I am EMBARRASSED to be Scottish!

First topic message reminder :

After this years 6N, its fair to say that my country have let me down and made me EMBARRASSED which has been case for FIFTEEN years!

Not one player should be allowed to play for Scotland again and its time for change at SRU and head coaches position to because we are WORSE than ever before and tbh, I am dreading world cup!

Why the Frak are we so bad and how are our fortunes going to change because I am sick fed up of all this misplaced optimism going into 6N.

All I can say is thank god for our football team and a certain Andy Murray.

Thoughts?

The breadvan family are having our first holiday in Scotland. A weekday break at Loch Tay at the end of May. Looks really nice. Planning on a trip into Stirling as well...

Breadvan wrote:The breadvan family are having our first holiday in Scotland. A weekday break at Loch Tay at the end of May. Looks really nice. Planning on a trip into Stirling as well...

Excellent - Loch Tay is gorgeous, enjoy!

As far as breathtaking beauty up here is concerned it's hard to see past Kyle of Lochalsh, Applecross and the Isle of Skye, that little corner of Scotland is absolutely wonderful. With Eilean Donan Castle in that neck of the woods too it truly is magical.

Thankfully my company has an office at Kyle of Lochalsh so I'm up there quite a bit.

Good walks around Kyle as well. The Five Sisters of Kintail is a cracking day, as are the various pinnacles on Skye.

I've been up there a few times when I was in the Royal Navy. Exercises in the minches and once went to the Kyle and under the Skye bridge. Stunning scenery..

Careful now. I'm in danger of actually enjoying a conversation on here with a Welsh poster!!

Woah there.. Ospreys st holder and living in Wales fes but I'm as English as lord Nelson, Churchill etc.

Phew back to normality

Breadvan wrote:Woah there.. Ospreys st holder and living in Wales fes but I'm as English as lord Nelson, Churchill etc.

Ah well, in which case I owe you an apology!

Enjoy Loch Tay!

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:So peace through tyranny is preferable than the foundations of democracy?  Despite the death toll Iraq has had free elections since.

Even our own country had to go through a bloody transition to have the democracy we enjoy today.

I'm sorry, but you must have a funny idea on what democracy is.... digress? Maybe, but this thread has already encompassed Andy Murray and Jeremy Clarkson, so this is no greater a departure. The current 'elected' government in Iraq is nothing more than an American puppet. And a failed one at that. It has singularly failed to unite the nation and to keep peace. Ironically, Hussain managed both to a large degree - by whatever means

Borris Johnson has offered an insight into Blair's character – that Blair is slippery. The London mayor described him as "eel-like" and a "very adept and agile lawyer". A prosecution for war crimes in Johnson's words last year I think was "not going to happen".

Currently a prosecution depends on one of two factors: its status before the International Criminal Court (ICC) or its status in domestic law. The ICC calls itself "an independent, permanent court that tries persons accused of the most serious crimes of international concern, namely genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes". In all honesty I have no faith in the ICC bringing a conviction against Blair. The ICC has been accused of bias, and as being a tool of western imperialism, only punishing leaders from small states while ignoring crimes committed by richer and more powerful states. This sentiment has been expressed particularly by African leaders due to the disproportionate focus on their nations.

I believe our only hope of getting criminal charges brought against Blair lies at home. Yet we cannot rely on our current crop of politicians to do the right thing. They have no interest in seeing Blair face justice as it would bring more controversy to the current government on the world stage. Speaking of the Chilcot inquiry, David Cameron said: "It would be unreasonable to postpone it beyond the next election," with his eyes clearly on the prize rather than a genuine interest in justice.

Personally, I would like to see Blair brought to account for his actions while he is alive. That will send a clear message to any future politicians, both in the UK and abroad, helping to avoid another illegal misguided foray and the loss of innocent lives. Between 500,000 and 1 million people have lost their lives in Iraq (depending on which reports you believe), and with sectarian violence showing no signs of slowing down, the death toll is still on the rise. At least our 'bloody transition' was just that - a transition, and it stopped. This shows all the signs of gathering momentum. And lest we not forget the catastrophic lack of post-war planning - this has quite clearly left a power vacuum that ever increasing extremists exploit as we speak. Why, you never know, one of your family could be next.

The sword of Damocles hung over Tony Blair's head in the form of Sir John Chilcot's Iraq inquiry report, which unsurprisingly faced long delays. It told the story of, what is in my mind, the most catastrophic foreign policy decision since 1956, when former British prime minister Anthony Eden misled parliament and the British public and lied to the world during the Suez crisis. Eden and Blair share several similarities: both willing to sacrifice our troops and the innocent lives of civilians in the Middle East for oil, regime change and imperialist gain.

