UKC

Interesting silence on IS/Kurds/US strikes after the huge number of posts on Israel/Palestine. No cabinet resignations either.

Shouldn't we (UK, EU) be doing something more substantial than mild hand ringing here? By all accounts 10s of thousands will die within days unless a substantial effort is made. We are also faced with the possibility of IS setting up a fundamentalist state on our doorstep and actively exporting bombers etc to the UK and elsewhere. Forget Israel, this actually matters and we are in a position to actually do some good.

No doubt I will be accused of antisemitism, whataboutery and callousness towards Gazans all at once...

In reply to MG:
I'm quite happy to hear there is military intervention and think Obama has the right approach here....i may be biased as spent some time in this area previously and thought the people there were great. Air strikes should soften up Isis and make a more even scenario on the ground.

In reply to MG:

The world is a real mess. Please tell me what we are supposed to do? Demonstrations don't achieve anything, governments don't listen. They keep selling arms to them in the first place, that is the travesty.

In reply to MG:

Indeed. Given the rate at which ISIS grows, and their goal (impose an Islamic state all over the world) it's inevitable that we'll be in open conflict with IS at some point.

In reply to MG:

There is little doubt that even since the "Arab Spring" and the start of the civil war in Syria (which of course has had massively greater civilian casualties, and much more indifference to civilian casualties, indeed the have been deliberately targeted on a huge scale), the Palestinians and Hamas in particular have been trying to involve and provoke Israel, since all the conflicts in the area have turned them into a side-show, and if their ISIS buddies get all the attention, they get all the money, the prestige etc. So Hamas stopped being Jihadi top-dog, so they had to do something to get the focus back on them, hence the barrages of missiles against Israel - militarily ineffective, but very useful in propaganda terms, especially given Western "useful idiots", particularly as Hamas was not in the least concerned about "collateral damage", indeed it welcomed it and conciously used it as a tactic.

I very much doubt if there will be a comparable reaction to the plight of Chaldean Christians, Yazidis, Assyrians and many other minority races and sects threatened with real (not propaganda), massacre by ISIS - there are no simple "black hat, white hat" rules, also the useful idiots are fresh out of crocodile tears.

In reply to MG:

I don't have an answer to this but I was over there until last Friday. It's such a shame they are moving into Kurdistan, the area has massive potential, was stable and beginning to become self sufficient due to the oil. The people were great and despised all this terrorism.

I'm glad the US are providing air strikes and hope this gives the Peshmerga the support they need to stand firm.

In reply to Blizzard: plus 1

In reply to MG:
We must cut all financial, trade, military, diplomatic and cultural links with Isis.
Ohh wait, already done.

In reply to abr1966:

Yeah. Save the Christians!

In reply to jezb1:

Agree with some of the sentiments but at the same time totally dismayed by the fact that we are in a position where people are applauding any country dropping bombs on another.

In reply to Simon4:

I agree that Hamas appear to use provocation as pretty central to their strategy.


This point is so boring, so tired, and so thick that it makes me feel sad to have to explain the obvious reason yet again why people in the UK are so angry about Israel's actions but feel differently about other conflicts.

There is mainstream support for Israel

This is what makes us angry. It is the US funding, the refusal of our PM to condemn the actions, the revolting dishonesty trotted out by Regev etc on the news. This is what gets our goat and it is not paralleled in any other present conflict. The posts on UKC are generated by this controversy, and so was the cabinet resignation. It is a debate.

So can we put "why don't you care about..." to bed please, it's got beyond boring because the reasons are so incredibly obvious. And the extension "it must be because they hate jews" is so devious, spineless and offensive that I won't respond again to that because it's not worth my time.

In reply to MG:

We fund,train and arm the Islamic cannibals to fight the good secular state of Syria and it's brave people and now you all lose your minds when they start attacking other places !

The US,UK,Saudis and Qatar should stop promoting Islamist fascists to do their proxy wars for them.

Look at the lies the US/Uk/France/Qatar generated about Gaddafi so that they could destroy a country and then rob it, now it is an Islamist basketcase and 10,000 innocent Libyan men,women and children are dead but the USA cares not a bit for peoples lives.Well done !

They have done the same in Ukraine with their Nazi Svoboda and Rat-sector child murderers who have been committing crimes against humanity every day since they murdered their way into power with US help of course.

In reply to MG:


I don't know. It's pretty hard to make a case for any kind of intervention these days, compared to say the mid 90s, isn't it? Does this one really pass the "self-interest test" by virtue of exported terror?

In reply to Simon4:

I'm presuming some of the shite you've write was directed my way since I'm one of those with crocodile tears apparently.

Again you are saying that because I chose to raise my voice against one outrage, I don't care about people being killed elsewhere. I really don't see the correlation.


I'm not going to go through it all again, but look at the history of Israel, and the grabbing of land and what they've been doing for the last seven years in Gaza. If that sit well with you then carry on.

