this might be a false churchill quote so I apologise if its wrong but I think its apt for this). Democracy is flat out better than dictatorship or any other form of goverment from facist to communist that we know of. For afgans and iraq's to have a real choice and freedom in their lives and for the countries to make progress they should have democracy. The way its been given to them is messed up but the idea that they should have it is not. They had no choice in any matter under sadam excluding a few sunni's they already has someone controlling them as if a god who already made them sarcifice. We do generally know better, we don't always use that in the best way possible (America especially I am looking at you). Any people who choose a dictator or other form of goverment do so out of ignorance not through real choice, but then what kind of people real choose a dictator (or what the dictator who had such high ideals to begin with becomes). Its 12:45 and I am tired so some of this might not be as clear as I would like so please excuse any arguments that maybe don't follow on as well as they should.
My general view on this thing is they have every right to burn the poppies, it maybe offensive to some but we are (although I question this with somethings going on at the moment) a free society and as long as you dont do actual harm to others or step over particual line in relation to offending someone you are free to do what you want. In relation rememberance day being only for WW1 WW2 that is wrong, "Remembrance Day (also known as Poppy Day, Armistice Day or Veterans Day) is a memorial day observed in Commonwealth countries to remember the members of their armed forces who have died on duty since World War I". You may disagree with why they are fighting or the reasons for it but they are serving the UK those who die for us deserve respect. If the British Army commited atrocities (I don't count collateral damage as this as the intent is not there. The british army as a whole tries to keep civilian casualties to minimum and I have seen to evidence to the contrary on this. A few bad seeds do not make a whole institution wrong) and the like then this position would change but as long as they fight to protect those who cannot defend themselves then they deserve our respect and thanks.
I don't think theres a right or wrong meaning to remembrance day just differing opinions. It was originally partly for all the world to remember, avoid war unless completely necessary as its a bad bad business, which leads to far more people being killed/wounded/scarred then any other method of solving a dispute would of done. The other part is to remember the dead which we do extremely well, i just feel because we don't honour the first part of the meaning then we have failed to truly remember properly and honour all the lives lost and sacrifice, just wearing a poppy on remembrance day isn't enough.
Sorry but that analogy is flawed and reveals exactly the problem of where you (and the West) are coming from. You consider the Afghans and Iraqi as passive hostages, unable to rescue themselves, and us as noble saviours. They may not see it that way. They may have a problem with their tyrants but consider it their problem with their tyrant caused by our meddling, that they will solve in their way. Again you are assuming that they chose to buy our product, so to speak. They did not. They want nothing to do with us. They want us to butt out of their lives already and leave them alone. Except that, again, they may not view themselves as helpless hostages but as people quite able to solve their own problem if we would just stop sponsoring their torturers. To suddenly change sides and rush on full of concern because we have suddenly discovered that the 'hostages' can give us their resources more easily than their torturer may possibly make them view our noble rescue with cynical suspicion. They aren't idiots. Don't make the mistake of thinking that they are. And QED. Thank you for proving my point. We know what is best for them. We will decide over their lives. They are but primitive savages waiting for us superior Westerners to show them the way to enlightened civilisation. It's all for their own good... Ah, Western Imperialism is alive and well, I see. We are playing God, alright.
Im sure we would be very happy to have the US come invade us if the UK had a small group of people who organised a terror attack against the US. Killing people and blowing buildings up, destroying our lives.
