Season's Greetings to...

Originally Posted by Ed

Matt you are eloquent as ever. And I can't and don't disagree with anything you say.

I remember when that statue of Hussein was toppled.

I acknowledge the suffering of the Iraqi people. But a great deal of that is caused by hatred and feuding between Shias and Sunnis, not by British or United States forces.

Iraq is a sovereign nation, it has a right to self-determination, so it's up to their parliament to make the rules.

The fact is that if it weren't for what our armed forces have achieved, these ungrateful people wouldn't have their self-serving and ungracious parliament in the first place. Instead they'd still have the likes of Chemical Ali gassing the hell out of the population.

We're never gonna have a decent argument if you agree with 90% of what I say and I agree with 90% of what you say I was perhaps being a tad naughty in implying that "civilian" and "civilian politician" were the same thing. Politicians the world over have a nifty trick in gaining personal popularity - what you do is, find an outsider, point to them and say "it's all their fault". Over here we do it with asylum seekers, and we're beginning to do it to people who look a bit foreign, have rather too much facial hair, and go to a different church than us. Similarly, the easy bogeyman for the Iraqi politician is the western military.

Iraq as a country is screwed up. It's more screwed up than it was before the invasion. It now has undeniably greater potential than it did before to become something better, but that's a long term view that is sometimes hard to see through the blood. I wouldn't say the Iraqi people are ungrateful any more than any other people would be, they've just got bigger things to worry about right now than whether they're nominally living under a democracy or a dictatorship - whether there's food, water and electricity or not, whether your children are going to come home with a full complement of limbs or not, these are bigger concerns. One could argue that in the long term they will have something to be grateful of, but in the short term, gratitude is really the last thing on their minds.

But none of this is intended to diminish the work done by our forces. They were asked to do a job and they continue to perform that job to the best of their abilities with their (quite literal) blood, sweat and tears. It is not their fault that western politicians failed to solve problems without expending the lives or servicemen and women or civilians; it is similarly not their fault that Iraqi politicians have failed to capitalise on the opportunities bought by the blood of our servicemen and their civilians.

[Stingo]

Originally Posted by MiniMatt

This is very much the wrong thread for this but I can't help myself, fish bite hooks

I suspect Wooten Basset's populace, like any town's populace would have a different perspective on *any* miltary force if their civilians had died in tens of thousands, if their infrastructure was bombed to smithereens, if they had limited power and clean water since a military invasion.

Now none of this is the military's fault, they have done the job asked of them admirably, but the Iraqi civilians have suffered terribly since the beginning of this war, only some of that can be attributed to military action versus that caused by instability and the power vacuum left. But it is plainly understandable for a whole chunk of the civilian populace to take the logical leap of "we weren't being slaughtered in our tens of thousands before western militaries arrived". That sure as hell ain't to say it was a picnic under Saddam Hussein. But this war was never fought on behalf of the Iraqi civilians (remember them weapons of mass destruction?), but the Iraqi civilian population has suffered massively as a result. It will take a hell of a long time for any long term benefit to outweigh the pain. One hundred and seventy eight brave servicemen and women of our nation's forces have died in Iraq since occupation. Between eighty and one hundred THOUSAND civilians have died in violence in the same period. That's more than were killed in Hiroshima. This is not to belittle in any way the work the forces are doing over there but please don't think that the civilian population aren't bearing a tremendous burden.

Telling Iraqi civilians to be more humble, from your nice warm house with running water and electricity, situated on a street which doesn't get bombed on a daily basis is perhaps a little rich?

You're right - it is the wrong thread. . Season's greetings to you also.

[Stingo]

Actually minimatt, the more I think about it, the more your eloquent post annoys me. You missed the point of the whole thread. It was to wish a specific group of people good wishes at this time of year whilst highlighting what they do - see my first post - without a thought for politics/creed colour etc etc. You decided to fall head long in with a load of political rhetoric clearly stating your opinion with regard to certain events in a particular part of the globe, without so much as a thought to those that I initially highlighted. Shame on you.. As previously stated - you chose the wrong thread. Start your own. This was supoposed to be a 'merry christmas' type of thread - you spoilt it. Thanks.

[yorkie_chris]

Must be very depressing seeing so many lives wasted. Good on them for still showing their respect, regardless of their politics.

Originally Posted by Stingo

Actually minimatt, the more I think about it, the more your eloquent post annoys me. You missed the point of the whole thread. It was to wish a specific group of people good wishes at this time of year whilst highlighting what they do - see my first post - without a thought for politics/creed colour etc etc. You decided to fall head long in with a load of political rhetoric clearly stating your opinion with regard to certain events in a particular part of the globe, without so much as a thought to those that I initially highlighted. Shame on you.. As previously stated - you chose the wrong thread. Start your own. This was supoposed to be a 'merry christmas' type of thread - you spoilt it. Thanks.

You're right, I apologise, no point starting another thread as we've all gone over the same topic so many times.

Happy Christmas to the people of Wooten Basset.

PS. Ed started it, wasn't my fault

Originally Posted by MiniMatt

One hundred and seventy eight brave servicemen and women of our nation's forces have died in Iraq since occupation. Between eighty and one hundred THOUSAND civilians have died in violence in the same period. That's more than were killed in Hiroshima. This is not to belittle in any way the work the forces are doing over there but please don't think that the civilian population aren't bearing a tremendous burden.

Telling Iraqi civilians to be more humble, from your nice warm house with running water and electricity, situated on a street which doesn't get bombed on a daily basis is perhaps a little rich?

Personally, I couldn't give a flying feck how many Iraqis have been killed by their own people, but when they turn on the people who ultimately helped to free them from an oppressive dictator I start to get very p1ssed off. If they have no infrastructure then mostly they have themselves to blame. If they would only stop fighting amongst one another then maybe the country could get back on its feet.

I'm not in favour of the Iraq war, not by a long way. I'd like to see all of our troops pulled out asap and let the murderous ba5tards, be they Taliban or whatever, get on with killing each other - but we as a country, rightly or wrongly, have commited our troops to this conflict and they deserve the highest regard for what they do.

As it is our troops die over there and those that do deserve our thoughts and praise for trying to do a seemingly impossible job of keeping peace.

Well done to the people of Wootton Basset

Oops. I lit the blue touchpaper.

Nick - I apologise. I didn't mean to cause a row, it's just something I feel very strongly about.

Not the right time or place.

Sorry.