Defending your country is not murder.

Oh, and the Germans could never have invaded the US.

They couldn't? Perhaps you mean to say they could not occupy the US. They certainly could have invaded, at least in small areas.
You doubt? Consider the number of U-Boats that occupied (and nearly devasted the shipping in) US territorial waters during WWII. The eastern seaboard is littered with the wrecks of the ships they sank, as well as a few of the U-Boats.

Could we have repulsed the invasion? Certainly, but had the Germans been able to consolidate their hold on Europe, our ability to prevent an invasion could have been much less clear.
 
Under your defense plan they could've done it with a single platoon, no?

Ninja please. Self defense is a holy sacrament for libertarians. We shoot anarchy bullets at force initiators faster than Abe Lincoln can slay vampires. Lol.

Seriously...

I think a robust national defense is necessary. I like how Switzerland does it, everyone gets trained, you keep your arms at home and the country keeps it's nose out of others business. Also, I do believe the Founding Fathers had a brilliant idea with our second amendment. Generals in the past have commented that they would never invade America because every bush would have a gun behind it. Damn right!
 
They couldn't? Perhaps you mean to say they could not occupy the US. They certainly could have invaded, at least in small areas.
You doubt? Consider the number of U-Boats that occupied (and nearly devasted the shipping in) US territorial waters during WWII. The eastern seaboard is littered with the wrecks of the ships they sank, as well as a few of the U-Boats.

Could we have repulsed the invasion? Certainly, but had the Germans been able to consolidate their hold on Europe, our ability to prevent an invasion could have been much less clear.

Even their top generals said it was impossible. Too many people. Too many guns. Too big. Too wealthy. Same with the Japanese.

That said, WWII was much more justifiable then the wars that followed, much less Afghanistan and Iraq or the five other countries where we have forced killing others.

I often joke that we should rename water Al Qaeda and divert a portion of the debt to building Freedom Pools in every neighborhood. We'd deal with a threat thousands of times greater than anything one of these poor Pashtun men would ever pose to us. No need to hide behind the circumference of the Earth and blast away with robots....

But this assumes this war is about defense...which it isn't.
 
I think they should be released. I don't see what they did as any worse than what anyone else is doing. If the war is unjust in the first place, no amount of rules of engagement are going to make it just.

That said, much has been said about the ideals that people stand for in this thread. Much has been claimed about service to this or that country and what it represents.

I would wager that there are no principles that a nation claims that aren't completely contradicted by it's actions. Which leads me back to my original question that sparked so much controversy. Why do people fight for this in the first place? Why is "nation" placed above one's own personal principles?

I've never understood why my fellow humans do this.

So, yeah, I hope they are released. I hope they realize the error of serving a fundamentally corrupt institution. I hope they someday try to make personal amends with the people they slew unjustly.


So what you are saying then is that the British are corrupt and its forces all murdering bastards. Interesting. I think that places the conversation at a close between us because frankly such rot actually manages to turn my stomach.
 
I was impressed by the way they used their own military to defend themselves, too. And remind--they have their own king, right?

Yep, just like Guam, American Samoa and the American Virgin Islands and all those other American colonies. And of course Kuwait, nice of the Americans to go in there defending them and it wasn't even their 'colony' oh and Grenada which is a constitutional monarchyas is the Falkland Islands are but it didn't stop you invading did it? Such a big country taking on such a very tiny one! Grenada must have been such a huge threat to the USA.

Perhaps though human rights and the wishes of a people to govern themselves and belong to who they want mean little to some, perhaps because the Falklands is such a small place the people don't deserve respect and should just be handed over to another country aganist their will because after all they are just the little people in the scheme of things. They were invaded, Islanders were killed, beaten up and locked up. Their houses were ransacked and items stolen or smashed up. They would have been forcibly removed off the Islands perhaps to disappear as so many Argentinians had, if that's fine with you then perhaps freedom isn't something you prize after all.

http://en.mercopress.com/2012/10/19...alklands-arrested-for-human-rights-violations
 
http://en.mercopress.com/2012/09/05...ificance-of-the-referendum-to-latam-countries

“We know what we want and we will show the world in 2013 that we don’t depend politically from Argentina or the United Kingdom. From the British we only depend on foreign affairs and defence”, said Falklands elected lawmakers Dick Sawle and Barry Elsby currently in BogotĆ”, Colombia where they were interviewed by the leading newspaper El Colombiano.
Sawle added the Falklands government was working following international standards on the preparation of next year’s referendum “to make it clear to the world that we are exercising our self determination and that this is our right”.
 