As regards this situation I can't understand why we aren't' doing more too Both as humanitarian aid and militarily.

It really doesn't further you case to crow about people dying to try and prove you point though, it just makes you sound childish and uncaring.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

So why all the emphasis on the relatively (and I emphasise relatively) minor humanitarian aspect? Is that just emotional blackmail? Loads of people worked up about Gaza being short of medicine, not a peep about Yezidis dying of thirst.

In reply to Skol:

Nothing to do with religion....i was in that region putting my neck on the line for kurdish muslims and likewise in bosnia and for christians in ireland. Murderous t**ts come in all types......and believe me there is a difference in pepole ptotecting themselves and sociopathic murderers....

In reply to MG:


There is mainstream support for Israel

Since Israel controls what goes into Gaza, and since they've been bombing hospitals, they are blamed for the lack of medicine in Gaza.

There is mainstream support for Israel

In reply to Jon Stewart:




I'm pretty sure you're wasting you're time. It's like they have their fingers in their ears going, "La la la la I can't hear you"

the amount of time things have been said over and over again and yet the best arguement they can come up with is, anti-Semitism and "whatabouts".

It sounds very callous to my ears.

In reply to abr1966:
Hope you're safe!
It was a line in the paper that said Obama was bombing to allow Christians safe retreat from the Isis

In reply to MG:

How did I know the as soon as I saw this thread, within three posts I'd be reading about Israel / Gaza!!!!


It's like reading "I TOLD YOU SO" in big f*cking blood soaked letters and it's a bit sickening to be honest.

Of course we should be sending aid and helping out, not sure about sending arms,that usually comes back to bite us in the arse. Let the yanks do the bombing, we can send aid.

But what were you expecting the response to this thread to be?

No f*ck 'em we're concentrating on the real bad guy's, Israel?

In reply to Cobra_Head:

Ho please kikroman, raising the issue of what's happening in Iraq does not mean supporting Israel.

In reply to abr1966:


Good point. and good luck.

In reply to Jon Stewart:
You can keep shouting that for days if you want. It doesn't explain why the Gaza humanitarian problems are raised above all others and given such prominence. Or for that matter the indifference to the political dramas in Iraq Syria etc.that may well affect us soon, unlike Israel.

In reply to RomTheBear:

Can you read?

What he was exlaing was hy he thought there was a DIFFERENCE between this and Gaza not why raising the issue in Iraq you should automatically support Palestine.

You managed to completely get it so completely the wrong way around , you've destroyed your original point, if you ever really had one, about the Israeli Gaza thread.

In reply to MG:


Do I sense some sympathy envy here?

We've been telling you for days now, it's not one or the other. It's all of it, Israel is a special case because as they are sponsored by America and people can see they are beginning to make a difference. So if we keep hammering away rather then sitting on our arses, as some have suggested. Then things may change and innocent people might stop dying.

In reply to krikoman:

!?! That's the precise opposite of your line until five minutes ago. Prove me wrong and point to all you Iraq Congo wherever hand ringing and marching.

In reply to MG:

Yes it does. Anyone with any power of observation will have noted that human beings never react emotionally in proportion to the objective harm done. To expect this is to deny all experience of human beings. Usually the principle factor is how similar the people hurt are to ourselves. In the case of Gaza, the prominence can be chiefly attributed to an enormously amplified sense of injustice because of the size of the army and the wealth of the perpetrators versus the poverty of the victims, the pre-existing conditions of oppression and of course the western support for the bloodshed with all of the attendant dishonesty.


Yes it does. When you say "indifference" what you mean is that the anger over the amplified sense of injustice for the reasons explained for the umpteenth time above is not present. Labelling the absence of the extraordinary anger due to unique factors as "indifference" does nothing to promote your position that people disgusted by Israel somehow don't have the right to be.

In reply to krikoman:

Haha I was sure you and cobra are the same

In reply to krikoman: .


Well I don't think you ever got my point about the Gaza thread, all you seem to think is that discussing about anything else means supporting Israel.

In reply to Jon Stewart:


Well This is maybe a bit true but a bit far fetched too. IMHO this is mostly due to short attention span. Next time there is something more sensational to talk about nobody will care anymore about gaza.

In reply to MG:

the main reason i've not posted is that i'm meant to be working, so i'll keep it brief

i agree with all of what Jon said

notwithstanding that i think the response to the situation in Iraq will now gather momentum media-wise and probably eclipse Gaza.

just as other crises have done in the past

the news seems largely to be able to hold one major foreign affairs story in mind at any one time, and until now, Gaza has kept iraq out of the headlines. as people become aware of just how utterly dire it is in Iraq, the reverse will then happen. there may not be the same level of outrage overall, because, as Jon pointed out, our government is not supporting the Islamic State in Iraq the way it is the Israeli govt

unfortunately with the last line of your OP and your 19.40 post, you seem to have effectively hijacked your own thread and ensured it has become another one about Gaza. it almost makes one question whether your motive was genuine concern about the plight of the Yezidis, or whether it was just a way to continue the ad hominems from the previous threads.

