[Malcolm Armsteen]

US Post 1945 invasions have just one success - Korea. A UN operation organised mostly by second world war staff officers.

Since then they've intervened here, interfered there.
But eventually the boys have to go home, and what remains is often a bigger shitshow than the initial setup.

Perhaps the Chinese answer would have been better? Build infrastructure, railways, hospitals, schools...

Certainly cheaper, but does not have the same appeal for the toxically masculine.

[The Weeping Angel]

US Post 1945 invasions have just one success - Korea. A UN operation organised mostly by second world war staff officers.

Since then they've intervened here, interfered there.
But eventually the boys have to go home, and what remains is often a bigger shitshow than the initial setup.

Perhaps the Chinese answer would have been better? Build infrastructure, railways, hospitals, schools...

Certainly cheaper, but does not have the same appeal for the toxically masculine.

Or in the case of Hong Kong dismantle democracy step by step.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Not what I was talking about, as you well know.

Look up the Tan-Zam Railway.

[The All New KevS]

Looking at the inevitable response to the prospect of Afghan refugees coming over, and I feel ill.

It's making me feel like this county is now an absolute toxic cesspit. Reassure me that it isn't guys, please.

[Bones McCoy]

Looking at the inevitable response to the prospect of Afghan refugees coming over, and I feel ill.

It's making me feel like this county is now an absolute toxic cesspit. Reassure me that it isn't guys, please.

It isn't.
However our media, and the people they have on speed dial have shifted the discussion to a point where you'd struggle to know.

Bear in mind that the voices of the bastard tendency are amplified manyfold, which gives that impression.

A small example - off at a tangent.
Between July and September, streets across the West of Scotland are brought to a standstill as the Orange Order and a couple of offshoot movements participate in their marching season.
They make a big noise, delay traffic, but until recently It's been largely ignored with a "It's what they do" shrug.

After some recent unsavoury incidents (A priest assaulted, and others) the local authorities have attempted to control the numbers of these marches.
In response, the 3 main bodies have organised a "Massive rally" in September (We'll show the fuggers).
Expected turnout 7,000 (which I presume includes bands from across Ulster).

That's 7,000 from a Scottish population of 5 million.
Just over one in a thousand, from an organisation that's a mainstay of Scottish conservatism and attracts significant column inches and airtime.
About as representative as the Taxpayer's Aliance.

[Youngian]

Looking at the inevitable response to the prospect of Afghan refugees coming over, and I feel ill.

It's making me feel like this county is now an absolute toxic cesspit. Reassure me that it isn't guys, please.

We all knew Brexit wasn't about white Polish plumbers and the scapegoating would turn on the real targets. They'll be initial sympathy for fleeing Afghan and then the cycle will start again; Afghans on benefits get free houses while Our Boys are homeless.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Farage used to pop up before UKIP's surge on lots of discussions about immigration, as if he was some sort of expert on the subject.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Tom Tugendhat.

This is a harsh lesson for all of us and if we’re not careful it could be a very, very difficult lesson for our allies.

It doesn’t need to be. We can set out a vision, clearly articulate it, for reinvigorating our European Nato partners, to make sure that we are not dependent on a single ally, on the decision of a single leader, that that we can work together with Japan and Australia, France and Germany, with partners large and small and make sure we hold the line together.

Are any of these interested in being reinvigorated by Global Britain?

[Nigredo]

Looking at the inevitable response to the prospect of Afghan refugees coming over, and I feel ill.

It's making me feel like this county is now an absolute toxic cesspit. Reassure me that it isn't guys, please.

[Bones McCoy]

Tom Tugendhat.

This is a harsh lesson for all of us and if we’re not careful it could be a very, very difficult lesson for our allies.

It doesn’t need to be. We can set out a vision, clearly articulate it, for reinvigorating our European Nato partners, to make sure that we are not dependent on a single ally, on the decision of a single leader, that that we can work together with Japan and Australia, France and Germany, with partners large and small and make sure we hold the line together.

Are any of these interested in being reinvigorated by Global Britain?

Much as it was a fine speech, which may be remembered; unless the Johnsonites have it wiped from the record...

The quoted section is bollocks by any current measure.
US defence spending dwarfs that of any other NATO ally.

They are funded, armed and equipped as one might expect a world superpower to be.
All those other nations have militaries predomoinantly scaled for home defence, with a bit of surplus for trainig, peace keeping and a tiny amount of flag showing.

The USA's spend is something like double that of the next 4 militaries combined.
It has 75% is the world's aircraft carriers (Proper big fuckers too, not a destroyer with a flat deck and a ski-jump).
It has the four largest airforces in the world.

Behind this lies the massive logistic and uplift support required to drop a viable force almost anywhere in the world.
When Uncle Sam went home, he packed up the canteen, the air-traffic control and most of the deliveries.
There is no way a counterinsurgency could operate without that.

