General Chat

OFITG,

I agree

THAT has a great deal to do with the situation today......
but those decisions were made(allegedly) by government,

NOT the man in the street.....

Much of this stems from a time before universal suffrage when the man in the street was not in a position to decide who should be his representative.

The break up of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World saw the emergence of many of the countries that make up what we call the Middle East today, these include Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, parts of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait - guess who the main power in the region after the First World War was - it was Great Britain.

Since the end if the First World War and right up until this present day,, the UK and the US have had, their finger in one pie or another in the region, supposedly to protect our interests, mainly oil.

To that end they have played different countries off against another, in doing so, they have not only switched their allegiances to different countries and back again, they have tried to impose the model of Western Democracy on many of these countries, the cycle just kept repeating itself and the cycle still keeps repeating itself.

Over the last 100 years of playing this game the Western powers have learnt nothing - and they wonder why there is turmoil throughout the Middle East today :-S :-S :-S

Not sure what you're getting at here, Bob.

"so the journalists and aid workers' families are guilty of what?"

Has anyone here said they are guilty of something?

OFITG, sad though it is, I think your summing-up has illustrated the situation precisely :-)

Can't express how angry I get when I hear the likes of Cameron etc telling us how awful an atrocity it is when such a thing happens (ummm like WE don't know already). Then he goes on to say how 'we are dong everything in our power to stop these evil people/to bring these killers to justice' etc ...just who is he kidding?....the UK Govt does absolutely nothing for British hostages, as has been proven time and again :-|

P.S. Cannot think why on earth the original post was zapped :-S

Dont the parents of these murderers have a clue what their children may be about when they say they are off to Syria an the like ?

I hope those responsible British born alreay there arent allowed back into this or any other country.

There was internment during WW2 - perhaps this could help again?

They say they are going on holiday to Turkey, Kay. Then they are met by recruiters and taken over the boarder.

Chris - in theory a good idea ;-) but can you imagine the uproar that would cause since everyone seems to have so many 'rights' now!

I know Karen - but what about the rights of the innocent 'sitting ducks'?

Can't you still be hung for treason I would have thought these awful crimes would have come under that title, but then we have a very weak goverment

I lived in Iraq under the regime of Saddam Hussein. Sure he came to power after a violent coup and under his rule the Ba'ath party brooked no dissent. Ordinary life went on in a boring placid way for the most part and the standard of living was reasonable people made money and practised any religion they liked. The ba'ath party was atheistic. The Kurds and marsh Arabs wanted autonomy and were brutally hammered with little objection from the UK.
Bush and his sidekick brought down the whole apple cart which they did not understand. Now we have to live and die with the entirely predictable consequences.
Islam is not really compatible with democracy not least because the notion of a nation state is not very Islamic.
Isil/IS is carrying out uncompromising policies of the kind that took the rule of Islam right across north Africa and into Spain. It is no use denying that there is plenty of justifaction in the Koran. Of course some kind of permanent religious revolution is not very practical.Islam settled down to a become s bedrock of civilisation guided by Islamic scholars and teachers.
For various reasons many of the young in Islamic communities no longer accept over 1000 years of Islamic teaching but want to return to what they see as the purity of the Koran. Among these reasons are the vice like grip of Israel on Palestine and the rise of wahabi'ism in Saudi. The wahabis are seriously winding up the shia who respond in kind. It is no use NATO saying it will destroy Isil/IS by means of as airstrikes etc. That is because they are fighting an idea not a junta. As with the defeat of communism the fundamentalist idea can only be defeated with a better idea. Any such political push back will depend on very radical change by Israel. The Americans are not prepared to force this.
So the Pandora's box is open. Any idea that we can all sleep safely in our beds with more intrusive state security and sanctions is moonshine.

I think its time top pull our aid workers out of such countries

and let them police themselves :-( :-(

At least you all know what I said now.

do you like Chris Rea
, a Middlesboro blues singer?

I know the name but don't know who he is.

Why do you ask?

the parents of the two Cardiff boys who went to Syria - both born and educated in Cardiff - have begged their sons to come home but they say they will never return and I don't think they had better return now

I was in Southampton today and, catching sight of a young girl, Malaysian I think, wearing the headscarf, and I wondered if harmless people such as she would eventually be the ones to suffer for these atrocities.

There will be those with a taste for being a vigilante who will be wanting revenge, or just an excuse to perpetrate violence toward somebody.

It works both ways!

Rollo Chris Rea used to serve us our ice cream in his dads shop
I used to call him the penguin :-D :-D

Sharon he sang the road to hell
and fool if you think its over :-D :-D

I find it sad that the religion/faith is stated before the act.

Remember the '70's, when Britain was regularly bombed by the IRA?
This didn't evolve in all Catholics being denigrated by the media.

These are British children of parents who came to this country to escape just what their own children are going back to emulate.
They need re-education and a few 'religious leaders' need locking up.