Paris attacks 128 dead at Batclan reported, 99 in criticsl.

Blair was doing reasonably well until George Bush took office and immediately started plotting the invasion of Iraq. As soon as Bush entered the room, it was as if Blair's brain left (probably took offence to the company). It was startling how sycophantic he became. He pretty much guaranteed UK support of an invasion of Iraq (and then Afghanistan) without consultation of parliament. He joined in an illegal war on the flimsiest of pretexts.

This had far reaching consequences for the Middle East (as we can all see), but also totally destroyed any potential for good that came out of his successful intervention in Sierra Leone (which, to be fair, involved a good element of luck rather than bold planning), which was a demonstration of the principle to have a joint European high-readiness battle force that could intervene in developing countries that were going off a cliff. His disastrous foray in Afghanistan and Iraq was the death knell to that idea.

With the negative track record that has gained him, he then felt that he was an eminent candidate for being a Middle East peace envoy --sort of like putting Dr. Shipman in charge of an elderly care home. Needless to say that damaged the credibility of this process profoundly. He also had a nasty habit of piping up during difficult political situations for the Labour party and stirring the ****. He can't bear being out of the limelight and he disavows any responsibility for the mess we now have in Iraq.

 

George Bush: Americas stupidest president, only someone that dumb could declare a war on such a nebulous idea as terror.

 

I know it's a pipedream, but a War Crimes charge against him certainly wouldn't go amiss.

 

"The War On" is a phrase which is as ubiquitous as it is moronic. The war on terror. The war on drugs. The war on crime. The war on christmas.

There is always some moron declaring war on some inanimate object or concept.

Spoiler

Should I point out that terror and terrorism are also two different things?

 

Indeed. The war on a concept is basically the war on an idea. Implicit to that is the assumption that you can force people to think what you want them to think.

 

The War on War?

 

A recursive war?

 

Maybe I've misunderstood the meanings then.
I thought terrorism was an act that causes terror, if I've understood it correctly that would make throwing a spider on someone with arachnophobia an act of terrorism, maybe I'm being too literal in my interpretation?

 

Terrorism.

Violence or the threat of violence carried out against civilians as a means of coercion, often for political reasons.

 

My point was that The war on terror is a common media phrase but what it should is the war on terrorism.

It's sort of like saying the war on stoned people rather than saying the war on drugs.

It's just an observation that for me makes the phrase even more meaningless.

 

War on terror or war on terrorism is pretty meaningless. How long have we had the war on drugs now? What a success that has been.

All these 'war on' phrases do is allow the governments to bring totally unnecessary legislation which is then abused by the police and councils and I believe some utilities companies who have used the poorly scrutinised legislation or perhaps it is deliberately left as ambiguous as possible to interpret the new laws for the most ridiculous and trivial of reasons.

 

The problem i have with that is there are many other definitions, such as wiki that says " terrorism is any act designed to cause terror" Or the Oxford dictionaries "The unofficial or unauthorized use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims" And then there's things like TheFreeDictionaries alternate meanings of "the act of terrorizing" And "the state of being terrorized"

It seems there are many different definitions of it hence my comment about it being a nebulous idea, with the examples other have made it seems there fairly easy to define, the War on Drugs seems easy to define as a war on the production and selling of illicit narcotics, a war on tangible things or people, the War on crime seems similarly well defined.

But if we just take your example on the meaning of 'Terrorism' to mean "Violence or the threat of violence carried out against civilians as a means of coercion, often for political reasons.", does that mean if i threw an egg at John Prescott i would've carried out an act of Terrorism? Or if someone said there was a risk of what happened in Paris happening hear if we didn't support their political aims?

Fully agree with the media wrongly using the two terms interchangeably, although for me both terms are equally as nebulous as each other, it just seems (to me) almost impossible to nail down what should/would/could be considered 'Terror' Or 'terrorism'

 

So basically, Bush was to the Military Industrial Complex what Jar Jar Binks was to Darth Sidious/Palpatine.

Ergo: George W. = Jar Jar Binks.

Figures.

*Present theories regarding Jar Jar Binks - Sith Lord excepting

 

I think that the latter pretty much turned out as the former.

What is known cannot be unknown...

 

Do you really think that Junior decided something this big by himself? This President in particular was nothing but a straw man.

 

Are you chaps seriously suggesting Regan and Nixon were any better than "boosh"?

 

Something is bugging me. I've read that the RAID managed to pin point the location of the second terrorist group, by using the data of the first group's cellphones. Those guys were smart enough to prepare an attack of that scale and yet forgot to get rid of their cellphones?

 

Whether he personally made the decision or not is irrelevant, he was the guy in charge, the guy that could have said no, the guy that was supposed to have the big picture in mind, the guy that should have been steering a steady course in a storm.

 

Well, compared to 'The Mighty Boosh' (that's it --I won't be able to think of him as anything else now... ) anyone can look good.

I think that people are overestimating the capabilities of this group by the damage they did. These were basically eight nutters who got hold of some AK-47's and explosives, and whose master plan with that was: "let's go to some public venues and start shooting at people. And then we'll blow ourselves up". Because civilised society basically does not expect such actions, they managed to do some carnage, but in terms of sophistication and depth of planning it was hardly beyond schoolboy level.

Their main weakness was: "And then we'll blow ourselves up". This means that they did not do any thinking about, and planning for after the event, 'cause they'd all be dead, no (well, all except the mastermind, which to me proves why he was the mastermind)? So they didn't think about covering their tracks and connections with other groups.

+1.

 

I hear the police fired 5,000 rounds of ammunition in yesterdays siege, call it what you will, that is a lot of bullets to kill 2 people and did not one of them not blow herself up?