I heard the news today, oh boy..

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Don't get it. I'm still stuck on the roundabout. Piers, has your new job enthusiasm faded that fast?

[lozzyloz]

Here we go PGC. Make sure you're sitting. You may need a damp flannel and a sweet cup of tea at hand IOM

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Oh, that's horrid. Canary yellow?

[SeanMacGabhann]

I really thought that was a Daily Mash /Onion article.. I've read it three times now and still.... wow

"Her choice of outfit was practical, given the misty drizzle that persisted as she presided over the outdoor Tynwald Day ceremony, yet still effortlessly elegant. "

[mockney piers]

Whoops on the wrong story.

I will add that the new roundabout "complex" is all anyone's talking about on the island (I get to hear these things now you see).

And yes PGC, perhaps a bit, though it was forwarded me from Head Office (in Castletown IOM, where lunchtime entertainment involves eating your lunch by the roundabout and watching people cope with such new fangled ideas; they even sent a photo).

 

[jumpinjackflash]

Israeli jets have landed in Iraq...preparing to strike Iran? who knows?

God it's all doom and gloom

[Marmora Man]

It's been worse - my first international political awareness came through listening to parents and radio report on the Cuban Missile Crisis - that was scary.

Add in since then Vietnam, Chernobyl, East European wars, civil wars and genocide not to mention the many Arab / Isreali conflicts and other wars snd you can see that the world has always been teetering on the edge of danger / the apocalypse or armegeddon.

[mockney piers]

Fair enough, we're not teetering on the brink of the apocalypse, however another war in the Persian gulf bringing shipping to a standstill, with oil already bloody expensive and food and energy prices rocketing while we teeter on the brink of recession is hardly going to help matters is it.

Nobody will benefit from this except the Hawks in Israel (who can rest easy that they'll have dented the side of a mountain and best case scenario set back Iran's nuclear programme about 1 year) and oil people in the rest of the world.

Heaven forbid anyone might move from sabre rattling and invading countries to cooperating for mutually assured security to negate the need for the damn stupid weapons in the first place; and who knows, perhaps do a bit of a peace settlement in the occupied territories while everyone's in a good mood. Of course that one's a shoe in with Blair on the case ;)

[Brendan]

Yeah it has been worse. I just wish people would learn from the past rather than copy it.

[david_carnell]

I hear Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is very much into "cooperating for mutually assured security" - oh no, wait a minute, he's the one looking to help wipe Israel from the map. I get the two confused so easily.

And it wouldn't be a "war" - more surgical strikes on missile silos and nuclear sites.

[mockney piers]

Responding to a populist idiot with no power to achieve his empty rhetoric is a sensible approach for causing complete chaos is it? Riiight.

And there'll be a couple of surgical strikes and that'll be the end of it, how nice of the Iranians to cooperate.

That's almost worthy of Aipac of you there D_C.

[Brendan]

david_carnell Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> And it wouldn't be a "war" - more surgical strikes

> on missile silos and nuclear sites.

Yeah and the invasion of Iraq wasn?t the bombing of innocent civilians into little bits but rather the well orchestrated, ?operation shock and awe.?

[david_carnell]

I wouldn't call a 2000km missile radius and the early stages of a nuclear weapons programme "no power to achieve his empty rhetoric". Would you?

And the Iranians could cooperate very easily. Their main foe in the region (aside from Israel) was Iraq which is now a basket case of Sunni and Shia militias kicking seve shades of shit out of each other. Why start building nuclear weapons and medium range missiles alongside "rhetoric" of attacking Israel and then complain when Israel decides not to wait until a Shahab-3 lands in downtown Tel-Aviv?

Edited for not knowing the difference between their and they're. Doh.

[mockney piers]

And Saddam's no longer a problem because a superpower throws it's weight around and invades your neighbour on a self proffessed 'Crusade' against a trio of countries of which you happen to be one. I'd damn well be building missiles and nuclear bombs. The one lesson everyone learnt from Iraq was America won't invade you if you've actually got WMDs.

And no, Ahmedinejacket has no internal power to wage a war regardless of whether Iran has the tools to do so.

The theocrats may not be our cup of tea, but they've proven to be quite pragmatic and far from stupid.

If the west stops throwing it's orb about and threatening to invade Iran it may once again vote in a moderate government who's happy to negotiate constructively. Amazing how those dissappear in the face of something like the bush administration.

Good riddance to Bush and good riddance to Ahmendinejad who loooks like he won't win his next election. Using him as a pretext is as weak as WMDs, oh wait, there they go again.

[david_carnell]

When the U.S. is sending B-2s across the border to eliminate the Ayatollah's palace your argument would have some more wieght but with Israel performing independently (albeit with US bought planes, missiles, tanks etc - natch) quite frankly I think they're well within their rights.

The idea of letting Ahemwhatdjamacallit use the rest of his time in power to incite anti-Jewish feeling and inprove an already impressive arsenal is rather silly. And the U.S are not and will not invade Iran....they can't manage the fallout from one invasion let alone two. Really, even Bush/Cheney/McCain aren't that dumb! And Obama certainly isn't.

