Wars. If only people would sit down...

[DullDebbie]

and talk over a nice cup of tea. I'm not sure why MN felt iot necessary to end Gecko's Marine thread.

No, I don't think it was worth the loss of our troops' lives or the loss of civilian life or the taxpayer money that was spent.

The Taliban were wiping out poppy production used for heroin production, but since we have been there, poppy production has grown right under our noses.

BBC - Afghan farmers return to opium

and we are being told by the US Vice-President, Joe Biden, that "the Taliban are not our enemy" and we are in negotiations with them and when we eventually leave, the country will probably fall to them once again.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2076564/Taliban-enemy-says-Joe-Biden-US-negotiate-deal-end-Afghanistan-war.html

As for Syria, the Al Qaeda and Jihadis are being funded by Saudi Arabia and Bahrain and they are the ones that are keeping the civil war going. If their funding was cut off, then the civil war would end. Russia has been trying to broker peace talks and end the carnage.

'I think economic investment and more equality will go a long way to making the world a better place.'

Yes, it would. But that would mean working in partnership with countries instead of trying to dominate, reshape the map and take control of resources.

But China is not invading and occupying countries. It is using its wealth to help build infrastructure in African countries and is not using its military to grab the resources of those countries. China is expanding peacefully using its economic power and in partnership with the countries that it is working with.

Of course, this may one day mean that it comes into conflict with our Western interests due to its increasing influence, and then unfortunately we may see more wars in order to establish dominance. It is out of our hands and is in the hands of the elite who make these decisions.

The coming clash is becoming clearer. The West says that China's investment should help the people and not the elites in Africa. But China says that its infrastructure developments are about helping the people, such as the biggest port development in Africa.

www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/11/hillary-clinton-africa-new-colonialism_n_875318.html

There was an interview with Bill Clinton on Newsnight about China and Africa a few months back and if you read between the lines, you could see that China may possibly lose its investments if there is a revolt of the people against the elites in those countries.

While China are building roads and ports and infrastructure in Africa, Bill Clinton was talking about the West's approach of giving vaccines to Africa.
Which one helps Africa more?

Fukiyama wrote a book years ago, widely read by the elite, called "The End of History" where the Western, democratic, capitalist system had won the battle of ideas.

But it is not the "End of History" and there will be many more wars to come as global elites carve out the map of the world and divide Earth's resources among themselves while promoting the "carbon footprint" scare to the masses.

"China may possibly lose its investments if there is a revolt of the people against the elites in those countries."

And how will this be done?
I think it will be like what is happening in Syria, where the Jihadis and Al Qaeda that we have been fighting against are being funded by our allies the Saudi and Bahraini elites in order to topple the government of Syria.

And what is the purpose?
So that the Saudi and Bahraini elites will maintain ther dominance in the supply of oil and gas and prevent Syria from exploiting the vast oil and gas finds in the Eastern Mediterranean off its shores and to make Russia lose influence and its investments in the region.

Everything is about resources and global strategic dominance.

what is ukip/daily mail's position on all that, claig?

Both UKIP and the Daily Mail were against war in Syria.

www.express.co.uk/news/uk/425185/EXCLUSIVE-We-re-tired-of-wars-Nigel-Farage-explains-why-we-MUST-resist-striking-Syria

"William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, should resign over the Syria vote because his backing of military action had shown he was “out of touch with the British people”, the leader of UKIP has said."

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10277332/Syria-William-Hague-must-resign-says-UKIP.html

Syria could have led to the nightnare of war with Russia. Some gung-ho Dr Strangeloves might want to risk it and believe that Russia is too weak to resist. But that is not at all clear and it was fortunate that there was great public opposition to a war, inspite of warmongering from some of our newspapers and media.

Assad is winning against the Free Syrian Army, the assorted Jihadis and Al Qaeda and some of the elite wanted to tip the balance in the favour of the Jihadis by having us strike Syria to help them. But so far they have not got their way.

I think that geckos thread was stopped as a mark of respect- I would personally find it very tasteful for anti armed forces remarks to be made today.

I don't think that the war in Afghanistan or Iraq have been worth the loss of life of the ill feeling against us.

I'm in whole hearted agreement with claig over Syria.

I think with the ME the west needs to take a step back and allow the Arab countries to try to broker peace themselves or I personally think Russia is doing a good job of brokering peace at the moment.

I meant very distasteful not tasteful

Claig - you are talking utter, utter nonsense about Syria.

You seem to completely overlook why the conflict started (people protested peacefully asking for democracy, Assad being firing on them, the protestors began to arm themselves as defence, then the conflict began), or that most of the rebels are Syrian FSA. Arguably, it is only in the last year that ISIS et al have come to prominence, prior to that, it was the FSA vs the regime and the regime's various supporters.

Russia backing and arming a brutal dictator - for that is what Assad is, because the Russians have a key naval base on the coast by Lattakia - is not "brokering peace".

You are also ignoring the Hizbollah and Iranian support for the Assad regime along with the statements they recently made about Assad's regime not lasting, were it not for their support.

All that being said the people of the UK have the right to decide to intervene or not intervene, but at least be aware of the actual facts.

This is from the Telegraph.

Yes, Assad was heavy-handed when people protested against him in 2011

'From the outset, the government’s reaction was heavy-handed. Protestors were beaten, shot and disappeared without trace.

Street protests quickly turned into an armed rebellion, with a loose coalition of groups fighting under the broad banner of the Free Syrian Army.'

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10120350/Syrian-crisis-explained-QandA.html

BBC says

"2011 July - President Assad sacks the governor of the northern province of Hama after mass demonstration there, eventually sending in troops to restore order at the cost of scores of lives. Opposition activists meet in Istanbul to form a unified opposition.

