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message 1601:
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Marc
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Sep 04, 2015 07:36AM
no, just referring back to my original point that they are unlikely to allow Iran to expand its territory
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Strangely I'd take the exact opposite idea. History shows that The Outremer survives when Syria and Egypt are at loggerheads and falls when they're under the same control.If Iran expands, the Sunni are going to be far too busy worrying about Iran to worry about Israel. Indeed if Iran expands, we could see the Sunni going back to the old claim that God valued the death of one Shia more than the death of ten infidels. This was capped by the Shia claim that God valued the death of one Sunni more than the death of fifteen infidels.
If we get into that sort of atmosphere, Israel is going to be virtually ignored.
Under the Shah, Israel and Iran were virtually allies. Under the Ayatollah the Iranians might have been making a bid for a more general religious supremacy, reaching out to the Sunni (if only to undermine Saddam and also the Ba'ath party in Syria and Iraq.)
Indeed the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party was pretty much anathema to a lot of Islamic thinkers because it was secular, and Islam cannot do secular, as it is very much a religion of government.
But this is just speculation, trying to extrapolate the past forward and hoping to see which trends predominate.
If I was more humble, I'd call it guessing :-)
never forget history they tell us, it has a habit of repeating itself. The problem with using History is that it suffers from The Butterfly Effect, starting conditions are never quite the same as they were in the past (technology being the most obvious case). Besides, we never know which bit of History is going to repeat itself and quite when...
Marc wrote: "never forget history they tell us, it has a habit of repeating itself. The problem with using History is that it suffers from The Butterfly Effect, starting conditions are never quite the same as t..."there is apparently a Russian saying (and it's dark enough to be Russian)
Dwell on the past, lose an eye
Forget the past,lose both eyes
Jim wrote: "Assuming we don't particularly want British lads to die there, then there's no point getting involved on the ground. The only people who have enough men are the Americans, or the Russians (who'd almost certainly need US logistic support) or the Chinese (who again, because it's so far from home, would need logistic support)....."So what do I know.
The Russians seem to be getting round the need for Logistic support by going in with Assad's blessing and building the far end of the bridgehead in advance http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/world...
Sounds like Putin didn't learn from Afghanistan in the 80's.
And Britain didn't learn in the 1840s, 1870s etc etc
Rosemary (The Nosemanny) wrote: "And Britain didn't learn in the 1840s, 1870s etc etc"Absolutely right, Rosemary and the Soviet Union didn't learn then either. There is a saying that the Afghani tribesmen are brought up to fight. When there is no invader, they fight each other, so look forward to invaders as it gives them something to target.
Always worth remembering that the last person to win a campaign in Afghanistan was.. Alexander The Great.
Will wrote: "Always worth remembering that the last person to win a campaign in Afghanistan was.. Alexander The Great."It depends on definitions. Some of the Great Muslim conquerors who came that way into India also included Afghanistan in their empires, and tended to use a lot of Afghan troops.
This may be the answer to the Afghan problem. Just hire every available Afghan and invade somewhere else
Kendall would be good.The invaders would be busy for years, trying to get into the town centre,
Or you could let them loose on the M25. They would feel entirely at home there
Swindon? The Magic Roundabout ought to keep them occupied
Or Milton keynes... the kill scores posted on the roundabout should make them feel right at home
Slough...mind you I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
I don't normally agree with with Boris Johnson, but on this occasion he may have a point.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/world...
He makes one or two interesting points, but most of it sounds like excuse making.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/world...It's an interesting question, where is the money coming from to pay the people smugglers?
From those who can afford to pay them.
We had a very interesting experience in June. Husband had the old jeep fixed at a specialist near Toulon. As it was there a while he used the train to get back and return to collect it. At Cannes there was a load of men got on the train from the cafe. They rushed on and scattered, none of them had reservations and the TGV is usually all prebooked seats. When any passenger got on and checked their seats and said they were in the reserved seat the men moved without fuss. The ticket inspector never came and checked tickets the whole of the journey. Roger had one of these men near him, he took out papers and an envelope and appeared to have an itinerary written down. He also had a large wad of new euro notes. Roger and a fellow French traveller watched, exchanging looks. He said the notes looked so shiny and new and odd. Just as if the ink was still wet. Make of that what you will.
Michael Cargill wrote: "From those who can afford to pay them."The problem is that there is too many that they could all afford the cost. A thousand euros each is very big money indeed for most of them. Some organisation must be paying for them to come.
How do you know it's too many? Which organisation and why?
That's a bit of a conspiracy theory, Geoff.. for many it's probably all the money that they had or could get.
I've talked to people who've come in legally. You can get a loan, the interest rate is high but the lenders know that their money is reasonably secure because they know where your family live.In places like Syria, you cash in whatever assets the family had that are still sellable, there's a tradition of giving girls gold for weddings which means that the family have a cash reserve, and gold travels well.
These aren't people who were poor. They're people who in their own terms were quite well off and educated. It's just they're desperate because the world has collapsed around them, they can see no other way forward. So you spend everything you have, borrow the rest and go
The problems in the Balkans showed us how quickly Western societies can collapse into what closely approaches barbarism and then the only road leads out.
My daughter is doing youth work mentoring young refugees. They'd love to go home, but it no longer exists. Indeed the country they were born in no longer exists in a recognisable form
And I've allowed myself to become irritated by Americans which is never wise :-(https://jandbvwebster.wordpress.com/2...
Jim wrote: "And I've allowed myself to become irritated by Americans which is never wise :-(https://jandbvwebster.wordpress.com/2..."
