Off To War ?

[icebreaker]

What I don't understand, honestly, is the logic of supplying weapons to rebels in Syria ................. some of which weapons will undoubtedly crossover into the hands of jihadists.
3,000 surface-to-air missiles alone have gone astray in the aftermath of Libya. Missiles which can take down commercial aircraft. Many of these are now in the hands of Al Qaeda groups. This figure isn't pie-in-the-sky; it is a figure supplied by MI6.

I can't think what the Syrian regime ever did to Britain, or how it ever posed a threat to Britain. But these Al Qaeda groups certainly do.
How did Britain feel when other countries were supplying weapons to the IRA back in the '70s ?

 

[clivex]

For once I agree. Thine enemies enemy is often a very very small minded approach.

 

[icebreaker]

Ok we have had posters who have clearly never heard of the taleban and saddam

Now you're just being silly !

we have been to,d the outright lie that the uk celebrates war every month.

I try not to tell porkies.
In some form or other, not a month goes by but there is some military commemoration of past wars from WW1 to WW2 to Falklands to just about everything else. You're blinkered or blind if you don't realise this.

A quick Google tells me that is around 100 militaristic events for this month of June alone.
I refer you to:
http://www.armedforcesday.org.uk/events/listing.aspx

(The "Armed Forces Pig Roast Day" particularly caught my eye).

 

[clivex]

Grasshopper had never heard of the taleban or saddam. That was very clear from his posts. He's presumably now looked up in his ladybird book.

There is just one nation remembernce day. Local regiments and legions are hardly the whole nation "celebrating war". I would also venture that our remembernce day is a wonderful moving event that is pitch perfect and certainly does not glorify War. I am far from being interested in the military but like so many over here, I find it hugely impressive

And we don't give a fck if others dont

 

[Grasshopper]

Grasshopper had never heard of the taleban or saddam. That was very clear from his posts. He's presumably now looked up in his ladybird book.

 

[Grey]

Anywhere the US and British armies have been they have ended up by abusing, shooting, bombing, arresting and torturing people they were supposedly helping. They also end up trying to bribe, arm, feed and aid elements they were originally supposed to be opposing. It's what unavoidably happens when you send officers and soldiers into situations they don't understand sufficiently.

This is what I said, and I stand by it. When armies are introduced into complex political situations without a proper mandate, even when starting off with good intentions, things usually start going wrong pretty quickly. Armies, whether British, American, Pakistani or Irish*, can't help it when they get sent in to be power brokers in complex situations and know nothing of local issues and subtleties.

I did not make an anglophobe remark. In the context of the thread it was a general observation.



*The Irish army, by the way, has a pretty good track record on UN peacekeeping missions

 

[clivex]

And i stand by what i say. "Anywhere" is every conflict at any time. It cannot be read in any other way and is simply not true

 

[Grey]

It is true, to a greater or lesser extent, of every time armies get sent somewhere without a clear mandate and a clear definition of their mission.

If you think about it, nobody likes to see an outside army come into their country in normal circumstances - least of all the British or Americans, in all probability. Even locals who are initially welcoming will be quick to turn against the new arrivals if they get it wrong in some way, which is almost inevitable.


By the way, what went on in Sierra Leone? Wasn't that where Mark Thatcher and his pals tried to stage a coup?

 

[simmo]

By the way, what went on in Sierra Leone? Wasn't that where Mark Thatcher and his pals tried to stage a coup?

No it wasn't. The foiled coup by Mark Thatcher and elements of the Spanish Government was in Equatorial Guinea.

This was Sierra Leone. My boss was one of the paras who went in to rescue them I believe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Side_Boys

 

[simmo]

It is true, to a greater or lesser extent, of every time armies get sent somewhere without a clear mandate and a clear definition of their mission.

The list below is the major actions which the British Army have taken part in since WW2 - which of them resulted in the British Army "ended up by abusing, shooting, bombing, arresting and torturing people they were supposedly helping. They also end up trying to bribe, arm, feed and aid elements they were originally supposed to be opposing" in your opinion?

1948 - Malaya
1948 - Palestinians
1950 - Korea
1952 - Kenya
1956 - Suez
1961 - Protecting Kuwait from Iraq
1967 - Aden
1969 - Northern Ireland
1982 - Falklands
1991 - Protecting Kuwait from Iraq
1993 - Bosnia as part of UNPROFOR
1999 - Kosovo
2000 - Sierra Leone
2001 - Afghanistan
2003 - Iraq

 

[clivex]

Good stuff simmo

Was thinking of the very same post myself

And where were any of the above "normal circumstances" ?

