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WC - surprised no one has mentioned yet that the reason that Pinochet came to power was the assassination of Allende by ... the CIA! 
So the problems there - as in many other parts of Latin America - are in fact directly attributable to US foreign policy.
So the problems there - as in many other parts of Latin America - are in fact directly attributable to US foreign policy.
Hey Gov
I guess the blood you have on your hands is the same color as the stuff on mine, not handing over Pinochet was a failure of British foreign policy. You could claim some moral high ground if you had, but not to be, huh?
Jacko, I figured you were lurking in the shadows, long time no hear from.
I guess the blood you have on your hands is the same color as the stuff on mine, not handing over Pinochet was a failure of British foreign policy. You could claim some moral high ground if you had, but not to be, huh?
Jacko, I figured you were lurking in the shadows, long time no hear from.
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The spanish decide that Pinochet was not fit to stand trial too. Then he practically skipped down the steps of his jet in Santiago. The man has a good doctor and deserves an Oscar.
The point seems to be that military/fascist/communist/religious extremist dictatorships are only bad if they are not on your side.
Pinochet was a lovely chap when we were ahving a go at the Argies - and never mind if his people kept disappearing. The communist chinese were great guys when they helped us to fight the japanese in WW2. Joe Stalin was a big mate as he helped us give Hitler a kicking.
None of these were popular once they had outlived their usefullness for the short term task. The Afghan freedeom fighters who fought the Russians included in their number a great many of the Taliban who are now the most evil people on the planet (or so it seems!).
One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. However, maybe the USA will now "wake up and smell the coffee". There was tacit support for the IRA from the USA for many years and maybe America is now starting to see it from the other side. I am not taking joy from the appalling events of 11 Sept - I was as sickened as anyone else - but someone has to say it.
As a final note - is it not time that the USA did someting about the Israelies? Their behaviour since the establishment of Israel has been appalling. Annexing the Palestinian homelands was guaranteed to bring about a terrorist war - just like the one the Israelies fought to get their rightfull homeland established in the first place. Both Israel and Palestine have a right to exist but NO-ONE has a right to someone else's homeland.
Maybe we Brits ahev a lot to answer for in our history (not too much of a maybe) but we have now left most of these other countries to their own devices. However, I do draw a distinction between homelands and lumps of unpopulated godforsaken rock like the Flaklands!
The point seems to be that military/fascist/communist/religious extremist dictatorships are only bad if they are not on your side.
Pinochet was a lovely chap when we were ahving a go at the Argies - and never mind if his people kept disappearing. The communist chinese were great guys when they helped us to fight the japanese in WW2. Joe Stalin was a big mate as he helped us give Hitler a kicking.
None of these were popular once they had outlived their usefullness for the short term task. The Afghan freedeom fighters who fought the Russians included in their number a great many of the Taliban who are now the most evil people on the planet (or so it seems!).
One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. However, maybe the USA will now "wake up and smell the coffee". There was tacit support for the IRA from the USA for many years and maybe America is now starting to see it from the other side. I am not taking joy from the appalling events of 11 Sept - I was as sickened as anyone else - but someone has to say it.
As a final note - is it not time that the USA did someting about the Israelies? Their behaviour since the establishment of Israel has been appalling. Annexing the Palestinian homelands was guaranteed to bring about a terrorist war - just like the one the Israelies fought to get their rightfull homeland established in the first place. Both Israel and Palestine have a right to exist but NO-ONE has a right to someone else's homeland.
Maybe we Brits ahev a lot to answer for in our history (not too much of a maybe) but we have now left most of these other countries to their own devices. However, I do draw a distinction between homelands and lumps of unpopulated godforsaken rock like the Flaklands!
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Yes we were arrogant, Jacko, and did try to impose European cultural norms. And our administrators did live in privileged enclaves and isolate themselves from Kipling's "lesser breeds without the Law". Some historians date this trend to the opening of the Suez Canal, which made the sea voyage to India, and further East, acceptable to the Memsahibs. Hitherto the chaps had set themselves up with local mistresses and raised local families.