Even if Blair uses his "eel-like" powers to avoid prosecution, like so many rich and powerful people have done before him, he will not escape the history books. The voices that protect him will slowly fade and make way for a chorus of condemnation.

It is said that great men and women live forever. They live through the lives they've touched, and the things they've accomplished. I would say this is also true for people on the other side of this fence: the villains. History will show the extent of Blair's failings, his perversions of the truth, his misleading of the world and the blood on his hands.

I am wary of getting into a political debate here, but are you seriously suggesting a man whose nickname was the butcher of Baghdad was good for his people?

Your focus on Blair as a criminal is staggering when one takes into context the awful things Hussein did whilst he was president.

"Between 500,000 and 1 million people have lost their lives in Iraq"

Ok, that's a fact that cannot be challenged. However to lay all those deaths at Blair's feet is unfair.

Those deaths are not a direct result of the coalition, they are symptomatic of the divisions that existed within the country before western involvement.

Fear of Hussein kept the people in line before. If you weren't in his club you were gassed or rounded up in the night and shot in the back of the head.

It wasn't just people he didn't like either, you were in big trouble if you didn't perform well in sport in Iraq:

"During the rule of the government of Saddam Hussein, Saddam's son, Uday Hussein, was in charge of the Iraqi Olympic Committee and, by extension, the national football team. Under Uday's leadership, motivational lectures to the team included threats to cut off players' legs, while missing practice sessions would lead to a term in prison. A loss brought flogging with electric cable, or a bath in raw sewage."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_national_football_team

Are you seriously saying that the removal of Hussein is a crime that Blair should be put on trial for?

Hussein and his sons were monsters!

It's all relative - who the monsters were. It's all relative. Except the dead.

As I keep saying in these kinds of arguments, the dead never care how they die: bullet to the back of the head, bullet to the front, blown to pieces with shrapnel from landmines or laser guided air to ground missiles. They don't care - they're dead.

What Blair or Bush is or isn't...what Hussein was or wasn't - the dead don't care. They don't care that they were killed by 'bad' guys or 'good' guys.

It always bugs me that some arguments about war and sides in battles presumes that innocents don't mind being victims as long as they know they are being killed by 'good' people.

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:I am wary of getting into a political debate here, but are you seriously suggesting a man whose nickname was the butcher of Baghdad was good for his people?

Your focus on Blair as a criminal is staggering when one takes into context the awful things Hussein did whilst he was president.

"Between 500,000 and 1 million people have lost their lives in Iraq"

Ok, that's a fact that cannot be challenged. However to lay all those deaths at Blair's feet is unfair.

Those deaths are not a direct result of the coalition, they are symptomatic of the divisions that existed within the country before western involvement.

Fear of Hussein kept the people in line before. If you weren't in his club you were gassed or rounded up in the night and shot in the back of the head.

It wasn't just people he didn't like either, you were in big trouble if you didn't perform well in sport in Iraq:

"During the rule of the government of Saddam Hussein, Saddam's son, Uday Hussein, was in charge of the Iraqi Olympic Committee and, by extension, the national football team. Under Uday's leadership, motivational lectures to the team included threats to cut off players' legs, while missing practice sessions would lead to a term in prison. A loss brought flogging with electric cable, or a bath in raw sewage."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_national_football_team

Are you seriously saying that the removal of Hussein is a crime that Blair should be put on trial for?

Hussein and his sons were monsters!

Agreed, and they faced the music. Perhaps Blair should also (in part) be held accountable for his part in another Middle Eastern tragedy.

The Good/Bad debate is easier to comment on when you are detatched from the decision making. Even easier with hind sight.

I would be a terrible and unpopular leader, because I wouldn't allow my popularity at home to deter me from doing what is morally right.

Let me explain, put yourself in any world leader's shoes for a minute.

You get handed paperwork about some tin pot country where acts of genocide and murder are happening. An oppressive leader is killing a minority in the country, what do you do?

You have to make a decision. The oppressive leader is butchering and murdering people who are different from him, there is no other reason for his rampage. You know that military action could make ordinary people's lives better. However there is a chance that removing the leader could create a power vaccum and possibly a civil war.

do you:

A) Remove said leader and possibly cause a civil war.

or

B) Leave the oppressive leader to kill people whose only crime was to be born different.

