the whole concept that a british life is more important than any other totally baffles me. why should an accident of birth make your life more valuable?
Surely 1 life lost is 1 too many
So even if you don't think what is happening is right please remember we are still out here doing the best we can & will be for many years to come.
I have no issue with this and an important point not to forget.
The Mandela / Adams / Dayan comparision is simply to illustrate how hard it is to define a terrorist.
Moshe Dayan spent two years in british jails as a terrorist then was released and fought on the allied side in WW2
What was the "shock and awe" tactics of the gulf war but terrorism?
How do you define a civilian and a terrorist in Afghanistan?
And the really difficult one - find a moral difference between the Maquis in WW2 and the Taliban? Both are opewrating without uniforms using sneak attacks against invading forces and a puppet government. Define a moral difference?
And the really difficult one - find a moral difference between the Maquis in WW2 and the Taliban
The maquis were fighting the nazis whereas the taliban are nazis ? Best not to lose sight of just how bad the taliban are in all of this but I take your point about the freedom fighter/terrorist thing.
The maquis were fighting the nazis whereas the taliban are nazis ?
They're still fighting a foreign occupation though aren't they. I wonder how many people on here would welcome foreign invaders with open arms.
And in Vichy France where the maquis operated there was a puppet government of Frenchmen in charge not Germans.
Try this one then - the Contras in Nicaragua.
Democratically elected Sandinista government, American financed cross border terrorists. Which side was morally right?
Alternatively ernie, your reluctance to accept that the Islamic fundamentalist movement bears significant common traits with Fascist movement's might just be because you're unwilling to step aside from your entrenched left wing rhetoric that anything the bourgeois and imperialistic west does must per-se be bad and evil, whereas the war against "right wing fascism" was good and wholesome and completely different.
Which is also exactly why I said you had chosen "your own interpretation" of Fascism, after all, uncle Joe was a thoroughly good chap wasn't he? or is one type of totalitarian government that rules through fear and oppression different and morally "better" than another?
as for your assertion of Daniel Hannan as having "extreme right-wing and highly nationalistic policies" I'd say that if thats "extreme" right wing then bring it on!
What was the "shock and awe" tactics of the gulf war but terrorism?
Strategic HE bombing of military targets. No civilian homes or meeting areas were deliberatly targeted.
And the really difficult one - find a moral difference between the Maquis in WW2 and the Taliban? Both are opewrating without uniforms using sneak attacks against invading forces and a puppet government. Define a moral difference?
The French people didn't vote for the Vichy government. The Afghans voted for theirs. The peacekeeping force in place are at the request of the Afghan government.
And the really difficult one - find a moral difference between the Marquis in WW2 and the Taliban? Both are operating without uniforms using sneak attacks against invading forces and a puppet government. Define a moral difference?
The Marquis was predominately made up of French-born people.
The Taliban are predominately made up of people born outside the state of Afghanistan.
The Marquis wanted to expel a foreign invader and puppet government and allow the people of their country the right to self-determination.
The Taliban want to expel a UN recognised international force which is largely welcomed by the Afghan people as it is allowing them to work towards self-determination and the introduction of such basics as education and equality for all. They then wish to exert their own middle ages values on the population, denying education to the masses and treating women as sub-human.
Aye, the Taliban and Marquis are just the same.
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The French people didn't vote for the Vichy government. The Afghans voted for theirs.
How in any kind of vaguely meaningful way did the Afghans vote for their government?
The Taliban want to expel a UN recognised international force which is largely welcomed by the Afghan people as it is allowing them to work towards self-determination and the introduction of such basics as education and equality for all. They then wish to exert their own middle ages values on the population, denying education to the masses and treating women as sub-human.
Yes that's the propaganda story we like to put about. The Afghans are all desperate for democracy and equal rights for all, it's just those evil foreign Taliban terrorists stopping them and oppressing them.
The reality is, Karzai's (supposedly) democratic, freedom-loving government has introduced some measures the Taliban might consider a bit harsh (I'm exaggerating, but not much). Many of these measures have popular support.
Edit: Starving your wife if she refuses sex - seems pretty reasonable eh? Not at all like something the evil foreign Taliban would do: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8204207.stm
While the Taliban regime pre 9/11 might not have been hugely popular, what it did bring to the country was stability - which is something severely lacking now.
