Iraq - Did my son die in vain | Vital Football

Iraq - Did my son die in vain

The Fear

A Wise Man (once sat next to him)
BBC 2 or BBC HD 9pm Wednesday evening.

Might make for a very interesting watch folks, we could reconvene and discuss once we've viewed... bit like a book club but without books or indeed clubs.

 
I can probably answer this ahead of time.

a) yes he did, he was a pawn in an incredibly horrific argument between large corporations fighting over the ownership of outdated energy sources.

or

b) No. but probably yes.
 
You still can't get out of your homework curtain boy, you will have to watch! :5:
 
Jonah - 20/3/2013 21:21

and c) He was killed by an American pilot in a 'friendly fire' incident.


That is always a possibility Americans, being a trigger happy culture there it's a case of shoot first, ask questions later.........
 
He's ok though Merlin, made millions on the circuit doing talks then became the ... LOL... peace ambassador for the middle east.

You couldn't make it up could you?
 
In the last Jack Reacher book I read he talked about how America hadn't fought a war worth fighting since WW2. I'd say the Falklands was worth fighting but since then?

I have a lot of sympathy for squaddies now-a-days, they sign up to serve their country and end up serving corporate greed. There can't be much job satisfaction killing people who are trying to defend their country and natural resources from predators.


 
BodyButter - 21/3/2013 04:28

In the last Jack Reacher book I read he talked about how America hadn't fought a war worth fighting since WW2. I'd say the Falklands was worth fighting but since then?

I have a lot of sympathy for squaddies now-a-days, they sign up to serve their country and end up serving corporate greed. There can't be much job satisfaction killing people who are trying to defend their country and natural resources from predators.


Apart from the opium poppy what natural resources does Afghanistan have exactly?

Are you seriously suggesting that we should let the Taliban over-run the democratically elected government of Afghanistan?


 
Jonah - 21/3/2013 09:23

BodyButter - 21/3/2013 04:28

In the last Jack Reacher book I read he talked about how America hadn't fought a war worth fighting since WW2. I'd say the Falklands was worth fighting but since then?

I have a lot of sympathy for squaddies now-a-days, they sign up to serve their country and end up serving corporate greed. There can't be much job satisfaction killing people who are trying to defend their country and natural resources from predators.


Apart from the opium poppy what natural resources does Afghanistan have exactly?

Are you seriously suggesting that we should let the Taliban over-run the democratically elected government of Afghanistan?

A) http://www.enn.com/enn_original_news/article/44679

B) They are negotiating with them to let them be part of the govt anyway.

C) Karzai is not there because he was democratically elected, he is there because his brother was the biggest opium dealer in Afghanistan. Before they killed him. Karzai also recently revealed the US is working with the taliban to stage attacks in order to keep troops in the country.

D) That opium trade is very lucrative. Along with all of the drug money they are laundering through the banks.
 
Not sure why or how this has drifted to Afghanistan, ake the un-winnable war. The thread title is ever so clear. Iraq :5:


The programme. Made for depressing, albeit not surprising, watching.

I think it is fairly, surely, accepted now that it was started illegally? If they had had the mandate to remove the devil in charge, then fine, but they didn't. We were, in my humble, lied to.

The deaths are in the hands of the liars.

The futility of these deaths, on both sides, is extremely sad. The sacrifices the forces make are amazing, for those sacrifices to be in vain and their deaths / mutilations for no gain or good reason is in-comprehensively sad as far as I am concerned.

I had to fast forward the personal family parts filmed at home, just concentrated on the dad in Iraq and the responses from the Iraqi's.

The sad thing is we never seem to learn.

We upset the apple cart, THEN we leave a power vaccuum.

The locals said the times under Saddam were awful, they'd be put in prison for no reason, tortured, disappear etc.

So we COULD have gone in and made a real difference. But no, we blundered in and then left.

As they said, the forces (again, total clarity, this isn't the majority of the forces at fault, albeit sounds like a few did very very bad things it is the politicians ... the puppet masters in effect) came in, removed Saddam, and spread the chaos.

Could have been so different. Get in, remove the devil, straight away get in there with the back up for humanitarian and simple logistics, improve the lives of the population and hey presto, you've helped a very unstable part of the Middle East and also illustrated to other countries within the middle East that we aren't there to be bad etc.

1 in 3 still don't have water was the one fact. Unbelievable.

Also unbelievable the terrorist attacks are still happening, there is a very weak government etc. The wealth in the oil fields and yet the poverty and mess is beyond our comprehension.

All in all, just yet another sad indication of how stupid man is.

As one Iraqi said when the British soldiers dad was crying, 'we are all humans, when he cries, I want to cry'.

Stupid species.
 
Jonah - 21/3/2013 18:23

BodyButter - 21/3/2013 04:28

In the last Jack Reacher book I read he talked about how America hadn't fought a war worth fighting since WW2. I'd say the Falklands was worth fighting but since then?

I have a lot of sympathy for squaddies now-a-days, they sign up to serve their country and end up serving corporate greed. There can't be much job satisfaction killing people who are trying to defend their country and natural resources from predators.


Apart from the opium poppy what natural resources does Afghanistan have exactly?

Are you seriously suggesting that we should let the Taliban over-run the democratically elected government of Afghanistan?

I'd imagine that as soon as the British and American troops leave Afghanistan, the Taliban will take over again. I'm not sure how strong their support is amongst the general population but from reading the reports, the Taliban in Afghanistan seem very similar to the Viet Cong in Vietnam.

According to the Daily Mail, Heroin production in Afghanistan is up 3,135% since the invasion. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2102158/Heroin-production-Afghanistan-RISEN-61.html

That seems an absolutely incredible figure for a country which was invaded with one of the expressed purposes being to destroy the production of heroin.

I'm sure that a skeptical mind would think that the CIA are milking this 'unwinnable war' for the drug money.

Going back to the original point, do you think that the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan were justified?

 
The Iraq one COULD have become justified but as usual, the politicians fucked it up.

To fuck up one and then enter an area known to be unwinnable was baffling.

That said, we and the US are major arms traders, makes you wonder.

What is wrong is that the troops know this one is futile, read a great article in esquire or gq not long back with anon quotes from soldiers. 95% of them said it was futile and that the Taliban will be straight back in.

 
This video sums up the iraq war,9/11, afghanistan and everything else. You can probably boil it down to haliburton, Oil , cheney and rumsfeld. Blair just tagged us along so he could play the statesman.

[youtube=fZNvSX3A7pc]
 
BodyButter - 21/3/2013 04:28

...I have a lot of sympathy for squaddies now-a-days, they sign up to serve their country and end up serving corporate greed. There can't be much job satisfaction killing people who are trying to defend their country and natural resources from predators.

Indeed, so why sign up knowing you are simply cannon fodder for the politico-corporate system? Serve their country my arse.
 
You need to read this

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/dying_vets_fuck_you_letter_to_george_bush_dick_cheney_needs_to_be_read

 
TuBBz - 23/3/2013 09:17

You need to read this

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/dying_vets_fuck_you_letter_to_george_bush_dick_cheney_needs_to_be_read

It's awful just reading that.

I wouldn't criticise anyone's decision to join the Army. It's a great way to make something of yourself if other options aren't available but everyone knows the risks.

I know quite a few on here have served. It would be interesting to get their take on this.