Afghanistan Crisis

[welshbairn]

Ain't no Taliban ever called me a speccy librarian.

[Ad Lib]

1 minute ago, WhiteRoseKillie said:

1. Do all squaddies carry a copy with them then, just to make sure they're doing it right?

2. You probably believe that a cruise missile can drop down a chimney and take out an al Qua'eda  high heidyin on the ground floor flat while the family on the second floor carry on watching Central Asia Today.

3. So, he's not a concerned father protecting his family and property against armed men, then? He has to bear the label applied to him by them?

1. If you knew absolutely anything about military training you would know that one of the first things NATO countries train their soldiers on is the prohibition of actions that amount to war crimes.

2. I know Killie fans are all fermers but you didn't need to bring your straw man with you from the field.

3. If someone points a gun at a soldier, or starts shooting at a soldier, the soldier is entitled to conclude they are no longer merely a civilian.

[WhiteRoseKillie]

2 minutes ago, Ad Lib said:

The UK and Ireland don’t just not allow forced marriage against the wishes of women or girls; they both have specific laws to criminalise those complicit in bringing it about.

The following two things can simultaneously be true:

(1) The US and UK should not have gone into Afganistan in 2001

(2) Having gone into Afghanistan in 2001, the US and UK should not have left it in 2021 given the prevailing military and political situation.

For what it’s worth, (1) is wrong, but it doesn’t have to be wrong for (2) to be right. (1)

But, and this is the crucial bit, NATO forces in Kabul would have prevented Taliban forces from taking control of the city. That is all that matters in the context of whether or not women and girls are subject to their barbaric Sharia law. (2)

Literally read the full context you cretinous simpleton. The previous poster referred, separately, to the burqa, the hijab and Islam as three distinct things that might be treated as either “optional” or “mandatory” in a society. (3)

In Afghanistan, in places where the Taliban are in control, many women and teenage girls are forced to wear the burqa or niqab: i.e. an outfit which, among other things, covers the entire face save for a small slot that enables them to see. In other areas, the Taliban are not as strict, but still demand, on threat of violence, that women wear the hijab, covering their head, hair and neck. (4)

Under Western occupation, no women or girls in Kabul were required to wear any of these in public as a matter of law, and those who tried to force them to do so, on the contrary, would face state sanction.

1. We wouldn't be discussing (2) if (1) hadn't happened. Afghanistan would just be another fúcked up backward state like Saudi Arabia. The only reason we're in this state was because the Yanks fucked up, and we followed like good little lap dogs. Now we have to own that. "We" as in the UK, not NATO. 

2. You don't appear to give much of a fúck about the women who didn't live in Kabul, but in the vast swathes of the country where, you know, the Taliban were hanging around, patiently waiting for the events of recent weeks to come to pass. 

3. Personal abuse - just say you've lost your way,and the argument. You'll feel better. none of us know everything here, for instance..

4. I am aware of the different types of clothing, including that the burqa is not a niqab. As an aside, do tell us more about these varying levels of strictness in the Taliban? Are there degrees of theocratic savagery? Do some of these lassies just get a wee clip instead of the full beheading? A handful of gravel for a first offence with the warning of a proper stoning to follow?

Seriously, laddie, you're all over the place here. 

 

[scottsdad]

 

[WhiteRoseKillie]

6 minutes ago, Ad Lib said:

1. If you knew absolutely anything about military training you would know that one of the first things NATO countries train their soldiers on is the prohibition of actions that amount to war crimes.

2. I know Killie fans are all fermers but you didn't need to bring your straw man with you from the field.

3. If someone points a gun at a soldier, or starts shooting at a soldier, the soldier is entitled to conclude they are no longer merely a civilian.

1. The one thing I know about military personnel is that there's a fair percentage who end up in the forces because they can't find a place in the civilian workplace, for a variety of reasons. I know plenty of Vets I wouldn't trust to be making coherent decisions when holding a gun and put in a stressful situation. 

2. Let's play a wee game then -how many wedding guests are fair value for the possibility that you could eliminate an active terrorist?

