Conservative party/opposition watch

johnhemming2 · Post by **johnhemming2** » 31 Aug 2015, 09:59

I have looked at the DWP reports and there are other issues such as the fact that off flows from ESA are lumped together regardless of what the resultant situation was. Hence people moving to pensions are linked in to others.

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 09 Sep 2015, 12:42

http://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/sep ... -macdonald

Cameron has justified targeted extra judicial killing of UK nationals as legal to prevent imminent terror attacks in the UK on major public events, except

1. The people killed were not in the UK or anywhere near it
2. The events quoted had passed off peacefully before the targets were
assassinated.

raspberry-blower · Post by **raspberry-blower** » 09 Sep 2015, 19:52

PS_RalphW wrote:http://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/sep ... -macdonald

Cameron has justified targeted extra judicial killing of UK nationals as legal to prevent imminent terror attacks in the UK on major public events, except

1. The people killed were not in the UK or anywhere near it
2. The events quoted had passed off peacefully before the targets were
assassinated.

Craig Murray clarifies the legal process given to No 10

Craig Murray wrote: The government based its decision to execute by drone two British men in Syria on “Legal Opinion” from the Attorney-General for England and Wales, Jeremy Wright, a politician, MP and Cabinet Minister. But Wright’s legal knowledge comes from an undistinguished first degree from Exeter and a short career as a criminal defence barrister in Birmingham. His knowledge of public international law is virtually nil.

Nothing like having the best man for the job

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 09 Sep 2015, 22:59

Everybody ought to read that piece from Craig Murray
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives ... ent-works/

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 10 Sep 2015, 05:08

We are fighting a war!!

These people were soldiers in one of the most brutal armies that we have seen since the Nazi SS, and they are possibly worse, so I am not at all worried that they have been targeted. The more the ... better! I suspect that that is the reaction of most people in this country.

I would think that they had been located by their use of a mobile phone so the question could be asked, who were they phoning and for what purpose? Were they grooming someone to carry out an atrocity in the UK? Or were they just talking to their Mum? I'm not really bothered because they won't be killing, raping or beheading anyone else again!

johnhemming2 · Post by **johnhemming2** » 10 Sep 2015, 07:55

When fighting a war one priority has to be to make sure that the peace at the end of it sticks. On that basis it is worth trying to ensure that combatants don't act in such as way as to upset so many people that their desire for revenge exceeds their desire for peace.

I don't know enough about this particular incident to come to a view on it, however.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 10 Sep 2015, 09:38

kenneal - lagger wrote:I'm not really bothered because they won't be killing, raping or beheading anyone else again!

But now all their friends and relations may turn to the same tactics in revenge. When you kill an enemy you create a whole bunch more. It's bad morally and strategically.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 10 Sep 2015, 10:00

It is already too late to worry about that. This is not to pass comment on the rights or wrongs of this particular incident or, even, to deny the underlying trajectory of Western misadventures in the Middle East that have played a significant part in igniting the flames that are engulfing that region. It is simply a statement of fact.

The dye is cast. Fundamentalist Islam is now on the march and it is our enemy. It will not stop until it has created a global Islamic caliphate or until it has been destroyed utterly.

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 11 Sep 2015, 01:54

So now we have to catch alive all these people who have sworn to form a worldwide caliphate by any means possible and are more than willing to die in the process if necessary and re-educate them to accept us Kuffars and let us get on with our blasphemous lives and just hope that they don't revert to their murderous ways and persuade their friends to join them in their murderous quest.

How are we going to do that, Biff?

Alternatively we could just let them get on with conquering the ME and hope that Iran is strong enough to take them on so that they don't come for us for a while. Their hatred of Shia heretics seems to be greater than their hatred of Kuffars so we might be lucky there. They might also need the oil revenue from us to pay for their killing sprees so we might still be able to buy some oil from them but I don't suppose it will be at the same cheap rate that the Saudis are offering at the moment.

I'm not willing to take that chance on any of the above and I don't think any sane person would either so I'm quite happy for the killing of enemy combatants to continue. I'm also quite happy for anyone who wants to go to Syria to join ISIS to do so but on the strict understanding that they might get themselves killed.

By the way, I haven't noticed any Germans trying to kill us Brits recently or at any time since May 1945 and we certainly killed a lot of them so if your argument were correct they should have been on the rampage. They might have taken over Europe economically but they haven't killed anyone while doing it, Biff.

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 11 Sep 2015, 10:22

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34215799

A letter written to the UN Security Council has offered an additional justification for an RAF drone attack in Syria, which killed two Britons.
British ambassador to the UN Matthew Rycroft said it was lawful as part of a "collective self-defence of Iraq".

However, attacking ISIS in Syria as part of the Iraq campaign was precisely what the UK parliament voted AGAINST.

This government does exactly what it wants and makes up the rules afterwards (if anybody notices).

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 18 Sep 2015, 14:20

johnhemming2 wrote:When fighting a war one priority has to be to make sure that the peace at the end of it sticks. On that basis it is worth trying to ensure that combatants don't act in such as way as to upset so many people that their desire for revenge exceeds their desire for peace.

That is so sensible I might just c&p it and put it up on a page somewhere! Because it's not the sort of thing that's top of people's minds in the heat of war is it? But it should be.

My main beef with drones (same goes for staffed planes but a bit less so) is the sheer number of other people they kill accidentally and the appalling mistakes (wedding parties etc). As a means of making sure one's enemy remain belligerant, that can't be beaten...

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 18 Sep 2015, 19:40

The great thing about bombing wedding parties is that you get to make enemies of two whole sets of friends and relations for the price of one bomb. Good trade for the warmongers.

Here's Simon Jenkins on the subject:

The British government will shortly ask parliament to approve its sixth war of overseas intervention in just two decades. The victim will be Syria. Such a war is incoherent. The “enemy” appears to be both sides in a civil war – Islamic State and the Syrian regime.

Worse, the war will be limited to the cruellest, most destructive and strategically most useless of weapons, the airborne bomb. Since its invention a century ago the bomb has maintained a mesmeric hold on politicians and soldiers alike. It is now the all-purpose totemic answer to “something must be done”. In Syria it impossible to understand what Britain will be bombing and to what strategic goal.

In each of the wars of intervention – against Iraq, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq again and Libya – cities as well as armies were bombed, overtly to terrorise regimes into surrender. In each case, air forces said that the bombing would be “proportionate and measured” and yet in each case forecast it would bring a regime “to its knees”.

There's lots more:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... ths-drones

nexus · Post by **nexus** » 21 Sep 2015, 08:06

Wot no #PigGate?

AutomaticEarth · Post by **AutomaticEarth** » 21 Sep 2015, 09:13

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/09 ... 67458.html

raspberry-blower · Post by **raspberry-blower** » 21 Sep 2015, 11:24

Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror predicted this in 2011