I reckon they could stop fracking and just get all their energy by attaching magnets to Reagan's spinning corpse.
US Election November 5th
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I reckon they could stop fracking and just get all their energy by attaching magnets to Reagan's spinning corpse.
Third paragraph of post 1017.
I agree the withdrawal was long overdue.
And as such I agree that in principle characterising it as a surrender is by no means justified, but some people do.
My observation was simply that it is odd for people like Tony to blame it entirely on Biden.
Let's apportion the blame fairly.
Trump was the man who signed up to the withdrawal agreement, so anyone who feels that in itself was wrong needs to blame him.
Likewise it was Biden who broke the terms of it and presided over the implementation, so criticism of that can be laid at his door.
I think it is entirely fair to point out that the Trump administration having signed up to the deal, then did nothing to plan how it would actually be done. That lack of planning would have caused Trump just as many problems had he remained in office as it did Biden.
Would he have handled it better? Possibly, but we will never know.
Nothing partisan about it, neither party exactly covered themselves in glory.
NickDReed
Established Member
Thanks for signposting.
Yes, a somewhat simplistic view on a very complex 20 year occupation, expressed in as equally partizan way as it seems to rile against.
Totally agree, it's equally misleading to represent it as Bidens mess as it is to represent it as Trumps.
sploo
Somewhat extinguished member
There is something deeply ironic about trying to insult others' intellect by indicating it's an oxymoron; when you clearly don't appear to understand the meaning of the word.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/oxymoron
The reason why the UK is in such a mess is that we are now just afraid of talking about so many issues with many just swept under the carpet and so the problems just fester. There is nothing wrong in talking about anything because that is the basis of free speech and people can only make decisions if presented with the facts, all that Nigel is presenting are some home truths. If you are of a fragile disposition that cannot handle some facts that you may not like then just turn away or don't watch that program and go and do some woodworking which is far more rewarding than most of the stuff shown on that box in the living room.
Is it not better to have trade than war ? If the Americans had not been so frightened of Russia after WW2 and got involved in the "cold war" and instead embraced Russia and brought them into the fold as a trading partner then the world would be a much better place now. There may never have been a Vietnam war, invasion of Iraq or Afghan and many countries would be financially better off, maybe some technology would not have advanced so quickly as the need to kill and take advantage would not have been there which sadly does drive innovation.
sploo
Somewhat extinguished member
Absolutely not. What Farage does is take tiny snippets of truths and mixes them with a healthy dose of misinformation. As an example; some years ago he made claims about a rise in immigration in Scandinavian countries causing a rise in rapes. If you took a brief look at the data on such cases it appeared that he had a point. However - just a little look deeper - showed that the rise was due to the way those countries record such cases (if I recall correctly, all types of sexual assaults were being recorded under "rape"). The other parts of his story were of course nonsense.
But, to a casual eye it appeared to be true, and would stoke distrust - and potential violence - against groups who weren't actually making any difference to those stats.
That's Farage's MO, and always has been. Misinformation in order to cause fear of bogeymen; bogeymen that he claims he can protect us from, if you'll just give him your vote.
sploo
Somewhat extinguished member
It's not trade though, it's ownership. I understand that Trump finds it hard to get lines of credit from US banks because of his terrible reputation. The claim (and I would note it is a claim - I've never seen any hard evidence of it being true) is that he has credit from Russian banks. Putin owns Russia; no bank would lend large amounts without his implicit approval. The argument therefore is that Putin then owns Trump.
Is it true? Maybe. Maybe not - but it is one of the reasons raised for why Trump won't release his tax returns (because it would show to whom he owes money).
Terry - Somerset
Established Member
The US lost 2,500 killed and 20,000 injured in Afghanistan over 20 years. The total cost was estimated at $2tn (2,000,000,000,000).
The US public had completely lost interest - forgotten why they were there, and focussed on the costs and casualties which they regarded as excessive and unnecessary.