3. Is he? Really? Even in the scenario I suggested, where a farmer believes he is protecting his property and family from armed men? (note - not identified as soldiers, because we could be talking about some backwater where "civilised" rules don't apply, and the locals haven't met Are Brave Boys.) 

[Ad Lib]

1 minute ago, WhiteRoseKillie said:

1. We wouldn't be discussing (2) if (1) hadn't happened. Afghanistan would just be another fúcked up backward state like Saudi Arabia. The only reason we're in this state was because the Yanks fucked up, and we followed like good little lap dogs. Now we have to own that. "We" as in the UK, not NATO. 

Literally no one is disputing that we're only discussing (2) because (1) happened.

But we live in 2021. The decision to withdraw troops was about a decision taking effect in 2021, with the world having had events happen between 2001 and 2021.

It wasn't a decision to withdraw troops in 2001.

Withdrawing from Afghanistan in 2021 because you should never have gone in in 2001 is a total non sequitur unless you think the act of militarily intervening in a country does not in any sense impose on you responsibility for what follows from that intervention.

1 minute ago, WhiteRoseKillie said:

2. You don't appear to give much of a fúck about the women who didn't live in Kabul, but in the vast swathes of the country where, you know, the Taliban were hanging around, patiently waiting for the events of recent weeks to come to pass. 

I do care about them. But it isn't and wasn't feasible for us to hold those territories. We tried and failed. You make a difference where you have the power to make a difference and you accept that sometimes there are things it isn't feasible to change.

We know it was feasible to change things in Kabul because we... changed things in Kabul.

1 minute ago, WhiteRoseKillie said:

3. Personal abuse - just say you've lost your way,and the argument. You'll feel better. none of us know everything here, for instance..

You on the other hand appear to know absolutely nothing.

1 minute ago, WhiteRoseKillie said:

4. I am aware of the different types of clothing, including that the burqa is not a niqab. As an aside, do tell us more about these varying levels of strictness in the Taliban? Are there degrees of theocratic savagery? Do some of these lassies just get a wee clip instead of the full beheading? A handful of gravel for a first offence with the warning of a proper stoning to follow?

You know fine well that the Taliban, its soldiers and its political leaders are not consistent in the enforcement of their theocratic codes throughout the parts of Afghanistan they control. And if you don't, you're even more of a simpleton than you've been letting on thus far.

[Ad Lib]

1 minute ago, WhiteRoseKillie said:

1. The one thing I know about military personnel is that there's a fair percentage who end up in the forces because they can't find a place in the civilian workplace, for a variety of reasons. I know plenty of Vets I wouldn't trust to be making coherent decisions when holding a gun and put in a stressful situation.

No one is denying this.

1 minute ago, WhiteRoseKillie said:

2. Let's play a wee game then -how many wedding guests are fair value for the possibility that you could eliminate an active terrorist?

It depends on the nature, imminence and magnitude of the threat the terrorist poses, the existence or absence of less intrusive means of neutralising the active terrorist, and the extent to which the wedding guests can, based on the best military intelligence available, be characterised as civilians or combatants.

1 minute ago, WhiteRoseKillie said:

3. Is he? Really? Even in the scenario I suggested, where a farmer believes he is protecting his property and family from armed men? (note - not identified as soldiers, because we could be talking about some backwater where "civilised" rules don't apply, and the locals haven't met Are Brave Boys.) 

It's going to be a pretty big clue that they're soldiers when they're wearing a military uniform.

[scottsdad]

Knives out for Raab

Quote

Dominic Raab ‘refused to be contacted’ in days before Afghanistan fell

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/19/utterly-shameful-labour-asks-if-dominic-raab-should-stay-after-afghanistan-delays

[Benjamin_Nevis]

Yes, I absolutely want to impose on absolutely every single corner of the planet a political structure which gives women and girls meaningful legal and social protections against forced marriage, rape, stoning and beheading. I couldn't give two shits how "artificial" that is or isn't. If a society is writing off more than half of its population based on its sex that is no more defensible than slavery. There are moral absolutes.
 

They aren't going to shag you m8.