So what you are saying then is that the British are corrupt and its forces all murdering bastards. Interesting. I think that places the conversation at a close between us because frankly such rot actually manages to turn my stomach.

No, that isn't what I said. Your government is corrupt. It sent it's troops to fight an unjust war. Why punish a few on a technicality when the whole thing is rotten?

And then, how do you make peace afterward? If you know the nature of government and it's politicians and you volunteer to serve them still, or at least do what they say, you own a piece of making it all possible. That is just philosophy and it isn't limited to the British.

I hope someone will make amends in the future, but I won't hold my breath.
 
No, that isn't what I said. Your government is corrupt. It sent it's troops to fight an unjust war. Why punish a few on a technicality when the whole thing is rotten?

And then, how do you make peace afterward? If you know the nature of government and it's politicians and you volunteer to serve them still, or at least do what they say, you own a piece of making it all possible. That is just philosophy and it isn't limited to the British.

I hope someone will make amends in the future, but I won't hold my breath.

What rot. Spare me your patronising, our government isn't corrupt, it's misguided, mistaken and often just plain incompetent but you have absolutely no right nor the proof to accuse anyone elses government of anything. sort out your own backyard before you have the nere to criticising us.
and for the record.... I'M PROUD OF MY MILITARY SERVICE AND MY SERVICE NOW and nothing you can say will ever stop that being the truth, because your truth isn't THE truth.
 
The Badge I'm proud to wear.

images
 
What rot. Spare me your patronising, our government isn't corrupt, it's misguided, mistaken and often just plain incompetent but you have absolutely no right nor the proof to accuse anyone elses government of anything. sort out your own backyard before you have the nere to criticising us.
and for the record.... I'M PROUD OF MY MILITARY SERVICE AND MY SERVICE NOW and nothing you can say will ever stop that being the truth, because your truth isn't THE truth.

Why are you proud of it? I'm curious...

You have said that you know it's corrupt. You've typed the meme BLiar in other threads. You keep chastising me for being patronising when I bring up examples and then you say that you already know that stuff. Guess what? That's worse, because now you really are responsible for your actions in an obviously corrupt war. It's like joining the mob. You know what they are going to do...organized crime.

If you had simply bought into it, were lied to, were propagandized from childhood, which is what I honestly believe despite your protestations, you could say something different. You could say I am stuck. I found out about this later. I put my name down and I can't just get out. It's too big a part of my life now. THAT is the truth. I have a lot of sympathy for that. A lot of my friends are in that position...or were there.

Search the term cognitive dissonance. These situations are ripe to put a lot of people in that boat.
 
Why are you proud of it? I'm curious...

You have said that you know it's corrupt. You've typed the meme BLiar in other threads. You keep chastising me for being patronising when I bring up examples and then you say that you already know that stuff. Guess what? That's worse, because now you really are responsible for your actions in an obviously corrupt war. It's like joining the mob. You know what they are going to do...organized crime.

If you had simply bought into it, were lied to, were propagandized from childhood, which is what I honestly believe despite your protestations, you could say something different. You could say I am stuck. I found out about this later. I put my name down and I can't just get out. It's too big a part of my life now. THAT is the truth. I have a lot of sympathy for that. A lot of my friends are in that position...or were there.

Search the term cognitive dissonance. These situations are ripe to put a lot of people in that boat.

I think you are confused and clearly not understanding what I write. You think because Blair lied all the governments are corrupt? We've had Godon Brown and David Cameron since Blair. You are also stuck in that circle of the conspiracy/neurotic/paranoid theorists where the Illuminati etc etc are taking over the world. Our government is made up of human beings of various colours, races and religious beliefs (or none) they have various political views which actually are quite wide ranging. They above all are human therefore they are ambitious, greedy, avaricious,humane, inhumane, sympathetic and unsympathic, some care very much for the people, others don't give a toss. They aren't clones of an evil would be world dictator. They are just like the rest of us, not especially corrupt, not especially dishonest, just human. some are very patriotic, some not so much, many claim fake expenses, some no expenses at all.
You have the attitude that only you are correct and everyone else is wrong and brainwashed, it reminds me of the guy who asks girls out and when they decline shouts that they must be lesbians because it's unthinkable that he could be wrong. We see our politicians for what they are, and a lot of the time we don't care if they lie cheat etc if it's good for the country, that's human nature btw.
See, the one thing you can't understand is that people make mistakes, people do the wrong things for the right reasons and people mean well but cause havoc, you can't accept the randomness of all that it has to be deliberate corruption and deliberate conspiracies against the 'people', it doesn't occur to you that the people might just actually have the upper hand because that doesn't fit in with your superior thoughts and behaviour, my, it must be really lonely up there on your high horse.
Oh and remind me when you became a Brit and how long you have lived here which enables you to be so 'expert' on British politics?
 