Arguing whose fault it was that the withdrawal was such a mess is pointless - I suspect politically both parties wanted out.
The public were told the "trained and equipped" Afghan Army could hold back the Taliban. Either a complete mis-judgement, or a convenient smokescreen to do what was politically desirable.
That Trump set in train the withdrawal arrangements is to his credit - he "got the job done". Short attention span, egotism and lack of concern for any humanitarian consequences made it easy.
Biden, by contrast, may be decent and concerned about the consequences of withdrawal. I doubt the delays he initiated made any real difference to the outcomes.
Blackswanwood
Still Learning
I think it’s intellectually lazy to claim all that Farage is doing is exercising his right to free speech. Free speech is important but it comes with responsibilities (especially for politicians) to not promote hate and discrimination. (Sorry to disagree with you but I’m exercising my right to free speech
). It is of course why this forum has a rule that precludes“posting content which promotes hatred of any race, ethnicity, sex, gender, or religion;”
You’ve obviously not read much about post- war Europe. Stalin had a plan to keep moving West. There was no opportunity to bring them into the fold.
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danst96
Established Member
A voice of reason and facts on this thread, incredible!
The whole saga was just badly managed and resulted in the Berlin wall. This point just after VE day would have been an ideal time to put war behind you and start building bridges not walls but it seems they could not let go of being in war mode. Without Russia it was more than likely Germany would have won the war so another reason to build a future as one.
Regarding embracing the USSR as a trading partner etc, I think there was a chap called Stalin who had other ideas, so was never going to happen.
I really don't know where to start, you obviously have no knowledge whatsoever of how "Uncle Joe" and his cronies saw things.
How do you reach out to people who would rather shoot their own citizens than allow them to have anything to do with you?
It almost sounds as though you think we built the Berlin wall.
The Soviets shot or imprisoned most of the liberated POW we returned to them after the war, because they were viewed as being contaminated after their contact with the west. Many that did survive were still treated as ideologically suspect for decades afterwards.
Stalin exhibited a degree of ruthlessness in suppressing any opposition that makes Putin look about as scary as the Easter Bunny.
He murdered thousands purely on the basis that they might be a threat. This was one of the reasons the Soviets were so ill prepared for the German invasion.
Stalin had conducted numerous purges which led to the majority of his senior military commanders either being shot or sent to the gulags.
The idea that he, or any of his immediate successors, would have entered into a cozy partnership with the west is frankly laughable.
The post war labour government, with strong communist sympathies, gave the Soviets the Rolls Royce jet engine as a gesture of goodwill, a decision Stalin himself found incomprehensibly stupid.
How did they repay us? They promptly reverse engineered it and used their own version in the MIG 15 to shoot down our own and the American's aircraft in Korea.
They saw things and because they were different and had a different society just decided that they could not work together and the west has the same attitude to China today.
But the west had already shut the door and made there minds up, trust between them just went down hill.
Blackswanwood
Still Learning
I’m guessing the History Channel won’t be calling you as an expert on Post WWII Europe as you’ve missed more than a few key facts.
Stalin wasn’t someone anyone could build trust with. Take a look at Jonathan Dimbleby’s book Endgame 1944 if you want to start to understand what happened.
Oh dear.
You do realise that at the beginning of the war the Soviets and the Nazis were allies under the Von Ribbentrop pact?
Some details of that. Firstly the agreement to carve up Poland between them. So the poor old Poles found themselves being invaded more or less simultaneously, by the Nazis in the west, and the Soviets in the east.
Once inside Poland the Soviets were every bit as brutal as their Nazi allies. They immediately set about rounding up and murdering all the usual communist hate figures, the intelligensia, the nobility and thousands of Polish army officers. No one will ever know the total number murdered by them, but certainly in the tens of thousands.
Not the end of their mistreatment of the Poles. Later they offered no assistance to the Warsaw uprising, preferring to halt their advance and let the Germans get on with it.