[Ad Lib]

10 minutes ago, Day of the Lords said:

7 hours ago, Ad Lib said:

Yes, I absolutely want to impose on absolutely every single corner of the planet a political structure which gives women and girls meaningful legal and social protections against forced marriage, rape, stoning and beheading. I couldn't give two shits how "artificial" that is or isn't. If a society is writing off more than half of its population based on its sex that is no more defensible than slavery. There are moral absolutes.

They aren't going to shag you m8.

Oh well that changes everything. Let's withdraw all our troops from the airport now.

[Left Back]

2 hours ago, scottsdad said:

Knives out for Raab

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/19/utterly-shameful-labour-asks-if-dominic-raab-should-stay-after-afghanistan-delays

He's already said he won't be quitting.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58265160

Predictable.

[Shandon Par]

3 hours ago, welshbairn said:

Ain't no Taliban ever called me a speccy librarian.

The night is young welshy.

[Jinky67]

7 hours ago, welshbairn said:

Too old for it to be an issue, but I'd like to think I'd have refused to go and shoot people in a war I considered unjust or unnecessary, just because the Government of the day ordered me to.

That’s probably a good thing as you would have only either gotten yourself or those around you killed. And now that I have swallowed the bait I may as well get this off my chest as it really is starting to boil my piss some of the utter nonsense being posted on here such as questioning a soldiers capacity to apply actions on combat or their ability to differentiate a Taliban soldier from a fucking farmer……seriously??

Those of us that did go out there particularly us there prior to Iraq went out there to help capture those who felt it was ok to bring down passenger planes full of innocent people by crashing them into buildings full of other innocent people and not just to go and shoot people. 

Says a bit about you that you feel the attempt to capture those that done that is somehow less just than the act that served as the catalyst for it.

It just so happened as it so often does in every conflict is that no plan really survives first contact and as such our role there evolved when the size of the humanitarian problem and brutality the Afghan people were suffering became apparent but it’s easy to have an opinion on how justified it was to stay or how easy it was to disperse a highly motivated Taliban from their territories from 3500 miles away and all because you read a book once, saw something on Facebook or have watched your favourite Seal Team boxset.

As the saying goes “all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”

So when you see a women chase her child across the road and into the path of an IED effectively vaporising them both, have a mother who has been blinded by the Taliban carry her dead baby wailing because she couldn’t protect her, watch children cry over the body of their dead father lying in the street after being shot in the head as he was trying to stop the Taliban taking away their daughter or a woman after loosing her husband try cut a baby from her womb put their by one of the dozen Taliban soldiers who gang raped her it becomes very very very hard to do nothing. These are the things you don’t see or see reported but these are the things that change the direction of a conflict and the sort of things that were happening across the country and more frequently than you would think.

You can make valid points on how tactically mistakes were made and how opportunities were missed to block exits to Pakistan before deploying SF troops into Tora Bora or about the short sightedness of politicians when it came to governing the country once the Taliban had been removed but not that it wasn’t just

The irony also isn’t lost on me here that you have a Catholic schooled Celtic fan not only defending British actions in combat but actually played a part in actioning them. And like many of the people on this thread you are clearly better educated than me not that it would be that hard, I’m a scheme rat from Wishaw who joined the RM at 17 straight from school because I wasn’t very good academically or had any real prospects but what has become clear to even me is you actually know very very little about what was really happening.

The Afghans are like me and you people who deserve to live their lives without fear of being brutalised they just weren’t lucky enough to win the circle of life lottery and be born in a country where their lives matter and can exercise free will, they deserve better and they are deserving of our help. Again says a lot about you you think it isn’t just to try do that

Thankfully I don’t venture into this part of the forum often and I best also remove myself from it, so that’s certainly enough from me.

Your friendly war mongering ex-marine 

 

Edited August 19, 2021 by Jinky67

[welshbairn]

12 minutes ago, Jinky67 said:

That’s probably a good thing as you would have only either gotten yourself or those around you killed. And now that I have swallowed the bait I may as well get this off my chest as it really is starting to boil my piss some of the utter nonsense being posted on here such as questioning a soldiers capacity to apply actions on combat or their ability to differentiate a Taliban soldier from a fucking farmer……seriously??