If Mr Tugendhat's implying that we all ought to aspire to those levels of force projection, let's ask the perennial Who's going to pay for it".

A look at the USA sees a nation whose tax rates are not significantly lower than ours.
A huge proportion (by European standards) of those taxes are spend on the Venn diagram that is the military, corporate welfare and the military industrial complex.
For the ordinary American without a pot to piss in, a honourable discharge from military service opens the door to college scholarships, medical insurance, workplace protection, favourable loans and a status that's difficult to understand in other countries.
It is a passport from Hicksville to full citizenship.

It's worth looking at what we have in this country that non-veteran Americans lack.
A public health service (For me that's all I need to know).
Education, welfare and protections at work - none of which are as good as we deserve, but all head and shoulders above what our American equivalents receive.

If Tugendhat's ambition is to have a massively expanded military and independent force projecton (If because I don't know the man's position on this).
The case must be made for either extensive tax rises, or abolition of national goods that many of us hold dear.

[Tubby Isaacs]

That's my feeling. Wonderful speech by the sound of it, but also begging questions. Not just general ones about who wants to stump up the defence costs, but the particular issue with Afghanistan being our operation.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Dominic Raab's had a pop back at Starmer and Nandy who didn't say what they'd have done differently. Fair point that they supported the withdrawal, but they made lots of points about what ought to have been done differently lately. Easy to call this hindsight, but they weren't getting the full intelligence Raab was.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Not generally a fan of using Patel's parents against her (she has exactly the same right to be anti-refugee as anyone else) but I'm struggling not to in this case.

[The All New KevS]

What the hell was that right at the end?

Raab was merrily spouting his nonsense, until in the middle of a sentence, Hoyle called for order and then adjourned the whole shebang. I mean, I know it was due to finish at 5pm, but are you telling me it couldn't have over run for about two or three minutes so Raab could finish digging his own grave? It's not as if there was business to follow this.

What was the big rush out the door in aid of? To make sure they didn't miss The Chase?

[The Weeping Angel]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-58242443

The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan may be happening more than 3,600 miles away from the UK, but it feels much closer to home for British-Afghans.

Before coming to the UK as an asylum seeker, 24-year-old Parwiz Karimi was born and grew up in Afghanistan.

His childhood memories include being confronted by Taliban members who would cross into his village with their weapons, with his grandmother telling him and his siblings to "run to the mountains" to find safety.

As he tries to keep track of the fast-moving situation in his home country, Parwiz is feeling guilty and worried about his many family members who still live there.

"I'm here sitting in my house peacefully studying. And they're struggling to find food," he tells Radio 1 Newsbeat.

"There is so much I can do here but at the same time, there's nothing I can do for them."

[kreuzberger]

Not generally a fan of using Patel's parents against her (she has exactly the same right to be anti-refugee as anyone else) but I'm struggling not to in this case.

I struggle to agree with her having that "right".

Much of the country's general racism, xenophobia, and anti-immigrant sentiment is whipped up by the press, the BBC (their coverage in Summer 2015 was utterly shameful), and within families. In short, it is born of ignorance.

Now, it has been said that Patel Snr. is a nasty piece of work but the daughter must, must, MUST have enough lived experience to trump anything the vile old cunt might have planted in to her young mind. She's just a foul bastard who knows how to play to the Essex gallery.

[Youngian]

Patel's parents were part of the Powelite League of Empire Loyalists generation. Petit bourgeois administers and chancers who were 'betrayed' by decolonisation enacted by the post war liberal elites in London.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Not generally a fan of using Patel's parents against her (she has exactly the same right to be anti-refugee as anyone else) but I'm struggling not to in this case.

I struggle to agree with her having that "right".

Much of the country's general racism, xenophobia, and anti-immigrant sentiment is whipped up by the press, the BBC (their coverage in Summer 2015 was utterly shameful), and within families. In short, it is born of ignorance.

Now, it has been said that Patel Snr. is a nasty piece of work but the daughter must, must, MUST have enough lived experience to trump anything the vile old cunt might have planted in to her young mind. She's just a foul bastard who knows how to play to the Essex gallery.

I don't like ad hominems generally (though I'm sure I've used them on people I don't like). I think they ought to be avoided. Of course, it's not right for Patel to use her family background to deflect from criticisms of her refugee policies either, and that should be called out.

But I think it's hard to avoid here.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

She's a bad person by any metric. She deserves to be described as such.

[kreuzberger]

Looking like the murderous indifference of Craap and co extends to those depended upon by their mates in the press.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... ournalists

Local fixers enable journalists to do their job and often keep them out of harm's way. This particular shrug of the shoulders would seem less than sensible.