2011 October - Newly formed Syrian National Council says it has forged a common front of internal and exiled opposition activists. Russia and China veto UN resolution condemning Syria."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-14703995

So now there is a movement to overthrow Assad i.e. effectively a revolution against the governing regime.

Telegraph says

"Who are the rebels?

Early on, most were ordinary Syrians who abandoned their normal lives to take up arms. Most were moderate Muslims. They repeatedly appealed for military aid from the West. But concerns about their chaotic power structure delayed any decisions.

By mid-2012, significant numbers of Sunni jihadist fighters from the Arab world and European countries including Britain began arriving. In some areas extremists are now the dominant force in the rebellion , which raised concerns in the West that any weapons supplied would “fall into the wrong hands”.

Telegraph and BBC don't mention who is funding the Jihadis and Al Qaeda, but that is mainly Sunni Saudi Arabia. Shiite Hizbollah has joined in to help prevent the Sunni Al Qaeda and Jijadis gaining ascendancy in Syria and they have been a major reason why Assad is currently winning.

Saudi Arabia is spending billions trying to overthrow Assad and has even offered Russia a deal if it drops support for Syria

www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/10266957/Saudis-offer-Russia-secret-oil-deal-if-it-drops-Syria.html

The Saudis are spending billions for "human rights", because there ar precious few of those in Saudi Arabia itself. This is about dominance in oil and gas provision and about destroying the unity of the Syrian state in order to weaken Syria and its future position in that region

As this article in the Guardian said

"Syria intervention plan fueled by oil interests, not chemical weapon concern

Massacres of civilians are being exploited for narrow geopolitical competition to control Mideast oil, gas pipelines"

www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2013/aug/30/syria-chemical-attack-war-intervention-oil-gas-energy-pipelines

Sorry that should have been

The Saudis are not spending billions funding the rebels because of "human rights", because there are precious few of those in Saudi Arabia itself.

And the British public did not want to send its troops to fight and possibly die there in order to enrich some plutocrats who wanted to make millions and billions out of oil and gas, and they did not want to take the risk of an escalation of a war with Russia over oil and gas which would enrich an elite who were well protected in their bunkers while ordinary people and ordinary troops would be bombed and suffer.

As Nigel Farage rightly said "we're tired of wars" and we won't be tricked into more of them by a plutocratic elite who use ordinary people to fight and die in their wars in order to enrich that elite.

And there are millions of refugees who would like nothing better than to be able to return to their homes and for life to carry on as it did before. But the vested interests and the Jihadi and Al Qaeda paid-for puppets of Saudi Arabia are not there to let that happen and so milions will have to live in tents until one side or the other wins.

And if the Syrian Free Army and the Saudi-backed Jihadis and Al Qaeda do eventually win, then apart from all the atrocities that will be carried out, such as heart eating and lung eating and massacres of Christain communiies who have lived there for thousands of years, the end result will be that Syria will end up being destroyed and turned into something like Libya.

And finally the foreign Jihadi puppets who have been paid to fight the war will probably be attacked by the West. They will have been paid and used to fight the war but we will then be told that they are a threat to the West.

Just as the Taliban was created by the CIA and Pakistani ISI, and then attacked, so too will the Saidi paid for Jihadis eventually be dealt with.

The end result will be that Syria will be destroyed and its resources will no longer be for its people but will be in the hands of foreign plutocrats who planned it all along.

'But it would not take too much effort by the countries of the world to stop it through real external pressure and cutting of supplies and support with arms and money.'

Yes it would because it is a strategic battle between the West and Russia/Iran/Syria for supremacy in that region. There is no easy answer to it. The Syrian war is almost a proxy war between the West and Russia and the real danger is that it turns into an open war and even World War III.

That is why the public was so against it and Farage and Diane Abbott and many others were so against it, while some politicians were prepared to escalate it.

And I suspect that our top military put the plutocrats back in their box and told them not to strike Syria and risk a war. That is why I think we are currently not in a war that may have escalated to World War III.

But the plutocrats will be back because there are billions at stake and they will be safe in bunkers while the rest of teh world is at risk.

"Don't start what you can't finish, warn the top brass: Britain's leading military experts explain how the West should react to Syria"

www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2402406/Syria-Dont-start-finish-warn-brass.html

Some people would have us believe that wars are relatively pain-free, that we have the power to change things relatively easily. But that is a lie. The top military brass know the risks that are really involved and I suspect that they spelt them out to the politicians who have never been on a battlefield.

We never beat the Serbs by conquering them. We didn't enter their country and fight them because it would have cost us thousands of troops and the public may not have accepted our losses. Instead we bombed them for months and blew up bridges and buiildings from a distance and their civilians stood on brdiges with targets dispayed on their chests. In the end, Milosevic had to surrender because the West did a deal with Russia and Russia refused to give Milosevic any more oil which meant he could no longer hold out. If the bombing had continued for many more months, there wa a danger that the public would have lost support for the war and so it was important that the Russians were persuaded to help end it.

The Saudis hoped that they could cut a deal with the Russians to make them drop support for Syria, just as they were persuaded to drop support for Serbia. But so far, Russia has not been prepared to drop Syria totally. The Russians want a negotiated peace and they are prepared to make deals but they are as yet not prepared to let Syria go to the Jihadis.

Ordinary people all across the world hope that some deal can be done to bring peace to Syria and to let its people live as they did before. But do the plutocrats have the same hope?

Can I remind people that this thread was innitially about the importance of drinking tea. Stay on topic please.