Those of us that did go out there particularly us there prior to Iraq went out there to help capture those who felt it was ok to bring down passenger planes full of innocent people by crashing them into buildings full of other innocent people and not just to go and shoot people. 

Says a bit about you that you feel the attempt to capture those that done that is somehow less just than the act that served as the catalyst for it.

It just so happened as it so often does in every conflict is that no plan really survives first contact and as such our role there evolved when the size of the humanitarian problem and brutality the Afghan people were suffering became apparent but it’s easy to have an opinion on how justified it was to stay or how easy it was to disperse a highly motivated Taliban from their territories from 3500 miles away and all because you read a book once, saw something on Facebook or have watched your favourite Seal Team boxset.

As the saying goes “all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”

So when you see a women chase her child across the road and into the path of an IED effectively vaporising them both, have a mother who has been blinded by the Taliban carry her dead baby wailing because she couldn’t protect her, watch children cry over the body of their dead father lying in the street after being shot in the head as he was trying to stop the Taliban taking away their daughter or a woman after loosing her husband try cut a baby from her womb put their by one of the dozen Taliban soldiers who gang raped her it becomes very very very hard to do nothing. These are the things you don’t see or see reported but these are the things that change the direction of a conflict and the sort of things that were happening across the country and more frequently than you would think.

You can make valid points on how tactically mistakes were made and how opportunities were missed to block exits to Pakistan before deploying SF troops into Tora Bora or about the short sightedness of politicians when it came to governing the country once the Taliban had been removed but not that it wasn’t just

The irony also isn’t lost on me here that you have a Catholic schooled Celtic fan not only defending British actions in combat but actually played a part in actioning them. And like many of the people on this thread you are clearly better educated than me not that it would be that hard, I’m a scheme rat from Wishaw who joined the RM at 17 straight from school because I wasn’t very good academically or had any real prospects but what has become clear to even me is you actually know very very little about what was really happening.

The Afghans are like me and you people who deserve to live their lives without fear of being brutalised they just weren’t lucky enough to win the circle of life lottery and be born in a country where their lives matter and can exercise free will, they deserve better and they are deserving of our help. Again says a lot about you you think it isn’t just to try do that

Thankfully I don’t venture into this part of the forum often and I best also remove myself from it, so that’s certainly enough from me.

Your friendly war mongering ex-marine 

 

I haven't the cheek to argue against any of that, but just to say I've never argued against hunting down and killing the people responsible for 9/11.

[yoda]

3 hours ago, Ad Lib said:

Withdrawing from Afghanistan in 2021 because you should never have gone in in 2001 is a total non sequitur unless you think the act of militarily intervening in a country does not in any sense impose on you responsibility for what follows from that intervention.

 

[welshbairn]

An American perspective. Quite long.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/

[San Starko Rover]

8 hours ago, WhiteRoseKillie said:

1. The one thing I know about military personnel is that there's a fair percentage who end up in the forces because they can't find a place in the civilian workplace, for a variety of reasons. I know plenty of Vets I wouldn't trust to be making coherent decisions when holding a gun and put in a stressful situation. 

2. Let's play a wee game then -how many wedding guests are fair value for the possibility that you could eliminate an active terrorist?

3. Is he? Really? Even in the scenario I suggested, where a farmer believes he is protecting his property and family from armed men? (note - not identified as soldiers, because we could be talking about some backwater where "civilised" rules don't apply, and the locals haven't met Are Brave Boys.) 

I’m sorry but this is the biggest pile of shit I’ve ever read, I did 22 years in the RAF and believe me I’m no BritNat Queen and country type it was “just a job” to me. I don’t recall in all those years meeting anyone who I saw as unemployable in a civilian job and most I met didn’t join straight from school they’d worked in jobs before joining, the average age when I joined was about 25. Most people who join the forces do so because the pay is pretty good, the pension is good, there’s opportunities to travel and they can do activities like sport and education while working and most of them walk into jobs when they leave, the “homeless soldier” isn’t exactly the norm despite the pish you read in the media.  
 