in the interests of staying on topic: 'we' broke iraq. the UK should never have invaded, but it did; its 'our' mess. 'we' need to stay involved and try to stop this turning into another example of a genocide that the west stood and watched occuring. so yes, there should be pressure on the government to support the US in military action, along with a humanitarian effort. I fully expect there will be a DEC appeal for Iraq, which will contibute to, and i will write to my MP just as i did with Gaza. not that i expect a reply, as i havent had one yet from the last letter.

which will give me extra pleasure when i vote to oust him next year...

best wishes
gregor

In reply to Skol:

Yes indeed. Save the Christians, along with all the other Iraqi religious minorities, who currently face the threat of murder by ISIS if they refuse to commit apostasy.

I hope you were being serious and not sarcastic when you posted that? Because this whole situation looks pretty serious to me. It is indeed, as Gregor says, one that the West has helped create. The invasion of Iraq was an idiotic piece of hybris. The consequences have been worse than anything that we pessimists imagined. We used to think it was hyperbole, for instance, to compare Iraq to Vietnam. I think it's evident by now that the case for war was far weaker in Iraq than it was in Vietnam (after all, the VC and the Chinese really were trying to spread communism) and that the consequences of Iraq have been orders of magnitude more serious and prolonged than the consequences of Vietnam.

Also, Harold Wilson had the courage to say No to Vietnam. He paid the price when LBJ, in revenge, created a run on sterling that led directly to devaluation. But at least he stood by his beliefs, unlike that leering ghoul Blair.

I think the invasion of Iraq in 2003 can reasonably be called the worst foreign-policy decision made by the West, not just since Vietnam, but since appeasement.

I flew over Iraq about a month ago on my way back from Australia. From 40,000 feet you could see Baiji oil refinery burning. I have rarely been more grateful to be 7 or 8 vertical miles away from a place.

In reply to MG:

Are 'we' calling in airstrikes now because it's Christians getting the chop?

In reply to woolsack:
Actually most Kurds are Muslims.

If you want to be cynical, it's probably more about the US having a consulate in Irbil.

If you want to be un-cynical, it's about the fact that Kurdistan has so far largely avoided this round of mayhem, and the US rightly wants to keep it more or less secure as a refuge for Iraqis who have been displaced by ISIS' reign of terror.

I am cautious about interventions. (I was against intervening in Syria, because I doubted there was any chance of discriminating targets accurately, and because each side was as bad as the other.) But I think Obama is absolutely right to do this. And I think Cameron should support him.

In reply to MG:

Did you really write "forget Isreal, this actually matters"!

In reply to The New NickB:

The extent rhetoric but given the problem is 50 years old it doesn't seen that important for us directly, unlike the broader middle east problems.

In reply to MG:

Come off it. Israel not an important problem?

Here's a way of showing its importance: where do you think World War 3 is likeliest to start?

I'm afraid the answer to that is pretty obvious. Jerusalem.

In reply to Tim Chappell:

Is that a serious guess? Between Israel and ???. I would suggest S China sea. Or perhaps India Pakistan China area

In reply to woolsack:

No. Don't be childish.

In reply to Tim Chappell:
Save them all! I might get religious, but who do I support?

In reply to MG:

Yes, it's a serious guess. Between Israel (with US and European backing) and a Muslim world which has been taken over by people like ISIS, with Chinese and Iranian backing.

Taiwan and the Baltoro Glacier are my other two guesses.

In reply to Skol:


In this instance, I suggest you support (1) Obama and (2) common humanity.

No, OK, other way round

In reply to Tim Chappell:




Nah, India vs Pakistan. Bet you.

In reply to Sir Chasm:

I hope none of us ever gets to check in his coupon.

In reply to Tim Chappell:


Well, that goes without saying, but do you think a big stramash is more likely where each side can inflict huge damage upon each other or where they are grossly uneven? Will MAD continue to work for India/Pakistan?

In reply to Tim Chappell:
I'll go with common humanity then. Sounds the best candidate

In reply to woolsack:


Don't be silly Col.

E

In reply to Enty:



It's not as silly as all that.

What is silly is thinking air strikes will solve the problem.

In reply to Bruce Hooker:

Mr Robert Fisk
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/bombs-away-us-to-the-rescue--bu...

He wouldn’t bomb Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s bloody caliphate when it was butchering the majority Shia Muslims of Iraq. But Barak Obama is riding to the rescue of the Christian refugees – and the Yazidis – because of “a potential act of genocide”. Bombs away. And thank heavens that the refugees in question are not Palestinian.

In reply to MG:

Isn't the real irony here that the USA is bombing ISIS in Iraq, and accidentally siding with Assad in Syria, as ISIS are one of the groups fighting the Assad regime there

In reply to kipper12:

Nothing new in that. NATO were flying close air support for Islamists in Libya before this.