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Anyone who heard their speeches just now in the Afghanistan debate must wonder why on earth they aren't in the cabinet. In senior posts.
I know they are in two of the most senior posts outside the Government as Chairmen of the Foreign Affairs and Defence committees respectively.
But they should be in a position where they can actively influence decisions.
Yes I know it is another political thread on the main board. But this crisis deserves wide discussion.
Johnson is shocking
I cannot believe this arsehole is running the country
It was a rhetorical question but designed to get responses such as these. I would disagree that the entire cabinet is dross ( but a fair number are. I have no confidence in Dominic Raab as Foreign Secretary for example.
But yes Tughendhat and Elwood's faces do not fit. Neither did Johnny Mercer's. Time the other MP's in the Tory Party recognised this.
Tughendhat's criticism of Biden's attempt to lay a large part of the blame was particularly telling.
Trump of course started the rot.
But he only announce the final troop withdrawals a fortnight before the inauguration. Biden could and should have changed this decision in those first days when in a blaze of publicity he signed those various executive orders reversing other things that Trump had done.
There will be much criticism of this government over this debacle, much of it justified. But once America had decided to leave there was little we could do. I heard somewhere on TV that Boris Johnston had tried to get a group of other countries to try and step in but no one was interested. No idea how true this is.
Remarkable to me is the expectation here though of politicians.
They are ALL venal and vacuus self seeking windbags with no ability or interest in achieving anything but their own advantage.
It’s been that way since Ancient Rome I’m afraid.
Whole debate to be had ( maybe not here) about whether representative government is either possible or existent.
Probably best not to go there or I’ll have the usual suspects screeching at me and getting angry that I challenged their simplistic understanding of the world
Hey, I will say this though. If voting changed anything they’d certainly ban it.
Also whilst I stand by my comments above, that’s a great pity because I know there are plenty of intelligent people here who’ve learned not to raise their heads above the parapet for fear of being mobbed by the moron gang.
Ex veterans minister Johnny Mercer has also criticised Johnson.
Agree they speak to the core of the issue . Sadly in better terms than some opposition MP's who appear to be point scoring ??
No it’s not that. True it’s not fear either though.
I just think it’s a bit of a pity that a few people are so obsessed with their own egos that they can’t enjoy and often won’t tolerate the exploration of anything which bucks their current pattern of thinking.
Of course that’s how we advance and it’s sometimes both interesting and entertaining, which does no harm. Look ,you’re as bad as anyone if you think about it - what did you want to do there - add to the conversation, challenge the concept or just call me a big twat and somehow boost yourself up by diminishing someone else or what they said ?
And before Trump Obama made the same troop withdrawal quote to apease public opinion the only difference is its on Bidens watch, its not a huge force they have the same troop numbers in Europe and South Korea.
Biden could have made his win choice and kept something in place in the name of peace for innocent women and children.
Global Britain? The UK now have a frosty relationship with the USA and Europe leaving them either reaching out to nations who aren't concerned about human rights or shouting in a chamber trying not to admit it can't actually do anything.
Is Tobias Elwood related to you?
Perhaps we should listen to Richard Burgon who along with 18 others such as Corbyn , Diane Abbott and John McDonnell who have signed a letter asking fir to reparations costs to be paid by the British government.
Now before we judge Boris unfit , please draw a breath and consider the other option of who could be in charge
No wonder we have a fruit loop in charge .🤣
The full wording of the Stop The War Coalition statement on Afghanistan that Richard Burgon has supported and publicised, just to put the headlines about 'reparations' into their right context:
https://www.stopwar.org.uk/article/s...n-afghanistan/
There have been 240,000 people killed in Afghanistan since 2001 as a direct result of the war - including 457 UK service personnel. There has never been a stable government or stable civil society. There has been a space for people (especially women and various minorities) to find work and get an education. But it is precarious and that space could only be maintained by a continuing western military presence with all the human and financial cost that goes with that (including regular drone strikes on wedding parties!) It was never going to continue indefinitely (Trump and Biden agreed on that). It was never going to be another Germany or South Korea.
The only way forward now is full support for refugees and those most at risk from the Taliban, combined with multilateral diplomatic and financial engagement with the new government. The economy is broken. Helping to rebuild the country is probably the best way to protect the people and avoid the worst effects of radicalisation. It already appears that different parts of the Taliban are looking for international backing in their internal power struggle - creating an opening for a less dangerous future. That is what the STW Coalition is arguing and it sounds right to me.
We still have a fruit loop in charge, though.
The stop the war statement says "The British government should take a lead in offering a refugee programme and reparations to rebuild Afghanistan"..
Nothing wrong with the first part, yes we should take a lead in the refugee program. However the reparations part concerns me.
I do suspect that at some stage more prosperous countries will have to give financial help to Afghanistan. But are STW saying that we should immediately give cash to a regime that when it was previously in power was brutal and repressive? How would we know that they would use the money for the benefit of the Afghan people.
And if we call them reparations and give them to the Taliban what wrong are we righting there?
Yeah true enough, but can you suggest an alternative fruit loop who’d be better ?
I mean one in politics so who COULD get the job ? I should imagine that the average newsagent or bus conductor could do the job better.
Similarly, there’s no way forward on this. If there was ever any point other than giving politicians something to talk bollocks about and to embezzle money where no one can check, it’s over now .
The people there get to run their own affairs whether we like their ideas or not ( which is in fact right and proper ) and they’ll probably be left alone for a while,
File it.
By the way, and with utter total respect to the poor poor bastards who were conned into giving their precious brave and honourable lives then betrayed,
- does anyone here think it is, or ever has been, our business or responsibility to tell the people of that far away region how they should run their affairs or which religion they choose to follow ?