Aside from infantry most have a trade and job exactly as they would outside of the Forces they don’t sit around waiting for battles.  As for infantry soldiers they’re certainly not unemployable either while they might in many cases have a lower aptitude, they join as they earn a better salary and have a contract of employment better than they’d get outside doing a shit zero hours contract job or even short term contract work, a Corporal can earn  over £30,000 not many low skilled civilian jobs will pay that after a few years.  
 

Do they carry copies of the Geneva Convention? funnily enough no, they’ve got enough to carry but everyone of them sits through briefings based on the Geneva Convention such as Laws of Armed Conflict, Rules of Engagement and simple do’s and don’ts for their theatre of operations.  Of course rules are sometimes broken in wars as they are anywhere, there will always be some who break them (although it’s easier to stick to the GC when you’re fighting a conventional army who fight by the same rules than a force who don’t) but anyone caught doing so is open to prosecution for war crimes.
 

you’re obviously not a fan of the military and have issues with the conflicts they’ve been in in recent years, that’s totally fine and to be honest the “hero’s” and “our brave boys” pish gives me the boak as everyone serving is a volunteer.  But I can assure you most of them can make a coherent decision whether they’re holding a gun or not and they’re no different from the civilians I work with now.   
 

  

Edited August 19, 2021 by San Starko Rover

[Tight minge]

4 hours ago, Jinky67 said:

That’s probably a good thing as you would have only either gotten yourself or those around you killed. And now that I have swallowed the bait I may as well get this off my chest as it really is starting to boil my piss some of the utter nonsense being posted on here such as questioning a soldiers capacity to apply actions on combat or their ability to differentiate a Taliban soldier from a fucking farmer……seriously??

Those of us that did go out there particularly us there prior to Iraq went out there to help capture those who felt it was ok to bring down passenger planes full of innocent people by crashing them into buildings full of other innocent people and not just to go and shoot people. 

Says a bit about you that you feel the attempt to capture those that done that is somehow less just than the act that served as the catalyst for it.

It just so happened as it so often does in every conflict is that no plan really survives first contact and as such our role there evolved when the size of the humanitarian problem and brutality the Afghan people were suffering became apparent but it’s easy to have an opinion on how justified it was to stay or how easy it was to disperse a highly motivated Taliban from their territories from 3500 miles away and all because you read a book once, saw something on Facebook or have watched your favourite Seal Team boxset.

As the saying goes “all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”

So when you see a women chase her child across the road and into the path of an IED effectively vaporising them both, have a mother who has been blinded by the Taliban carry her dead baby wailing because she couldn’t protect her, watch children cry over the body of their dead father lying in the street after being shot in the head as he was trying to stop the Taliban taking away their daughter or a woman after loosing her husband try cut a baby from her womb put their by one of the dozen Taliban soldiers who gang raped her it becomes very very very hard to do nothing. These are the things you don’t see or see reported but these are the things that change the direction of a conflict and the sort of things that were happening across the country and more frequently than you would think.

You can make valid points on how tactically mistakes were made and how opportunities were missed to block exits to Pakistan before deploying SF troops into Tora Bora or about the short sightedness of politicians when it came to governing the country once the Taliban had been removed but not that it wasn’t just

The irony also isn’t lost on me here that you have a Catholic schooled Celtic fan not only defending British actions in combat but actually played a part in actioning them. And like many of the people on this thread you are clearly better educated than me not that it would be that hard, I’m a scheme rat from Wishaw who joined the RM at 17 straight from school because I wasn’t very good academically or had any real prospects but what has become clear to even me is you actually know very very little about what was really happening.

The Afghans are like me and you people who deserve to live their lives without fear of being brutalised they just weren’t lucky enough to win the circle of life lottery and be born in a country where their lives matter and can exercise free will, they deserve better and they are deserving of our help. Again says a lot about you you think it isn’t just to try do that

Thankfully I don’t venture into this part of the forum often and I best also remove myself from it, so that’s certainly enough from me.

