Think of the Trees!

Our oil supplies in the middle east are nowhere near the Aghan borders.
We're stuck with troops out there because that lying **** of a war
criminal Blair promised Bush they'd be there for as long as it took for
him to get revenge for the 9/11 attacks, that's all. It has **** all to
do with oil, or anything like it. It has everything to do with one
crackpot US president trying to make a name for himself. He acheived
that much, but for all the wrong reasons.

Anyway, whose fucking oil is it anyway? Certainly not ours by rights,
is it? If the Arabs want to burn the fucking lot there's absolutely
**** all we can legally do about it.

Our troops do not belong in Afghanistan and have no right to be there -
the longer they are there, the greater the danger to mainland UK. The
only way to rebuild relations between hard line muslims in that area
and the UK is to get the **** out of their country and let them run it
for themselves, however they want to run it and whether that suits the
way we want it run or not.


--
Lozzo
Versys 650 Inter-Continental Hyperbolistic Missile , CBR600F-W racebike
in the making, TS250C, RD400F (somewhere)
BMW E46 318iSE (it's a car, not one of those 2-wheeled pieces of shite
they churn out)

 

I was referring to Iraq

What has law to do with power. We need it ergo.... We made a small mistake
with borders a century or more ago, that's all. Nothing that can't be
rectified.

Spend a little time reading up on what happened to the Afghan people after
the Russians left. I've no problem with the coalition troops trying to
rectify that situation. I can't imagine a better humanitarian use.

Remember that rather a lot of people supported the attack in Iraq and the
campaign in Afghanistan. You perhaps didn't. But the Govmint of the day
makes the decisions. That wasn't a problem. It was very efficiently
enacted and I applaud it. Problems arose in the post war reconstruction. We
were a million troops short of a post WWII germany type solution and the
dissolution of the Iraqi army regulars and Police was a huge
(civilian/political) blunder. Not a war crime.

As for the legality or not. Nothing relating to the present day UN is of any
interest, nor should it be to a democrat or libertarian. It is heavily
influenced by Communist and Religious dictatorships. I'll give them
credence when there are standards of decency attached to voting rights and
*active* participation.

 

a pipeline to the Indian Ocean from the Central Asian countries like
Turkmenistan [1] would be handy for the US though. At the moment the gas &
oil from there has to go via Russia, China and Iran which isn't going down
too well in the White House.

Your assertion that the Afghan war is about personalities and not
petrochemicals is naïve.

[1] 4th largest gas reserves on the planet

 

I'm not sure what anyone who's signed up in the last ten years was
expecting then.

 

I'm with you too

 

FWIW, I think the ratio is ~50/50. Bin Laden is still thereabouts,
Taliban is a real nasty word in Washington, and heroin is making a
strong comeback. Of course, one could make the argument that a
pipeline isn't likely if the Taliban are in power, but I'm not so sure
about that. Some pretty despicable people become friends if there's
enough money involved.

BTW, Charlie Wilson's War is a fairly realistic story of American
actions while the Russians were there, and the blind stupidity that
allowed the Taliban to take over when the Russians left.

 

And Goldstein is still a threat to Airstrip 1? Yeah right.

I simply do not believe Bin Laden exists, except in the press releases of
the merkin terrorists profiteering from the homeland security business.

 

I've begun to think he's the real life Dread Pirate Roberts.

 

Good thing they came for him, then.

 

Too right. I've walked through many of them in Scotland and they're
fucking horrible places. The odd one is ok for a shagging spot, but a
deciduous woodland is much better for low cover.

 

Um.. I dunno how it works now, but there used to be wonderful payments
system for landowners who wanted to plant conifers.
A grant for planting (anybody who didn't make a profit from that wasn't
trying hard enough)
Icbw, but istr there was also a grant every year to compensate for the
'loss' of earnings from the shit land the conifers were planted on.

Cash in hand for selling the thinnings every five years (stakes, poles,
firewood, etc)
Guaranteed money for the mature trees, even if it's just off to the pulp
mill with them.

 

and grey squirrels: they thrive in conifer plantations apparently. Unlike
the weak ginger variant. They'll all be displaced by the one true squirrel
eventually.

 

and a good tax dodge. Wogan sunk a load of money into it when he was doing
the 3 days a week on the telly IIRC.

There was a similar scheme for broad leaved planting. Introduced by the
Tories when we had a grain mountain due to lack of imagination with crops
and no market for biofuel. Farmers were paid to take land out of the crop
rotation, plant native species and receive an annual stipend for
"maintenance". Very little actual productive land was turned over, just the
shit stuff too steep to plough or the land with very thin or marshy soil.
Our neighbour planted a steep slope of several acres with cherry, birch
etc. Worked out quite well as the coppicing bods just left the timber on
the ground so we scavenged that for the Rayburn. Plus the variety of cherry
was delicious: massive black things so we had a nice fruit crop to scrump
as well, if you were quick, as the squirrels and blackbirds were greedy fat
fuckers.

 

Are you suggesting that Bin Laden is deserved of a MiB#?

 

I made a similar point quite loudly when we were in Weston for the beach
races.

And then realised we were in the local forces pub and I was possibly
about to die.

 

Well of course. The pub was empty because Blair sent the most thuggish
10% of the British male population to Iraq, allowing us to drink in
safety.

 

Yes, you missed 'the last time the tories tried this' after 'Thatchers
lot'.

 

Sure. But when they sign up, they probably expect to have the right kit
to do their job[1]; the duty of care must extend that far.

[1] Guns that don't jam, enough body armour & helicopters etc.

 

Lozzo spoke:

So let's conveniently forget that the way the hard line muslims want to
run their country is to harbour and encourage terrorists and produce as
much opium as possible to wage war on the West by other means?

--
Rob_P
UKRM(at)indqualtec.co.uk
uppercase(d) BBIWYMC#1 BOG#11? MRO#31 IBCDBBB#1(kotl)
FJ1200, CCM130 Benelli Cabriolet (gone)
Looks like Rab C Nesbit.

 

I can concede that he may be already dead, but if you think he never
existed, that's far too big a con to pull off. It just ain't possible
for that many people to be involved in something so big for so long
with no one spilling the beans. (Think Wikileaks.) Even if he is dead,
Al Qaeda operates as though he is alive, which is far more important.