Lol. I'm no David Icke. Hahaha...

You think? Seriously, you are saying much the same things as him.

http://www.urban75.org/info/conspiraloons.html

"1. Arrogance. They are always fact-seekers, questioners, people who are trying to discover the truth: sceptics are always "sheep", patsies for Messrs Bush and Blair etc."



"3. Reduces morally complex social phenomena to simple, immoral actions;
Impersonal, institutional processes, especially errors and oversights, interpreted as malign, consciously intended and designed by immoral individuals."
 
Or you simply don't want to consider what I'm saying so you compare me to a guy that talks about 12 foot tall shape shifting reptile aliens. Lol.
 
Or you simply don't want to consider what I'm saying so you compare me to a guy that talks about 12 foot tall shape shifting reptile aliens. Lol.

and that's different to saying all governments are corrupt gangsters and all service personnel murderers? Really?

What you can't accept is that the majority of governments aren't so much corrupt as just behaving in the way that human beings do, governments are no different from any group of people you will find anywhere. The biggest problems with governments is sheer incompetence, the sheer size of them and the red tape. Our politiicans gangsters, yeah right when they get caught fiddling their petty cash, you'd think such 'gangsters' would be able to at least manage that wouldn't you!
Do you think that when the Allies went into 'save' Kuwait which we all know was actually for the oil, that it was just the government that benefitted or did you think that the fuel you put in your car should be more expensive than it is because that's what would have happened if the Gulf War didn't happen, you benefit as much as any from these 'gangsterish' activities of your government. If the gangster polititicians hadn't decided to fight the UK for your freedom you'd still have our monarch as your head of state. If the gangster polititians hadn't declared war on Grmany many more than 6 million people would be dead, there most likely would be no Jews in Europe or the UK.
No, it's not I who doesn't listen, I've listened far more than many would but you are so convinced of your beliefs you don't actually question whether you are right or not, at least I do, I also accept that people are human and behave as humans do.
 
Self-defence by Violence
I have been repeating over and over again that he who cannot protect himself or his nearest and dearest or their honour by non-violently facing death may and ought to do so by violently dealing with the oppressor. He who can do neither of the two is a burden. He has no business to be the head of a family. He must either hide himself, or must rest content to live for ever in helplessness and be prepared to crawl like a worm at the bidding of a bully.
The strength to kill is not essential for self-defence; one ought to have the strength to die. When a man is fully ready to die, he will not even desire to offer violence. Indeed, I may put it down as a self-evident proposition that the desire to kill is in inverse proportion to the desire to die. And history is replete with instances of men who, by dying with courage and compassion on their lips, converted the hearts of their violent opponents.
Nonviolence cannot be taught to a person who fears to die and has no power of resistance. A helpless mouse is not nonviolent because he is always eaten by *****. He would gladly eat the murderess if he could, but he ever tries to flee from her. We do not call him a coward, because he is made by nature to behave no better than he does.
But a man who, when faced by danger, behaves like a mouse, is rightly called a coward. He harbors violence and hatred in his heart and would kill his enemy if he could without hurting himself. He is a stranger to nonviolence. All sermonizing on it will be lost on him. Bravery is foreign to his nature. Before he can understand nonviolence, he has to be taught to stand his ground and even suffer death, in the attempt to defend himself against the aggressor who bids fair to overwhelm him. To do otherwise would be to confirm his cowardice and take him further away from nonviolence.
Whilst I may not actually help anyone to retaliate, I must not let a coward seek shelter behind nonviolence so-called. Not knowing the stuff of which nonviolence is made, many have honestly believed that running away from danger every time was a virtue compared to offering resistance, especially when it was fraught with danger to one's life. As a teacher of nonviolence I must, so far as it is possible for me, guard against such an unmanly belief.
Self-defence....is the only honourable course where there is unreadiness for self-immolation.
Though violence is not lawful, when it is offered in self-defence or for the defence of the defenceless, it is an act of bravery far better than cowardly submission. The latter befits neither man nor woman. Under violence, there are many stages and varieties of bravery. Every man must judge this for himself. No other person can or has the right.
Source: The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi
 

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