I am not too sure about "...we exploited the resources and peoples of our colonies..." Most of the studies on which this assertion is based were only of crudely measured outputs, ignored capital investment and disallowed any return on capital. Recent commentators (such as Corelli Barnett) traced UK's relative economic decline to the mid-19th Century when overseas investment began to starve UK industry of capital. I know more about Burma (now Myanmar) than any other former colony and I ask myself how many Burmese considered themselves worse off under the Brits than under their ancient kings; and how many of them consider their present form of government superior to he Westminster model?
About 20 years ago I was in a party of foreign attachés shown around a brand new military hospital in Ankara (the Gùlhane, donated and equipped by the Americans with all the bells and whistles). But there was no nursing and the wards were squalid and unhygienic. I remarked (politely) to the charming TAF one-star who was showing us around. He replied: "Ah, Yarbay, (Lt Col)if you were expecting nurses in starched white uniforms and polished floors, you forget that Turkey was never an English colony".
I am not too sure about "...we exploited the resources and peoples of our colonies..." Most of the studies on which this assertion is based were only of crudely measured outputs, ignored capital investment and disallowed any return on capital. Recent commentators (such as Corelli Barnett) traced UK's relative economic decline to the mid-19th Century when overseas investment began to starve UK industry of capital. I know more about Burma (now Myanmar) than any other former colony and I ask myself how many Burmese considered themselves worse off under the Brits than under their ancient kings; and how many of them consider their present form of government superior to he Westminster model?
About 20 years ago I was in a party of foreign attachés shown around a brand new military hospital in Ankara (the Gùlhane, donated and equipped by the Americans with all the bells and whistles). But there was no nursing and the wards were squalid and unhygienic. I remarked (politely) to the charming TAF one-star who was showing us around. He replied: "Ah, Yarbay, (Lt Col)if you were expecting nurses in starched white uniforms and polished floors, you forget that Turkey was never an English colony".
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Moggie, noble sentiments, but you've just made an oxymoronic statement in saying;
You can't have it both ways. I'd be willing to bet a sizeable amount that you wouldn't find more than a handful of Palestinians who wouldn't think (despite what their P.C. representatives might say in front of the cameras) that their homeland consists of the whole of present day Israel – as it did for around 1900 years until May 1948 when it was taken from them by UN decree. (The fact that the Jewish settlers had BOUGHT a sizeable proportion of the land for CASH from its Arab owners in the years before partition and developed it is conveniently overlooked in these P.C. times.)
Just when do you set a particular "homeland's" boundaries in concrete? England 'owned' a fair slice of France until a couple of hundred years ago, mainly because the people who 'owned' England were Frenchmen who INVADED England with William the Conqueror. Using your logic, surely the Brits should give England back to the Saxons. But wait a minute – didn't they take it from the Angles? And didn't they take it from the Jutes? …who took it from the Celts? … who no doubt took it from someone else… and don't forget the Romans were in there somewhere.
Don't get me started on the US, Northern Ireland with its Protestant Scottish migrants, South America, Australia, Fiji and New Zealand.
And finally, where in the hell does 'wake up and smell the coffee' come from?
Both Israel and Palestine have a right to exist but NO-ONE has a right to someone else's homeland.
Just when do you set a particular "homeland's" boundaries in concrete? England 'owned' a fair slice of France until a couple of hundred years ago, mainly because the people who 'owned' England were Frenchmen who INVADED England with William the Conqueror. Using your logic, surely the Brits should give England back to the Saxons. But wait a minute – didn't they take it from the Angles? And didn't they take it from the Jutes? …who took it from the Celts? … who no doubt took it from someone else… and don't forget the Romans were in there somewhere.
Don't get me started on the US, Northern Ireland with its Protestant Scottish migrants, South America, Australia, Fiji and New Zealand.
And finally, where in the hell does 'wake up and smell the coffee' come from?
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WC, I'm sure I could find details to back up your one example of UDF/Miltary atrocities in connection with McGurk's Pub. Doesn't mean it's got to be true. I find it difficult to believe all that's on the web or in the media. There is so much more dissinformation from rumours and opinions on the WWW than there are hard and accurate facts. Just check out any sites dealing with 'SPACE ALIENS'. Thousands of sites and just how many facts? 