Iran isn't building these things from fear of attack from the US in the same way they aren't funding Hezbollah in order to help their community programmes.

[mockney piers]

Oh believe you me Bush and Cheney are that stupid and the Israel option has been much discussed as luckily for the rest of us, there are plenty of folks in Congress who won't be duped twice.

And that'll be the same Hizbollah who came into being to rid their country of a brutal and illegal occupation that was responsible for the deaths of many tens of thousands of people is it?

The sooner Israel realises that BECAUSE it's small it needs to talk and stop shooting as a means to end, the sooner they'll achieve genuine security as opposed to the illusory type that a 'surgical strike' will achieve. Israel needs to look att living with it's neighbours long term, and depending directly on weapons and support from a country n thousand miles away that might eventually think that a resurgent Russia, China and India are far bigger priorities (not to mention that rapture just keeps failing to appear) isn't a very good long term strategy.

Bombs is easy, talking is hard, that's why hardly anyone bothers to do it.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Or as Stephen Patrick M. put it

"It's so easy to laugh

It's so easy to hate

It takes guts to be gentle and kind"

Or something. But you have to pronounce "guts" as goots

[mockney piers]

Mind you, the I can't help but feel the Daily Mash has a point

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/international/iran-kicks-america-in-the-nuts--200807101084/

[david_carnell]

Should I be ashamed that it makes my point for me?

[mockney piers]

no no, I'm beginning to think it's the best news source there is.

On a different note, this isn't very love thy neighbour turn the other cheek is it.

[macroban]

Foxtons again.

[DaveR]

"The sooner Israel realises that BECAUSE it's small it needs to talk and stop shooting as a means to end, the sooner they'll achieve genuine security as opposed to the illusory type that a 'surgical strike' will achieve. Israel needs to look att living with it's neighbours long term,"

Yeah, those neighbours are just waiting with open arms for Israel to say, hey, we're weak, lets talk...

All those Arab leaders saying, hey, if Israel would just stop shooting we could all live safe within our borders...

All those Arab leaders who respect democracy, freedom, human rights, except when they're using nerve gas on their own populace.

Thankfully the Israelis have a sufficient grip on the realities of the situation to comfortably ignore the European left-liberal-lazy romantic point of view and get on with the business of survival.

[Huguenot]

You're joking DaveR?

You think the aggressive settler strategy is 'survival'?

These guys are twisted fundamentalists. You think knife crime is a problem in London? You've got 20 year old Israelis running out of the homestead f*cking 60 year old locals in the head with hammers when all they were trying to do was grow peas with no water.

The new weapon for the locals is video cameras. Video cameras. Because nobody believes them. I take it that includes you?

Have a look

Or don't you believe it? You think they made it up?

Believe it or not, the "left-liberal-lazy romantic point of view" is yours. It's so easy being middle class and pumping money into an archaic religious war from two thousand miles away that we forget that dinner party defences here lead to psychotic nuts over there.

Nobody is suggesting that everyone wants to hug Israel, but a good place to start would be Israel realising that housing-estate terrorists pumping out coke-bottle mortars is not international political strategy.

Israel meets out 10:1 kill figures against the locals. For every murdered Israeli there's 10 murdered locals.

[DaveR]

Huguenot, I think you'll find the original posts had nothing to do with the settlers, who are hardly part of current Israeli govt policy, are they? Read the story - it came to light because of Israeli human rights group exposing the crimes of the settlers, and reporting them to the Israeli police. Meanwhile, suicide bombs go off in Tel Aviv buses.

You are interested in ratios - try the population of states who have as their foreign policy, official or otherwise, the elimination of the state of Israel vs the population of Israel - then wonder why the Israelis adopt a pretty aggressive strategy. And as for who is the armchair liberal, don't make me laugh - when was the last time you saw any popular support in europe for Israel? I've lost count of the number of pro-Palestine demos I've seen with the usual suspects of wispy bearded students and Crouch End media w@nkers, together with the "we like free speech but we don't like Israel" academic boycotts, and even on this forum where a certain regular and clearly well-educated and thoughtful contributor (not me, I hasten to add) is chided for his unfashionable views.

We judge Israel by our own standards but treat Arab countries differently - an Israeli soldier shoots a Palestinian child and it is worldwide headline news, an Arab state destroys an entire village and all its inhabitants and it barely makes the radar.

[Huguenot]

I'd consider that if you 'take sides' (whichever one) in this nasty war you become part of the problem.

Both factions are operating on the basis that belief in a particular supernatural being and their associated philosophy entitles you to righteously occupy your neighbour's house.

This is pre-medieval bunkum. A wish to obliterate Israel is no more outrageous than the conviction that you have the right to create your own homeland in someone else's backyard.

To characterise those who disagree with you as effete masturbators is a wee bit playground, and to believe that you're fighting a battle when the world is against you is to create identity through conflict. Not very healthy.