Why I No Longer Feel Comfortable Wearing a Poppy

[Geckos48]

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/madeleine-fry/poppy-day_b_4169581.html

very eloquently put. Exactly how I feel about the whole debacle.

November 11th should be for those who selflessly gave their lives in the World Wars, not those who chose to fight dubious campaigns abroad.

Geko. No I don't agree with you either. I think we have been involved in conflist to protest ourselves and have either been attacked or their is a threat of attack that we don't hear about because our government has to keep some things secret exactly for our security.

I will wear my poppy with pride and think that white poppies are offensive to the dead and injured.

She sure as hell wouldn't call the army if she found something ticking as by her argument they shouldnt exist. The same argument will apply when we have a shooter rampaging round a shopping centre( something which has a very high probability of happening). I hope she wont expect the forces to rescue her.

this is a weird argument. no one 'calls' the army- they are deployed by the government. the availability of an army doesn't depend on how much citizens live and support them afaik

This thread happens every year. I'm glad they are minority views.

You've name changed OP but still spouting the same anti military shite since your last anti military thread I see.

Many other plots foiled too Kim, RSWP, ALF, Algerian Freedom Fighters, Moinal Abedin to name a few.

Geckos48

7 examples in what, 65 years?

No, those were the ones off the top of my head.

I don't see your point really.

Then let me refresh your memory. You claimed that peaceful countries "generally don't get attacked." I then gave you eight examples in World War 2 and seven examples after WW2. So it is not the case that peaceful countries "generally don't get attacked" at all.

Do you understand now?

Ill wear my red poppy with pride, donate and think of the soldiers past and present who do a job that might just end their lives yet save others.

kim147

It's a nasty world out there. But will we ever have a time where we aren't killing each other or trying to stop people being killed?

There's a pretty good correlation between poverty and warfare. (I mean real poverty, not the "OMG The Torays just took away free corsets for the under-5s" poverty). The richer people are, the more likely they are to demand access to the political process and the more likely they are to want a democratic government, and democracies tend not to go to war. (I said tend)

That isn't the sole correlation, of course. You get your Hitlers and your Stalins. But they are given power through poverty. Hitler would be nowhere had it not been for the economic disaster in Germany after WW1. And that's why the EU-created economic disaster in southern Europe is so worrying.

We need people who will do these things for us. But it's a shame we do.

Agree.

The 7/7 bombings

Lee Rigby

Countless foiled plans.

I listened to a radio 4 documentary on it just a few weeks ago.

I am not 'changing course and sounding weak' I am having a conversation with you, it doesnt need to be about someone 'winning'

Which it couldnt be anyway, you wont change my mind and I wont change yours.

flatpack I completely agree with your last post.

2 after, 7 before and countless foiled attacks both before and after. So your assertion that UK is more dangerous since our deployment to Iraq is incorrect.

There have also been terrorist attacks in countries that arent involved in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The world is simply dangerous - all over and I wear my poppy in Remembrance of all those who died.

Only some though Kim, and quite often not in time to do anything about it. If we are counting the IRA (and all their namechanges) then I would say that the UK, and especially NI was far more dangerous in the 90s then at any other time.

I see it in a personal way as well - after Lee Rigby was killed there was an official order to NOT wear our uniforms in public with immediate effect. Didn't affect me at all because I have NEVER felt comfortable doing so - I spent 3 years in NI at the height of the 'troubles' and it was drummed into me so much to NEVER let on that I was a soldier, in NI or anywhere else across the UK, that I just couldn't change when the situation changed - even after the Good Friday agreement.

I firmly believe that the UK is less dangerous now than it was then.

Kim147 - A look over the stats surrounding IRA bombings does not back that theory up, you might want to look up Bloody Friday for starters. Also, IRA warnings were frequently inadequate.

The 7/7 bombings were 4 men with rucksacks, that's actually far less "high-tech" then the IRA's activities.

The scary fact is that it is very easy to make a bomb and create a lot of casualties. David Coupland, as already mentioned on this thread, is a chilling example of that.

'The world is a dangerous place'

the world is a lot more dangerous, for a lot more people because of us.

I really cannot abide that. We could do so much good and instead we build bombs, build armies and go abroad 'freeing the shit' out of people.

for a country that COULD do such good, we really are atrocious.

I will wear my poppy with pride and think that white poppies are offensive to the dead and injured

This

It scares me too :(

The fact that we are on shakier and shakier ground on the world stage really scares me.

I only hope that when the time comes, those who come for us are kinder that when we went for them :(

Why are white poppies offensive?