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Wake up and smell the coffee - chosen for the American reader, it means "open your eyes to what is going on around you".
The matter of when do you set borders in concrete is a tricky one. Who is right -Israel or Palestine? I don't claim to have the answer. The Romans chucked the Jews out - but was it not called Palestine at that time, anyway? The UN gave Israel some land - but they chucked the Palestinians out of most of the rest.
However, until both sides can be grown up enough to start talking rather than trading ever escalating revenge attacks we get nowhere.
i guess I was trying to say that we all have a right to have a homeland - but b*ggered if I know how we achieve it.
And don't mention Gibraltar!
The matter of when do you set borders in concrete is a tricky one. Who is right -Israel or Palestine? I don't claim to have the answer. The Romans chucked the Jews out - but was it not called Palestine at that time, anyway? The UN gave Israel some land - but they chucked the Palestinians out of most of the rest.
However, until both sides can be grown up enough to start talking rather than trading ever escalating revenge attacks we get nowhere.
i guess I was trying to say that we all have a right to have a homeland - but b*ggered if I know how we achieve it.
And don't mention Gibraltar!
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I don't want to be drawn into defending the Israelis, but let me play devil's advocate for a moment, moggie. In May 1948, the State of Israel is declared after a UN resolution that squeezes through only because the Russians voted in favour of Partition to embarrass the British, who are the (embattled) mandated power in the area. Immediately, eight Arab countries declare war on the infant state and they stage a hit and miss 'invasion'. With the notable exception of the Jordanians, who display quite a bit of professionalism and willingness to fight, the invading Arab 'armies' are a shower who get their arses kicked in no uncertain manner by the equally ragtag Israeli forces.
Three short years after European Jews had been on the receiving end of exactly the same treatment from the Germans, the Israelis indulge in a little ethnic cleansing, terrorising - and in one notable case, killing - the inhabitants of Arab villages neighbouring their own settlements into leaving their villages. Many of the Israeli settlements have been established both before and after WW2 after Zionist groups purchased the land from Arab landowners. (Much of the land was swamp or waste land thought to be worthless until the Zionist settlers developed it with money and expertise brought in from overseas.) Perhaps not inaccurately, the Israelis justify their ethnic cleansing by asserting that the inhabitants of these villages have been either attacking, or harbouring the attackers of their settlements both before and after May 1948.
Despite being vastly outnumbered, the Israelis prevail over their attackers just about everywhere except in the Jerusalem area, where they come up against the highly disciplined Jordanians. So my question is this: when you take land from someone who's attacked you in the first place but then lost the war that they started, are you morally committed to returning boundaries to the pre-war status quo? Europe has never followed this dictum. After every modern war in Europe, boundaries have been re-written by the winning side. Just as two examples, I cite Alsace Lorraine after the Franco Prussian War of 1870, and Poland, which has moved east or west by the odd hundred miles (or been swallowed up completely in some cases) every time Russia and Germany (or in one case France) come to blows.
It's interesting to compare today with Biblical times. The Jews claim the Holy Land as their own, given by God (Jaweh) to them. But anyone with an even passing knowledge of the Bible knows that they took the place in the first place by force of arms from the Caanites, (who were almost certainly the antecedents, at least in part, of today's Palestinians) – and stayed there until the Diaspora began some 1900 years ago, when they were kicked out by force of (Roman) arms.
I think the saddest aspect of the current unsolvable Palestinian / Israeli mess is the way the Arab leaders of the time quite purposely - (some would say very cynically) – stranded the displaced Palestinians in the truly horrible camps, refusing to allow the displaced people to emigrate and assimilate into any other Arab countries – as tens of thousands of Europeans did into the US, Canada, Australia and South America in the very same period. Many of the people involved were skilled and well educated and would have been an enormous asset to the countries that took them. (Some have been so, but only as guest workers.) But they were left to rot in the camps because the leaders knew that left in such a squalid situation, their hatred would brew and grow into the very situation we have today.
I hope there's a special place in the Hereafter for politicians who play with people's lives like this.
