[THE KING]

Savage Henry, on 08 February 2012 - 05:24, said:

Disagree with that, although I guess the last bit makes sense. Actually Libya isn't in a terrible state at all and won't go the way of Iraq because Libya is being run by Libyans, not blowhard Americans. Just little things are happening in Libya - people can now use iTunes, go to the cinema, go bowling... small steps which will eventually lead to big leaps. There's no question intervention there was the right thing to do.

It's funny how a revolution automatically becomes a civil war the moment the government opens fire. Libya was definitely never a civil war, neither, for the most part, is Syria, or Bahrain or Yemen. Far more complex than that, although where there's a sectarian element to the uprisings, then yes, more of a case could be made to call it a civil war.

I'm all for liberal interventionism. If we have to have such a bloated military complex, we may as well use it rather than pay soldiers to sit on their arses. It's almost as much practical necessity as moral necessity. We also need to forget about the oil. Oil is at the heart of our relations with Iran and Saudi, but it had nothing to do with Libya and nothing to do with our failure to intervene elsewhere, at least not directly.

Regime change didn't suit us in Egypt or Libya. In the first, the west had little to do with matters, in the second, western intervention sped things along quite considerably.

still fighting in libya
http://www.telegraph...dafi-Libya.html

[Savage Henry]

THE KING, on 08 February 2012 - 13:04, said:

still fighting in libya
http://www.telegraph...dafi-Libya.html

Yes, but Tripoli and Benghazi are both functioning brightly. What happens in the middle of the sahara is of minor consequence in the grand sphere of things.

[Savage Henry]

T_S_A_R, on 08 February 2012 - 11:45, said:

and also..

the 'there's no point in having a big army if your not going to use it' argument that seems to have taken hold round here by being endlessly repeated by the same half wits is utterly retarded.

What is the point of having a big army then? Nobody is ever going to attack the UK by land invasion.

[T_S_A_R]

Savage Henry, on 08 February 2012 - 13:35, said:

What is the point of having a big army then? Nobody is ever going to attack the UK by land invasion.

our armed forces should be smaller but just because they are the size they are doesn't mean we need to use them against any regime we don't like the look of. i don't believe we should have a big army but to say that because we do then we should use it is the equivalent of driving at 150mph because your speedo goes that high. ie retarded.

as i pointed out last week going to war is not somehow value for money. it costs a huge amount on top of the defence budget and also drives the defence budget up at the same time.

and quite apart from the issue of money is lives. over 100,000 people have died in iraq directly due to the war. the logic that we have a big army so we might as well start a war that kills thousands of people is frankly insane. the idea that anyone would consider whether we were getting value for money from our armed forces before thinking about the human cost is deplorable. due to the amount of depleted uranium left behind the iraq war will continue to claim new victims for decades, iraq was a bad place before we got started but it is much, much worse now.

even if you have a big army there are plenty of things that they could do which are more productive and less murderous than wars. there are plenty of un jobs on the go in africa and haiti currently being filled by less well trained forces than ours and i'm sure that if people are that desperate to get something tangible for the money we are spunking on defence some big societyesque initative could be dreamed up.

put the suffering of the people who died, were maimed, orphaned, widowed or poisoned up against the immature, wishy washy sentiment that 'we're paying for them so we might as well use them'. that's the attitude of a bunch of neds necking shots at 10am on their all inclusive holiday, to be so flippant about other people's lives is staggering.

This post has been edited by T_S_A_R: 08 February 2012 - 14:09

[Savage Henry]

T_S_A_R, on 08 February 2012 - 14:00, said:

our armed forces should be smaller but just because they are the size they are doesn't mean we need to use them against any regime we don't like the look of. i don't believe we should have a big army but to say that because we do then we should use it is the equivalent of driving at 150mph because your speedo goes that high. ie retarded.

as i pointed out last week going to war is not somehow value for money. it costs a huge amount on top of the defence budget and also drives the defence budget up at the same time.

and quite apart from the issue of money is lives. over 100,000 people have died in iraq directly due to the war. the logic that we have a big army so we might as well start a war that kills thousands of people is frankly insane. the idea that anyone would consider whether we were getting value for money from our armed forces before thinking about the human cost is deplorable. due to the amount of depleted uranium left behind the iraq war will continue to claim new victims for decades, iraq was a bad place before we got started but it is much, much worse now.

even if you have a big army there are plenty of things that they could do which are more productive and less murderous than wars. there are plenty of un jobs on the go in africa and haiti currently being filled by less well trained forces than ours and i'm sure that if people are that desperate to get something tangible for the money we are spunking on defence some big societyesque initative could be dreamed up.

put the suffering of the people who died, were maimed, orphaned, widowed or poisoned up against the immature, wishy washy sentiment that 'we're paying for them so we might as well use them'. that's the attitude of a bunch of neds necking shots at 10am on their all inclusive holiday, to be so flippant about other people's lives is staggering.

That's a completely different issue. The size of the military budget has nothing to do with the topic at hand, other than in the fact that with a bloated military comes, I feel, a moral obligation to use it for what, as liberal interventionists, our military and political leaders (and to an extend the public) deem to be be just and moral reasons. I would have zero opposition to a radical overhaul of military spending and a complete reduction of our intervention. But that's hypothetical. Not using our army when it could be ethically justified seems morally bankrupt to me. It's one of the reasons why Obama's repeated cowardice is inexcusable. Don't mistake this for war-mongering.

As for your other, rather more salient point, are you suggesting the killing in Libya would have been lower if we hadn't intervened? I find that quite astonishing, frankly, and I guess I'm mis-reading you. Our military is, like it or not, trained for military action. UN Peacekeeping forces, competent or otherwise, are trained for something else entirely. What should our military, the size that it is, be doing? You either use them or you disband them? Surely?

The immorality of most wars is entirely subjective. As is the value of our military might. But all of these incidents are separate. There's nothing to say it's hypocritical to oppose one war and support another. Iraq had nothing to do with Syria, or much of the rest of the Middle East, and you can't include it with the Arab Spring, which was in intent a democratic movement.

[T_S_A_R]

Savage Henry, on 08 February 2012 - 15:07, said:

As for your other, rather more salient point, are you suggesting the killing in Libya would have been lower if we hadn't intervened? I find that quite astonishing, frankly, and I guess I'm mis-reading you. Our military is, like it or not, trained for military action. UN Peacekeeping forces, competent or otherwise, are trained for something else entirely. What should our military, the size that it is, be doing? You either use them or you disband them? Surely?

The immorality of most wars is entirely subjective. As is the value of our military might. But all of these incidents are separate. There's nothing to say it's hypocritical to oppose one war and support another. Iraq had nothing to do with Syria, or much of the rest of the Middle East, and you can't include it with the Arab Spring, which was in intent a democratic movement.

no one can say what would have happened in libya if we hadn't intervened but we certainly didn't go all out to minimise casualities. i said at the time we should defend benghazi but not help the rebels advance, i think that would have minimised deaths. regardless of that i am less interested in libya than i am in the culpability and expenditure of the uk government. beginning a war on the basis of stopping the hypothetical destruction of an entire city and then concluding it by assisting in the total destruction of another city is, to me, somewhat hypocritical and immoral.

[nessies long lost ghost]

http://www.bbc.co.uk...e-east-18221461


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[ginge123]

Fucking horrible. Absolutely fucking horrible.