Jim, if you are going to do that you'll have to give up your work to allot sufficient time.
Some of the people trafficking is just that. A huge money making operation. It's not humanitarian and as Jim says the money lenders know where the family is. It's racketeering purely and simply. Then there are genuine refugees in the same situation and the two are being lumped together.
And never forget that genuine refugees use people traffickers because they're the only road out for them
It's awful to think they are ripping off already desperate people.
I suppose you could argue that it is a very pure form of capitalism. There's a market with an urgent demand, so a service provider arises to fill the gap in the market
drugs are the perfectly elastic supply & demand exemplar of the capitalist market
Often struck me that political parties are the same. Flogging their wares on a market that's reasonably open. As people decide one party is trying to foist rubbish on them they swap to another. Given that most people aren't members of any political party I think the market model works quite will :-)
I see that the Tory government has in fact decided that all Syrian refugee children accepted into the UK will be deported at age 18...Comments on what I personally consider both a stupid and inhumane idea? And therefore typical?
Will wrote: "I see that the Tory government has in fact decided that all Syrian refugee children accepted into the UK will be deported at age 18...Comments on what I personally consider both a stupid and inhu..."
It's the rule now and has been for a lot of years. I have a family member who is currently working with refugee 'children' the oldest of whom is 17 and who will be deported when he's 18 unless his appeal goes through.
The problem lies in a clash of realities. At 18 we claim people are adult, and therefore we assume they can look after themselves, so they don't need the protection of the state a child does.
But given that some of these people have spent, in some cases, more than half their life in the UK and may not even speak their 'native language' particularly well, you're not 'sending them home' by deporting them.
You then have to look at where 'home' is. If 'home is in theory Kosovo, then you can pretty well guarantee their safety when 'they go back.'
If home is Afghanistan then there's no chance.
If you want to get a feel for it look at pdf
http://www.parliament.uk/documents/jo...
Go especially to page 104 and Hansa
A lot of them are damaged young people, but we have problems both with treating the damage (which might not be recognised) but even if recognised the young person might not speak enough English for therapy.
It is a nightmare to deal with, not too bad if they have family with them, but you're talking about people who with proper care would still need decades of help. There are no youthwork services to cope with them, (even if the money was forthcoming there are probably not enough people trained to the right level, and certainly not with the linguistic skills.) and our mental health services have been underfunded forever.
At the moment it could be that a majority of these mentoring services are done by volunteers (from what I can make out)
It is beyond being sad, some of these lives are tragic.
I note that they recently changed the rules for British children fostered. I always thought it cruel that a child fostered had to leave the foster home at 18 whether they wanted to or not. It happened to our family years ago and an aunt and uncle fostered a girl for years. They were all very upset when she was forced to leave their home. Considering that foster children have to cope with changes in their lives many aren't ready to be kicked out at 18, so now that's been altered if they don't want to leave home they aren't forced to. but I'm horrified to learn that young refugees are deported at 18. I wouldn't have believed it.
Our friends who worked in Syria just before it kicked off were in touch with a Syrian friend just before we visited them in the summer. She was a highly trained teacher working as TA in their school, as a TA in an international school earns much more than a teacher in a local school. Or did, anyway. The school is now shut, of course.Last they spoke, she was still in Damascus with her family. She is the sole provider, I believe. They had no plans in leaving a few months ago.
Our friends have now lost touch with her. The phone numbers are no longer working and she's not been on social media for weeks.
If they've managed to get out, they'll leave with nothing.
It's frightening how quickly one's life can be ripped to shreds.
That's what we saw in 'former Yugoslavia'That's why politics isn't a game
Besides being inhumane it's stupid: we have spent years of time and invested heavily in these young people's health and education: why throw them out just when they are reaching a point where they can contribute to our society?
If a British parent took their children to sea and lost them overboard, then wasn't heard from until the body was washed ashore that person would be public enemy number one.
I'm not sure the father of the drowned children and his wife isn't having criticism. I can't get my head around the fact he went back so quickly and buried them in the place they fled from. Anyone else who dies in a foreign country doesn't get repatriated either quickly or easily even with all the correct paperwork.
That is a good point as well. I know this sounds a bit like a conspiracy theory but there seem to be a lot of healthy young men coming across. How do we know we are not welcoming Isil members with open arms?
you don't. But then neither do we seem to be able to know which of our own citizens might be returning from a spell in the Caliphate with atrocity on their minds...
It's an overblown fear to be honest.It's a rather haphazard strategy for ISIS to take - they're running the gauntlet that the people they're attempting to send over will both survive the journey and be successful with their asylum application.
If they were that bothered about committing terrorist attacks in the UK, they would just use one of their Facebook recruited members who are already here.
this is true. Guys who go over to the Caliphate don't go as tourists, they relocate their lives there. They don't want to come back to Britain ever in the main.
Michael Cargill wrote: "It's an overblown fear to be honest.It's a rather haphazard strategy for ISIS to take - they're running the gauntlet that the people they're attempting to send over will both survive the journey and be successful with their asylum application. ..."
and that they aren't just trying to get out of the fighting, using it as a form of desertion.
There was a lot of worries about lads coming back from Spain during the Spanish Civil War. Actually most of them had had a belly full of fighting
JC wins an overwhelming mandate from labour party members fed up of Tory-lite.Worth noting that I have seen it said that he would have won without the £ 3 registered voters...
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/v...
Gotta admit I'm rather pleased about it.Not that I have anything invested in British politics.
Ummm. Yes, I guess I do.
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