Three short years after European Jews had been on the receiving end of exactly the same treatment from the Germans, the Israelis indulge in a little ethnic cleansing, terrorising - and in one notable case, killing - the inhabitants of Arab villages neighbouring their own settlements into leaving their villages. Many of the Israeli settlements have been established both before and after WW2 after Zionist groups purchased the land from Arab landowners. (Much of the land was swamp or waste land thought to be worthless until the Zionist settlers developed it with money and expertise brought in from overseas.) Perhaps not inaccurately, the Israelis justify their ethnic cleansing by asserting that the inhabitants of these villages have been either attacking, or harbouring the attackers of their settlements both before and after May 1948.
Despite being vastly outnumbered, the Israelis prevail over their attackers just about everywhere except in the Jerusalem area, where they come up against the highly disciplined Jordanians. So my question is this: when you take land from someone who's attacked you in the first place but then lost the war that they started, are you morally committed to returning boundaries to the pre-war status quo? Europe has never followed this dictum. After every modern war in Europe, boundaries have been re-written by the winning side. Just as two examples, I cite Alsace Lorraine after the Franco Prussian War of 1870, and Poland, which has moved east or west by the odd hundred miles (or been swallowed up completely in some cases) every time Russia and Germany (or in one case France) come to blows.
It's interesting to compare today with Biblical times. The Jews claim the Holy Land as their own, given by God (Jaweh) to them. But anyone with an even passing knowledge of the Bible knows that they took the place in the first place by force of arms from the Caanites, (who were almost certainly the antecedents, at least in part, of today's Palestinians) – and stayed there until the Diaspora began some 1900 years ago, when they were kicked out by force of (Roman) arms.
I think the saddest aspect of the current unsolvable Palestinian / Israeli mess is the way the Arab leaders of the time quite purposely - (some would say very cynically) – stranded the displaced Palestinians in the truly horrible camps, refusing to allow the displaced people to emigrate and assimilate into any other Arab countries – as tens of thousands of Europeans did into the US, Canada, Australia and South America in the very same period. Many of the people involved were skilled and well educated and would have been an enormous asset to the countries that took them. (Some have been so, but only as guest workers.) But they were left to rot in the camps because the leaders knew that left in such a squalid situation, their hatred would brew and grow into the very situation we have today.
I hope there's a special place in the Hereafter for politicians who play with people's lives like this.
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Returning to Afghanistan...
I wonder what Ppruners think about Blair's obsession with the "battle for the (Afghans') hearts and minds" ? Is he being too "pushy" with his offer of UK leadership of a UN-mandated "stabilising" or "peace-keeping" force ? Granted that the British Army has more experience of (and presumably competence at) this sort of operation than any other available force, do we (the Brits) not carry just too much historical baggage in that area? (I have a collection of Afghan War and NW Frontier campaign medals in my family archive). I think our presence would be too obtrusive and provocative; and I am not sure that we have the air assets and logistic capability in that theatre to give the army the support they might need in a hurry. Perhaps a large force from predominantly Moslem Turkey, supported by Gyppos, might be better. I believe we should follow the US example and keep our sights on OBL and the Al Qa'eda. As for the rest of the Afghans, President Lyndon Johnson's famous aphorism seems to apply: "Grab'em by the b*lls and their hearts and minds will follow!" Anyway, perhaps Dear Tone is going OTT with his pitch for presidency of the EU - or Deputy JC.
I wonder what Ppruners think about Blair's obsession with the "battle for the (Afghans') hearts and minds" ? Is he being too "pushy" with his offer of UK leadership of a UN-mandated "stabilising" or "peace-keeping" force ? Granted that the British Army has more experience of (and presumably competence at) this sort of operation than any other available force, do we (the Brits) not carry just too much historical baggage in that area? (I have a collection of Afghan War and NW Frontier campaign medals in my family archive). I think our presence would be too obtrusive and provocative; and I am not sure that we have the air assets and logistic capability in that theatre to give the army the support they might need in a hurry. Perhaps a large force from predominantly Moslem Turkey, supported by Gyppos, might be better. I believe we should follow the US example and keep our sights on OBL and the Al Qa'eda. As for the rest of the Afghans, President Lyndon Johnson's famous aphorism seems to apply: "Grab'em by the b*lls and their hearts and minds will follow!" Anyway, perhaps Dear Tone is going OTT with his pitch for presidency of the EU - or Deputy JC.
