I think anyone who voted Labour in the last election is complicit in murder

[Aloha]

Because you knew Tony Blair lied and lied and lied to get us into that war, and now children are being killed every day, and bodies are piling up in the streets. I think he is the most vile, wicked and contemptible man in Britain. How can he sleep at night? I feel so ashamed he is our prime minister.

Why should anybody who voted Labour feel shame?

How many people who voted Tory felt shame when the British bomb and sunk the General Belgrano when it was moving away from the exclusion zone?

That kind of argument is rhetorical and puerile nonsense.

He was not committing genocide when the invasion happened, and the US and TB knew it. When he was committing genocine, the US and the UK provided the fucking means to do so. Don't tell me this war is about morals.

I am going to stop posting and let speedymama speak for me because she is far more eloquent tonight (and every night I expect )

speedymama.

the US had a base in saudi before the first invasion of kuwait.

and they still have bases there.

apart from that it's all very interesting.

So you should never feel shame about what the people you get to do your dirty work have done? What a morally bankrupt argument.

harpsi speedymama doesn't seem to ahve a very strong grip on her historical facts. so stay.

true about the genocide. that made me angry too.

whatever you think of it though, you do have to agree that this was one of the most dishonest wars ever don't you? I think it was anyway.

eh up

another one of those threads

Aloha, for the last time, I am not saying declaring war was about morals.
I am asking if opposing war was not equally immoral.
and I don't particularly think genocide has to be contemporaneous for it to be serious. if you wipe out a people, then I don't think the statute of limitations applies.
and he was genocidal, and he was certainly murderous and wholly amoral, sadistic and vicious and would have continued to torture kill and maim unless he was removed from power.
which he was.

speedymama - to the question of whether people who voted tory after the belgrano incident should be ashamed too - yes.

oh come on in custy.

there is a marxists socialist take on this. there really is.

all to do with oil and power and f&cking over the common man.

promise.

It's all about oil and money, full stop.

As I said earlier, the UK is 'morally' beholden to the US, no matter who is in power.

I agree with Harpsi and her comment re international law and mandates. What a fucking laugh - it means jack shit at the end of hte day.

Except he wasn't continuing to commit mass murder at all. The UN had seen to that. So the US and UK leaders swept aside the UN and started committing mass murder instead. A real moral victory, eh

Harpsi, I'm off too. Anybody can rant and rage but to come up with a viable solution takes gravitas and so far, nothing is forthcoming.

solutions also take some grasp of facts.

and the people who voted tory in the 80s didn't even have the excuse that their internal policies were going to improve the country.

omg, i didn't vote labour last time- just remembered, i'd had enough of them by then... but there is no credible opposition i shtere?
what now?

Agree with Harpsi, and very much your last post Speedymama.

Its all very well being righteous about a vote, but thats all there is, isnt there?

quite bozza.

I do think this is worse though. I really do.

there isn't one of us that didn't realise what a terrible terrible pack of lies had lead us to the invasion of iraq at the time of the last election.

I was filled with a sense of disbelief and utter despair when blair was given the madate again. it beggars belief.

let's end on this

no-one is claiming the war is a moral victory.
but I am somewhat amused by this painting of the UN as an international peace keeper and moral and political force to be reckoned with .

saddam didn't actually commit genocide in that sense though harpsi

and no, it isn't equally immoral to have opposed the war because in the same way as it is not immoral to oppose the death penalty for serial killers.

If it was the case that invasion was a tried, tested and reliable method of removing a nasty dictator then you might have a point. But can you name one instance of democracy being successfully imposed by an invading power?

FFS, I have said, continue to keep Saddam under control using the UN observers, support the forces of democracy and let people find an internal solution while keeping Saddam under tight enough control to prevent further mass murder.
OR
Start bombing, slaughtering civilians, setting up torture prisons, letting bodies rot in the street, turn previously civilised cities into bombed out hell-holes and making mothers walk their children over rotting corpses on the way to school while their workers and our own teenagers are blown to smithereens by a totally new breed of fundamentalist terrorist never before seen in the country.
Hmm...tough one.

Actually Aloha I wasnt saying you didnt, but me too. All of it. And yet I still get dismissed. Not just by you however, it was a generic post.

And the only way for the libdems to imrove is by recruitment. I know they cocked up the last elections, but when everyone says oh yes them- what do we do? How do we move forewards? If people criticise, but don't join?
The amount of peolpe who say @ah yes I like them but they;'re only the smaller party'- Oh well theyw wouldnt be if more people joined!!

I didnt want to go to Iraq, although I am glad Saddam is out. Hallelujah for that. I wanted to wait to see what the UN said, at the time I believed the WMD stuff, but I still did not want to go in. I was also incredibly frustrated by the lack of listening the Government did. I know it was over oil, thats very clear to me (we had a vote at Uni, 90% of the students believed it was for oil). It is the Iraqi's who are fighting ach other now and they should be held at elst aprtly responsinble for that. I think TB didnt think it would blow up as it has done, perhaps thats stupidity becasue Sunni V Shi'a has always had explosive potential- but I think the escalation took a lot of people who believed in the might of the Army by shock. they're fools, history shows that- otjherswise the allies owuld never have beated the Nazis, or Israel would never have had success in the seven day war. Clearly he shold have ealised that. he dint though, and we should all- not just you, Alhoa, all of us- humanityu- focus on rebuilding Iraq now. not just Iraq, Drfur, Zimbabwe- ohr examples of places where you cant do right for doing wrong. Invade? wonf. Leave it? wrong.

Iraqi is ighting Iraqi. yes we triggerd it and I am deeply ashamed, but these are poele too who are making their choices to fight- and if we respect their rights to their nation, their rule then we must alsoa ccept their responsibility to assist in the clearing up of what is a mess.

I think the UN argument is a red herring though. In general, I think we can say that the side who starts a war is the one which invades another country. saddam didn't, we did.