All I'm saying is given the choices on that kind of scenario, I know what my choice would have been.

Well, the answer is 'B' because actually, it had nothing to do with us.

Or possibly, it was 'A' because, in some kind of misguided way, we were trying to make amends for 100 years of disastrous foreign policy that created the Middle Eastern 'problem' in the first place. Oh - and then there was the oil of course....

Honestly, Blair being sent back as a Middle Eastern envoy smacked of a naughty boy being sent back to the toilet to wipe up the mess after an unfortunate accident.

Jimpy wrote:Well, the answer is 'B' because actually, it had nothing to do with us.

Or possibly, it was 'A' because we were trying to make amends for 100 years of disastrous foreign policy that created the Middle Eastern 'problem' in the first place. Oh - and then there was the oil of course....

Honestly, Blair being sent back as a Middle Eastern envoy smacked of a naughty boy being sent back to the toilet to wipe up the mess after an unfortunate accident.

Neither did Polish sovereignty in 1939. We also didn't even achieve that by the end of WWII.

The middle east is a mess but you can't blame Blair for that. The problem goes back since way before even the Romans rocked up in Judea.

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:The Good/Bad debate is easier to comment on when you are detatched from the decision making. Even easier with hind sight.

I would be a terrible and unpopular leader, because I wouldn't allow my popularity at home to deter me from doing what is morally right.

Let me explain, put yourself in any world leader's shoes for a minute.

You get handed paperwork about some tin pot country where acts of genocide and murder are happening. An oppressive leader is killing a minority in the country, what do you do?

You have to make a decision. The oppressive leader is butchering and murdering people who are different from him, there is no other reason for his rampage. You know that military action could make ordinary people's lives better. However there is a chance that removing the leader could create a power vaccum and possibly a civil war.

do you:

A) Remove said leader and possibly cause a civil war.

or

B) Leave the oppressive leader to kill people whose only crime was to be born different.

All I'm saying is given the choices on that kind of scenario, I know what my choice would have been.

C) Mind your own business? - like most World Leaders do when contemplating countries in Africa or other parts of the world where genocide and the aforesaid monsters have often ruled and still rule with only scant UN mumblings from time to time by the considered World Police states.

Blair went to war to support George Bush.  George Bush didn't go to war because Hussein was a monster killing his own people.  
Bush's own father had the ability to get rid of the monster after Desert Storm put chose instead to leave it be.  Hussein had invaded a country that couldn't defend itself and Bush senior pushed him back out again.  Bush senior's war had an air of nobility about it.  

Bush junior's sole reason was revenge.  And he didn't care who paid the price as long as they looked like the kind of people who might have been responsible for 911.  As it turns out, the Iraqi innocents who died by the thousands weren't the right people who looked like the people who might have carried out 911, but George W didn't mind - looking like the kind of people that might do it was good enough for him.  Blair followed along because he wanted Bush to know that Allies stick together - 'we might need you guys some day so we're going to show good faith by shipping in with your battle now.'

How many thousands die at the hands of despots in African states right now?  Where are the boots on the ground there to stop genocide?

There are times when you do have to go to war, yes - Iraq wasn't one of those places.  Mossad would have assassinated Hussein and his sons within a few weeks had they been asked.  America could have inserted cruise missiles to take care of unprepared Hussein had they wanted to extract the monster from his people.  But no - Bush wanted to make an example to the world: Mess with us and this is what we give back to you with interest.  That's no just reason for innocents dying by the thousands.

SecretFly wrote:

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:The Good/Bad debate is easier to comment on when you are detatched from the decision making. Even easier with hind sight.

I would be a terrible and unpopular leader, because I wouldn't allow my popularity at home to deter me from doing what is morally right.

Let me explain, put yourself in any world leader's shoes for a minute.

You get handed paperwork about some tin pot country where acts of genocide and murder are happening. An oppressive leader is killing a minority in the country, what do you do?

You have to make a decision. The oppressive leader is butchering and murdering people who are different from him, there is no other reason for his rampage. You know that military action could make ordinary people's lives better. However there is a chance that removing the leader could create a power vaccum and possibly a civil war.

do you:

A) Remove said leader and possibly cause a civil war.

or

B) Leave the oppressive leader to kill people whose only crime was to be born different.

All I'm saying is given the choices on that kind of scenario, I know what my choice would have been.

C) Mind your own business? - like most World Leaders do when contemplating countries in Africa or other parts of the world where genocide and the aforesaid monsters have often ruled and still rule with only scant UN mumblings from time to time by the considered World Police states.