Your friendly war mongering ex-marine 

 

Absolutely so much in a few paragraphs.

The humanitarian effort should always have been about the immediate needs of the victims not some Utopia.

Driving out the Taliban clearly had to be done, but then helping the locals get back to some form of normality that they want and they recognise and most of all they accept should have been the key. I have little doubt that most troops on the ground would have been trying to achieve that. 

After that the troops should have left but humanitarian efforts continued. This would have made it much more difficult for the Taliban to return imo.

The Taliban play on fear by violence and a distorted view of Islam. We in some form removed the fear by violence, but we did not get the ‘reading of the room’ when it comes to faith (and the general expectations of the majority of the people) that has been a massive plus for the Taliban.

The aim should have been for recognised and acceptable normality as the starting point.

Our prolonged stay and our vision of what Afghanistan should look like was counter productive.

No matter what the west done we would always have been the outsider, with outsider ideas and a fact that the Taliban would manipulate with every misguided idea.

The borderlands for the Taliban was the countryside where most Afghans live. To be out there telling a most likely poorly or uneducated farmer that he is doing his life wrong and he must change is tantamount to being a modern day missionary.

Giving him the vote, as mentioned before, although good, is nothing, means nothing at this point.

I would hazard a guess that the average Afghan would not be setting his sites on his daughter going to university or having equality and the thought of that today would be questionable. The average Afghan would probably want his daughter to be safe and secure and married to a supportive husband within the local and religious values he holds dear and despite us not fully agreeing with that we should accept that at this point.

Going out there and helping him get his life into the order he wants, working with the imams and village elders to achieve this and biting our tongue when we have a conflicting view that could cause harm and/or offence, or guiding them to the right conclusion when it may be non confrontational to do so.

Grand dreams don’t happen over night and acceptable millstones should be in place especially when the progress change is so huge.

Cities and countryside everywhere is hugely different and more magnified in developing countries. All the developments in Kabul count for little if the majority of the population is outside it unless you built a wall. All that we created was a have and have nots and the Taliban could sail through the have nots without resistance, leaving Kabul exposed. The idea that the west knew Kabul would fall is an admission of their f**k ups, how quickly it fell shows how much they fucked up. To go back and repeat is stupidity and a huge amount of human suffering.

The more we pushed our ideas onto the population no matter how right we believe we are, the more we allowed the Taliban the ability to walk back in. 

If the left of the scale is moderate Islam and right of the scale is Sharia Law, where does the western, Christian based value sit? Not on the scale at all. The west need to move the scale first, get it to the left first, then….. Otherwise the west will always be wrong at the ‘baseline’.

It takes multiple generations to change ideals.

I have huge respect for Jinky here, not that he was in the army, but the fact he recognises human suffering and the needs of individuals. Governments could have done better if they had listened to stories from first hand experience first and formed their policies to accommodate the needs of the poor.

Being humble and willing to learn from anyone, even an Afghan farmer, is something of huge value than considering your values are unequivocal. 

 

 

[WhiteRoseKillie]

7 hours ago, San Starko Rover said:

I’m sorry but this is the biggest pile of shit I’ve ever read, I did 22 years in the RAF and believe me I’m no BritNat Queen and country type it was “just a job” to me. I don’t recall in all those years meeting anyone who I saw as unemployable in a civilian job and most I met didn’t join straight from school they’d worked in jobs before joining, the average age when I joined was about 25. Most people who join the forces do so because the pay is pretty good, the pension is good, there’s opportunities to travel and they can do activities like sport and education while working and most of them walk into jobs when they leave, the “homeless soldier” isn’t exactly the norm despite the pish you read in the media.  
 

Aside from infantry most have a trade and job exactly as they would outside of the Forces they don’t sit around waiting for battles.  As for infantry soldiers they’re certainly not unemployable either while they might in many cases have a lower aptitude, they join as they earn a better salary and have a contract of employment better than they’d get outside doing a shit zero hours contract job or even short term contract work, a Corporal can earn  over £30,000 not many low skilled civilian jobs will pay that after a few years.  
 