And yes countries don't like seeing foreign armies on their soil

The falklanders didn't like the Argentinians
The Kuwaitis the Iraqis
The South Korean the communists
The Malaysians the Indonesians
And so on

 

[icebreaker]

The list below is the major actions which the British Army have taken part in since WW2
1948 - Malaya
1948 - Palestinians
1950 - Korea
1956 - Suez
1961 - Protecting Kuwait from Iraq
1967 - Aden
1969 - Northern Ireland
1982 - Falklands
1991 - Protecting Kuwait from Iraq
1993 - Bosnia as part of UNPROFOR
1999 - Kosovo
2000 - Sierra Leone
2001 - Afghanistan
2003 - Iraq

Why was Kenya omitted from that list? The experience of Kenya in the 1950's would underpin Grey's post, surely?
Kenya, for which the British government only last week was obliged to pay £20 Million in compensation for crimes that "included castration, rape and repeated violence of the worst kind".

 

[simmo]

Why was Kenya omitted from that list? The experience of Kenya in the 1950's would underpin Grey's post, surely?
Kenya, for which the British government only last week was obliged to pay £20 Million in compensation for crimes that "included castration, rape and repeated violence of the worst kind".

It was omitted because it wasn't on the list I lifted off the internet. We can certainly include it if you wish. It doesn't make Grey's point any more valid. In fact, Grey's point doesn't relate to the Kenyan situation in any way (although I cede that he may have meant it to).

 

[clivex]

Because Kenya was not a war

Grey has singled out the brits and americans as the least welcome forces. You have also claimed that the brits are the worst of all military forces

So lets look at two other nations campaigns since our disgraceful WW11 campaign

France Algreria?

Russia Afrganistan?

Now I have no time for the "whatabout" arguments but the lazy prejudices on here are getting tiresome

 

[clivex]

Kenya was a disgrace and I do recall that perhaps Aden (although a small campaign) had its faults

The point about Grey's comment is that it unequivocal in stating that it is the only way the brits behave. You really think that should go unchallenged?

 

[icebreaker]

Did Grey say that? If he did, then, yes it was a statement that had to be challenged. British armed forces have of course engaged in many circumstances that were motivated by "doing the right thing". I'll go on record with that.

Because Kenya was not a war.

Wonder how we will classify and categorize what is a war, then. Respectfully, I think that is reducing it to semantics.
What the Kenyan affair undoubtedly was, was a suppression of a nationalist movement in a former colony manifested by high-intensity military engagements and aerial bombardment. If that is not a war, what is?
Anyway, Simmo's list was titled as a list of the "major actions which the British Army have taken part in since WW2 ", so I guess the point is possibly a moot one?

 

[simmo]

What the Kenyan affair undoubtedly was, was a suppression of a nationalist movement in a former colony manifested by high-intensity military engagements and aerial bombardment.

That is one viewpoint. Another could be that it was the suppression of a terrorist movement manifested by shooting the buggers when you can see them and bombing them when you can't.

The relative levels of bloodshed in countries which campaigned against their colonisation in other ways (rather than terrorism) would indicate that there was no pre-decided mindset of torturing, abusing or bombing co-combatants which could be implied by the suggestion that the activities in Kenya are representative of the British Army/Government in all instances.

 

[Grey]

It is obvious from what I said here yesterday:

When armies are introduced into complex political situations without a proper mandate, even when starting off with good intentions, things usually start going wrong pretty quickly. Armies, whether British, American, Pakistani or Irish*, can't help it when they get sent in to be power brokers in complex situations and know nothing of local issues and subtleties.

that what clivex says today about my position here...

Grey has singled out the brits and americans as the least welcome forces. You have also claimed that the brits are the worst of all military forces

and here...

The point about Grey's comment is that it unequivocal in stating that it is the only way the brits behave. You really think that should go unchallenged?

are lies. Or untruths, if you prefer.

 

[simmo]

It is obvious from what I said here yesterday:

that what clivex says today about my position here...

and here...

are lies. Or untruths, if you prefer.

Yeah yeah yeah - nobody in their right mind listens to clivex anyway. What about the things you did say?