Blair went to war to support George Bush.  George Bush didn't go to war because Hussein was a monster killing his own people.  
Bush's own father had the ability to get rid of the monster after Desert Storm put chose instead to leave it be.  Hussein had invaded a country that couldn't defend itself and Bush senior pushed him back out again.  Bush senior's war had an air of nobility about it.  

Bush junior's sole reason was revenge.  And he didn't care who paid the price as long as they looked like the kind of people who might have been responsible for 911.  As it turns out, the Iraqi innocents who died by the thousands weren't the right people who looked like the people who might have carried out 911, but George W didn't mind - looking like the kind of people that might do it was good enough for him.  Blair followed along because he wanted Bush to know that Allies stick together - 'we might need you guys some day so we're going to show good faith by shipping in with your battle now.'

How many thousands die at the hands of despots in African states right now?  Where are the boots on the ground there to stop genocide?

There are times when you do have to go to war, yes - Iraq wasn't one of those places.  Mossad would have assassinated Hussein and his sons within a few weeks had they been asked.  America could have inserted cruise missiles to take care of unprepared Hussein had they wanted to extract the monster from his people.  But no - Bush wanted to make an example to the world: Mess with us and this is what we give back to you with interest.  That's no just reason for innocents dying by the thousands.

Well said. The true monsters are still plainly on view. We can only hope that Blair's support for Milliband will stir enough revulsion to prevent another disastrous Labour government.

SecretFly wrote:

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:The Good/Bad debate is easier to comment on when you are detatched from the decision making. Even easier with hind sight.

I would be a terrible and unpopular leader, because I wouldn't allow my popularity at home to deter me from doing what is morally right.

Let me explain, put yourself in any world leader's shoes for a minute.

You get handed paperwork about some tin pot country where acts of genocide and murder are happening. An oppressive leader is killing a minority in the country, what do you do?

You have to make a decision. The oppressive leader is butchering and murdering people who are different from him, there is no other reason for his rampage. You know that military action could make ordinary people's lives better. However there is a chance that removing the leader could create a power vaccum and possibly a civil war.

do you:

A) Remove said leader and possibly cause a civil war.

or

B) Leave the oppressive leader to kill people whose only crime was to be born different.

All I'm saying is given the choices on that kind of scenario, I know what my choice would have been.

C) Mind your own business? - like most World Leaders do when contemplating countries in Africa or other parts of the world where genocide and the aforesaid monsters have often ruled and still rule with only scant UN mumblings from time to time by the considered World Police states.

Blair went to war to support George Bush.  George Bush didn't go to war because Hussein was a monster killing his own people.  
Bush's own father had the ability to get rid of the monster after Desert Storm put chose instead to leave it be.  Hussein had invaded a country that couldn't defend itself and Bush senior pushed him back out again.  Bush senior's war had an air of nobility about it.  

Bush junior's sole reason was revenge.  And he didn't care who paid the price as long as they looked like the kind of people who might have been responsible for 911.  As it turns out, the Iraqi innocents who died by the thousands weren't the right people who looked like the people who might have carried out 911, but George W didn't mind - looking like the kind of people that might do it was good enough for him.  Blair followed along because he wanted Bush to know that Allies stick together - 'we might need to guys some day so we're going to show good faith by shipping in with your battle now.'

How many thousands die at the hands of despots in African states right now?  Where are the boots on the ground there to stop genocide?

There are times when you do have to go to war, yes - Iraq wasn't one of those places.  Mossad would have assassinated Hussein and his sons within a few weeks had they been asked.  America could have inserted cruise missiles to take care of unprepared Hussein had they wanted to extract the monster from his people.  But no - Bush wanted to make an example to the world: Mess with us and this is what we give back to you with interest.  That's no just reason for innocents dying by the thousands.

Tried that, and the problem with Africa is the tribal nature of the indigenous population.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gothic_Serpent

After getting attacked by the very people they were trying to help it's no wonder the US and the UN in general don't want anything to do with attempted regime changes in Africa.

I'm done with this conversation now, so let's agree to disagree.

We'll agree to disagree and end the discussion after I quote you a final time on it:

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:

After getting attacked by the very people they were trying to help it's no wonder the US and the UN in general don't want anything to do with attempted regime changes in Africa.

That's the complete story of Iraq/Syria/middle east since Georgie boy dipped his fingers in.  That in a nutshell is exactly what happened.  But oil and arms trade makes it much more difficult to wash the hands and truly ever leave.