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
Wiley,
Even if you accept that the attacked victim should keep territory it gains if it wins the war (highly dubious, morally and legally), the whole of the West Bank and East Jerusalem were not taken in 1948 (after a war of 'Arab aggression' - though some would point to Israeli provocation - including massive illegal immigration, ethnic cleansing and dissatisfaction with an unfair allocation of territory under the UN partition plan) but in 1967. Which was an Israeli war of aggression.
When World War One ended (and it was a war in which Arab help was crucial in defeating the Turks) Jews formed only 10% of the population of Palestine. Only 30 years later, the indigenous Arab population saw the 'best half' of the homeland they'd occupied continuously for millenia being handed over by the UN to the Jewish minority. Is it any wonder that they didn't meekly accept the UN allocation of territory?
The PLO have long accepted that Israel has a right to exist, and have abandoned their claims on many of the areas allocated to the Palestinians in 1947, including places like Nazareth, even though some predominantly Arab towns (like Jaffa) were handed over to the Israelis depriving them of any meaningful access to the Med, any decent agricultural land, etc. And anyone can demonstrate superb agriculture if they control the water, and can extract water from the aquifers below Palestinian territory, so please don't give me the "the Arabs wouldn't havbe made such good use of the land" argument.
The PLO's demands for a complete Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza strip seem fairly modest against this historical background, IMHO.
Even if you accept that the attacked victim should keep territory it gains if it wins the war (highly dubious, morally and legally), the whole of the West Bank and East Jerusalem were not taken in 1948 (after a war of 'Arab aggression' - though some would point to Israeli provocation - including massive illegal immigration, ethnic cleansing and dissatisfaction with an unfair allocation of territory under the UN partition plan) but in 1967. Which was an Israeli war of aggression.
When World War One ended (and it was a war in which Arab help was crucial in defeating the Turks) Jews formed only 10% of the population of Palestine. Only 30 years later, the indigenous Arab population saw the 'best half' of the homeland they'd occupied continuously for millenia being handed over by the UN to the Jewish minority. Is it any wonder that they didn't meekly accept the UN allocation of territory?
The PLO have long accepted that Israel has a right to exist, and have abandoned their claims on many of the areas allocated to the Palestinians in 1947, including places like Nazareth, even though some predominantly Arab towns (like Jaffa) were handed over to the Israelis depriving them of any meaningful access to the Med, any decent agricultural land, etc. And anyone can demonstrate superb agriculture if they control the water, and can extract water from the aquifers below Palestinian territory, so please don't give me the "the Arabs wouldn't havbe made such good use of the land" argument.
The PLO's demands for a complete Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza strip seem fairly modest against this historical background, IMHO.
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"Is this the right room for an argument?"
"I've told you once before."
"No you haven't!"
"Yes I have"
Is it just me or is this thread getting more like a Monty Python sketch with all the bickering going on? Granted, I'm as culpable as the last person, but what started as a discussion appears to have turned into an almighty slanging match.
Put it out of it's misery Whowhenwhy.
You know it makes sense.
"I've told you once before."
"No you haven't!"
"Yes I have"
Is it just me or is this thread getting more like a Monty Python sketch with all the bickering going on? Granted, I'm as culpable as the last person, but what started as a discussion appears to have turned into an almighty slanging match.
Put it out of it's misery Whowhenwhy.
You know it makes sense.
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Torygraph leader 12 Dec:
www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2001/12/12/dl1202.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2001/12/12/ixoplead.html
Edited by FV because I cannot think of a cunning way of transferring these URLs without have to frig around with all these symbols. Even now I can't be sure it will work. Anyway its the second leader in the DT of 12 Dec.
[ 15 December 2001: Message edited by: Flatus Veteranus ]
www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2001/12/12/dl1202.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2001/12/12/ixoplead.html
Edited by FV because I cannot think of a cunning way of transferring these URLs without have to frig around with all these symbols. Even now I can't be sure it will work. Anyway its the second leader in the DT of 12 Dec.
[ 15 December 2001: Message edited by: Flatus Veteranus ]