Do they carry copies of the Geneva Convention? funnily enough no, they’ve got enough to carry but everyone of them sits through briefings based on the Geneva Convention such as Laws of Armed Conflict, Rules of Engagement and simple do’s and don’ts for their theatre of operations.  Of course rules are sometimes broken in wars as they are anywhere, there will always be some who break them (although it’s easier to stick to the GC when you’re fighting a conventional army who fight by the same rules than a force who don’t) but anyone caught doing so is open to prosecution for war crimes.
 

you’re obviously not a fan of the military and have issues with the conflicts they’ve been in in recent years, that’s totally fine and to be honest the “hero’s” and “our brave boys” pish gives me the boak as everyone serving is a volunteer.  But I can assure you most of them can make a coherent decision whether they’re holding a gun or not and they’re no different from the civilians I work with now.   
 

  

Whoah, hang on there, @San Starko Rover. I never used the expression "unemployable". My gripe is not with the personnel - it's with the use of these people who, overwhelmingly, believe they are honourable servants of their country, being used as pawns in a foreign policy dictated by the profit motive. There is also, and this is surely undeniable, an element of ecnomic recruitment going on - always has been, to be honest, but the young working class have less choices now than ever.  I've got plenty of ex-forces mates, both through working with them and socially (One of the pubs I ran in York was a regular haunt of the Signals lads from Imphal Barracks)so I've got some small understanding of their working life during and after the forces. I've also been in a couple of life-threatening situations during my Prison career, where colleagues* have made poor decisions, resulting in prisoners receiving injuries which were later judged to be unjustified - and all they give us is a baton (used to be a wooden stave), so I have seen the effect of stress on decision making. To be honest, I've reacted to some situations myself in a way I wouldn't were I in a calmer environment. You become a different person when under threat, perceived or real. 

I have every respect for those who sign up to, potentially, put their lives on the line to protect their country. Please don't ever confuse that with the utter contempt in which I hold the successive Governments of that country, who have, in my mind, betrayed those men and women who never, ever, signed up to make rich Americans richer, or to validate Blair's belief that he was an international statesman. 

I'm glad to hear that the ongoing process of beatification of anyone who's ever put on a uniform grates as much with yourself as ex-services as it does with me who isn't - and for the same reason. 

*some ex-forces, some not. All fallible human beings. 

[Billy Jean King]

It is sad to see some are advocating more war, despite the overwhelming evidence that it doesn't work.
The west as in governments and individuals alike see the world through western eyes. This is far removed from seeing it through eastern eyes, where culture, values,  practices, standards, priorities, education, heritage and environments differ. 
Our white privileged colonial mind sets persist. We know what's best for you. Our standards and values are better. Well nothing better than the opportunity for a good invasion can't sort and we'll rape and plunder the f**k out of you, leaving you in chaos, without a home and without the clothes on your back..
Not including the many US incursions in south America to remove democratically elected governments, 2 million innocents butchered, 12 million displaced living in abject poverty in refugee camps, as nation states are razed in the east. 
For the west to feel shame in any of that, would take having a conscience.
Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen. We created the chaos, death and destruction, and one way or another, we pay the price. Ah but....
Yet Saudi the paymasters of the west, lord over their citizens applying the most inhumane practices on the planet. Fund, train and arm terrorists across the planet, ably aided and abetted by the US and the UK.  Exporting extreme Islam across the planet through their funding of Salafist mosques, but that's ok. Nothing to see here and the gullible will go with it. We fail to recognise or take responsibility for the genocide we have committed in those foreign lands. The white privileged colonialist mentality doesn't allow us to. The hypocrisy is palpable as governments and their compliant media pump out the daily round of propaganda and demonisation and keep the gullible under a mushroom for fear of the masses uncovering the real agenda. The white slavers haven't gone away. Just that they now enslave the minds of their own. Hopefully now the ordinary American in particular will wake up to the ruin that successive governments have brought them. The non whites have. Just need the rest to join in and drive home the change needed in their pretend democracy.
 

Non white Americans have "wakened up to the ruin that successive governments have brought them"

What total unsubstantiated pish !