 

[clivex]

Fck off simmo

As you know full well I have been right on the money throughout this thread

Grey. You said you stood by your original statement. Does it need repeating? Is there anything ambiguous about it? Any concession that perhaps the Brits don't always behave like absolute monsters?

No there isn't. And you know

End of

 

[Grey]

Simmo, I am on the road this week and net access has been dodgy. Two attempts to reply to your question have already disappeared into the ether. I'll get around to it over the weekend.

 

[Grey]

My position on this thread has been similar to that of icebreaker and Grasshopper.

It seems to me that when outside armies are sent in to other countries to keep the peace they have a difficult job, and when they are sent in without an international mandate that job becomes more difficult. And if they are expected to bring about regime change and manage the vacuum thus created, their job becomes almost impossible.

Nobody likes seeing foreign troops on their streets even if they have a clear and limited mandate to keep the peace. Therefore locals will be quick to turn on these troops if things start to go wrong. And plenty of things can go wrong, from kids falling under the wheels of armoured cars, soldiers getting drunk in the wrong place and looking at the wrong women, bombs falling on the wrong targets, the wrong person getting arrested.
The less welcome the troops are in the first place the less forgiving locals will be and quicker to turn against them.

Reactions from different elements in the local population range from alienation to hostility, aggression and all-out attack.

A vicious cycle develops which becomes impossible to break, in which soldiers who don't know enough about the country they're in to differentiate between likely and unlikely sources of danger end up treating everyone as suspect.

Relations reach the point in some areas where it's the soldiers versus the entire population. But that is not sustainable, so attempts are made to neutralise some elements by buying them off. Soldiers offer to dig wells, mend roads, supply building materials, perhaps even arms and money. The problem though is that these deals are often done with the wrong people and guns get turned on those who provided them. People are recruited as spies, often forcibly, but there is little to stop them working for both sides.

As things get more tense, dangerous and difficult to follow, it is not surprising that soldiers will take an opportunity to abuse their tormentors if they get the chance, sometimes with the assent and encouragement of high command, sometimes not. Sometimes it remains at the level of abuse, other times there is resort to torture.

Nowhere on this thread did I say or mean to imply that the British or US armies are worse than others, but I did say that they find themselves in this sort of situation more often than other armies. Their governments send them into other countries more often than anyone else, and I asked where this itch to sort out other peoples' conflicts comes from.

 

[icebreaker]

A sober and clear re-statement of your (very reasonable) position.

Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk 2

 

[simmo]

Anywhere the US and British armies have been they have ended up by abusing, shooting, bombing, arresting and torturing people they were supposedly helping. They also end up trying to bribe, arm, feed and aid elements they were originally supposed to be opposing. It's what unavoidably happens when you send officers and soldiers into situations they don't understand sufficiently.

This was the quote that I was reacting to. The clarification that this is not what you meant is fine by me, although I don't necessarily agree that all of it is true.

The itch to sort out other peoples problems comes, imo, Woodrow Wilsons policies on maintaining the right to trade throughout the world (which is itself probably a non-territorial extension of the British gunboat diplomacy of the 1800's based on trade).

 

[clivex]

Nobody likes seeing foreign troops on their streets even if they have a clear and limited mandate to keep the peace

Wrong. Lets go back to the liberation of europe shall we? Or Mali perhaps? You telling us that "no one' in Mali wanted to see the French troops there?

Its all sweeping statements. Britain US (and France no doubt) "wrong" , the rest "right'. Its lazy thinking and based on simple minded prejudice

If we hadnt intervened we would have had the following

Falklanders under Argentina
Mali under Al queda
South Korea under communism
Malaysia at war with indonesia
Kuwait invaded (and spreading war without doubt)
Afganistan and AQ state launcing attacks on the west
More destruction in Bosnia dn Kosovo
Sierra Leone under god knows what

Bar Iraq thats just about every conflict isnt it?

I think many locals populations are intelligent enough to understand what the alternatives might have been

If i was under threat of and AQ takeover or a facist / communist invasion, i would be well pleased to "see troops on the street"

I have no problem with any of the above conflicts. In many instances many lives were saved and freedoms restored. Think the south koreans regret our involvement now?

That will do for me and something to be proud of.

Many on the left do have sneaking admiration (or not always sneaking) for the genocidal regimes of AQ, saddam, communists and so on. We know that.

Also the supposed analysis completely disregards that these wars have other players too. China, Russia and so on. They allowed a free reign are they?