Probably to save them the trouble. Once the Soviets recaptured Poland it quickly became apparent that anyone who had fought for to he Polish resistance was liable to be shot out of hand. Why? Simply because these were people who believed in, and had fought for, a free Poland. A free Poland, or a free anywhere else for that matter, was certainly not part of the Soviet agenda.
Another aspect of the agreement was the supply of vast quantities of materiel to the Nazis, particularly oil. So the tanks that invaded France, and the planes we fought during the battle of Britain, were all running on Soviet fuel. Was Stalin concerned about this, no. As long as the Nazis weren't coming after him he didn't give a s**t what they were doing to anyone else.
When his former allies turned their attention to him Stalin wanted our help.
Let us be very clear that there is no way the Soviets would have beaten the Germans without our help. Not just in terms of the thousands of tanks, aircraft, trucks and other military equipment. We also supplied thousands of tons of aluminium, steel and other materials, and many thousands of machine tools to turn that stuff into tanks and planes etc.
We should never forget the enormous suffering of the Soviet people, before, during and after the war. The millions Stalin was happy to allow to starve to death before the war, the 20 million plus who died during it, many more than necessary owing to the regimes total disregard for human life.
The leader was a brutal dictator, enthusiastically supported by henchmen of a similar mindset, so please spare me the nonsense that the Soviets were some sort of cuddly people we could have got along with if we had just tried a bit harder.
You do realise that at the beginning of the war the Soviets and the Nazis were allies under the Von Ribbentrop pact?
Some details of that. Firstly the agreement to carve up Poland between them. So the poor old Poles found themselves being invaded more or less simultaneously, by the Nazis in the west, and the Soviets in the east.
Once inside Poland the Soviets were every bit as brutal as their Nazi allies. They immediately set about rounding up and murdering all the usual communist hate figures, the intelligensia, the nobility and thousands of Polish army officers. No one will ever know the total number murdered by them, but certainly in the tens of thousands.
Not the end of their mistreatment of the Poles. Later they offered no assistance to the Warsaw uprising, preferring to halt their advance and let the Germans get on with it.
Probably to save them the trouble. Once the Soviets recaptured Poland it quickly became apparent that anyone who had fought for to he Polish resistance was liable to be shot out of hand. Why? Simply because these were people who believed in, and had fought for, a free Poland. A free Poland, or a free anywhere else for that matter, was certainly not part of the Soviet agenda.
Another aspect of the agreement was the supply of vast quantities of materiel to the Nazis, particularly oil. So the tanks that invaded France, and the planes we fought during the battle of Britain, were all running on Soviet fuel. Was Stalin concerned about this, no. As long as the Nazis weren't coming after him he didn't give a s**t what they were doing to anyone else.
When his former allies turned their attention to him Stalin wanted our help.
Let us be very clear that there is no way the Soviets would have beaten the Germans without our help. Not just in terms of the thousands of tanks, aircraft, trucks and other military equipment. We also supplied thousands of tons of aluminium, steel and other materials, and many thousands of machine tools to turn that stuff into tanks and planes etc.
We should never forget the enormous suffering of the Soviet people, before, during and after the war. The millions Stalin was happy to allow to starve to death before the war, the 20 million plus who died during it, many more than necessary owing to the regimes total disregard for human life.
The leader was a brutal dictator, enthusiastically supported by henchmen of a similar mindset, so please spare me the nonsense that the Soviets were some sort of cuddly people we could have got along with if we had just tried a bit harder.
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This is Afghanistan. Those guys are the masters of re-utilizing/repairing pretty much anything. Something you always see in poorer countries is their lack of actually scrapping things.
I think the problem with trump and other populists like farage is they are lazy to the core. They can talk and know what the population wants to hear, but actually achieving it it never comes around.
Clacton needs a strong mp in parliament, but they got farage, who has only been there once or twice since achieving office, and prefers to spend his time in the US campaigning for trump
woodieallen
Established Member
I'm sorry the subtlety eluded you.
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