Errm m- the british forces are a foreign invader ( they are not native and they were not invited there by any local government) and the "government"now is a puppet regieme.
No meaningful democracy in the appointment of Karzai
Of courxe the comparison is absurd on the face of it but try to actually find any meaningful difference that can be shown and its much harder.
Aye, stabiluty and brutal oppression of women. Nice
Advocate for Afghan women killed
Amid increasing attacks by Taliban militants, Safia Ama Jan, director of Afghanistan's Ministry of Women's Affairs in Kandahar, was shot and killed this morning. A local Taliban commander claimed responsibility for the murder, according to the Associated Press, [b]and it's thought that Ama Jan was killed in reprisal for her successful attempts at [i]educating women.[/b][/i]
Henious crimes indeed.
So who was happy with the 'stability', the men perhaps?
So instead we are helping install a government which has passed laws officially declaring men can starve their wives to death if they are refused sex. Great.
Moral difference between the taliban and Saudi Arabian government?
No, but is Fascism in all its forms, and here specifically in the the form of Theocratic Islamic Fundamentalism such a threat to the inherent freedoms that we see as the principle of universal human rights, that it is right and just we should try and defeat it?
So if I change [b]Theocratic Islamic Fundamentalism[/b] by [b]Theocratic Christian Fundamentalism[/b] we could just go invade the vatican city and kill everyone then. How what about a country where you can be search and arrest for no reason in the street would you just go invade and burn it to the ground?
....they are not native and they were not invited there by any local government.....
They are part of a UN recognised (and approved) force and as there was no UN recognised 'government of Afghanistan' before 2001 just who would have been the people to invite them?
The Organization of the Islamic Conference itaself left the Afghan seat empty during the Taliban years and ****stan is the only country to have recognised the Taliban government.
So instead we are helping install a government which has passed laws officially declaring men can starve their wives to death if they are refused sex. Great.
An elected government can change this sort of thing. A totalitarian regime that bases its moral compass on a book of stories might not be so easily convinced.
Sooty - I don't disagree with you at all. I am simply trying to make the point that it is very hard to
1) make a moral case for the invasion of Afghanistan that would not mean the same moral case could be used for the invasion of Saudi
2) that its almost impossible to define the difference between someone fighting an invader as a terrorist or as a freedom fighter.
Its all about your viewpoint.
Alternatively ernie, your reluctance to accept that the Islamic fundamentalist movement bears significant common traits with Fascist movement's.......
My refusal to accept that Islamic fundamentalist movements bear any significant common traits with Fascism, is simply because it is factually incorrect. I can't accept something just because it suits you mate.
The basic requirement of all Fascist movements is an all powerful highly authoritarian party structure. This is quite incompatible with 'Theocratic Islamic Fundamentalism'.
It works very effectively however, with atheist movements such as Ba'ath Party of Iraq. Indeed it would very fair to describe Iraq under Saddam Hussein as highly 'Fascist'. Under Saddam Iraq was a dictatorship with all powerful highly authoritarian party which functioned at all levels of society (the de-Ba'athication of Iraq is considered by many to have been one of the great mistakes of the occupation forces) The country was highly militarised - at one time having the something like the second or third largest standing army in the world. The armed forces played an integral role in the government. Iraq had a highly expansionist foreign policy. State monopoly capitalism was also highly developed.
And finally, Iraq under Saddam was extremely anti-communist and anti-trade union, a prerequisite of all Fascist movements and something which most endeared Saddam to the West. Indeed publicly hanging communists was something which Saddam clearly took great delight in ordering.
Fascism also works pretty well within Christian movements such as the Christian Phalange party of Lebanon. The only way fascism could work within any sort of Islamic movement, would be if it [i]wasn't[/i] a theocratic fundamentalist one.
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you're unwilling to step aside from your entrenched left wing rhetoric that anything the bourgeois and imperialistic west does must per-se be bad and evil
Complete bollox.
I don't see it as a struggle between 'good and evil' and my opposition to bourgeois/free-market fundamentalism [i]is not[/i] based on it being 'evil', but based simply on the fact that I believe there is a better alternative.
I have already said in the past on this forum that were I, living a feudal society, I would be very strongly arguing in favour of establishing Capitalism.
And I certainly support a bourgeois democratic Iraq over a Ba'ath Party dictatorship......... I don't believe we should be attacking other countries though.
