Middle East

[Les Woodard]

Saw this in our sunday paper in Australia NSW. Think it is the first time someone has been able to explain it so clear and a bloody lot better than I ever could.

Article from The Sun Herald 20/07/2014 by Peter FitzSimons.

Are you confused by what is going on in the Middle East? Let me Explain. We support the Iraqi government in the fight against ISIS. We don’t like ISIS, but ISIS is purportedly supported by Saudi Arabia, who we do like. We don’t like Assad in Syria. We support the fight against him, but ISIS is also fighting against him. We don’t like Iran, but Iran supports the Iraqi government in its fight against ISIS. So some of our friends support our enemies, some of our enemies are now our friends and some of our enemies are fighting against our other enemies, who we want to lose, but we don’t want our enemies who are fighting our enemies to win. If the people we want to defeat are defeated, they could be replaced by people we like even less. And all this was started by us invading a country to drive out terrorists who where not actually there until until we went in to drive them out.

[Doc Vernon]

Cricky Les!
Bit of a mix up,think I can try and understand all that !LOL
Cheers

[Neil Morton]

Seems about right to me especially the last sentence.

[j.sabourn]

Shows the complete miscalculation of western forces of going into an alien country with alien life styles and beliefs. In earlier posts I advocated going into Afghanastan after certain terrorists residing there. When they failed to capture or neutralize they should however leave, this applies to any country so invaded. Why they stay on and try to convert to western ideals I fail to understand. The so called experts in foreign diplomacy I fail to understand where they get their ideas from, it certainly shows they have no knowledge of the peoples and countries they are temporary residents of. The middle east confusion started with the invasion of Iraq and far from learning from this mistake, they have further compounded by not learning from the mistakes made. JS

[Les Woodard]

I to was always against going into Iraq and thought that even though Sadam was a tyrant he at least managed to keep all the religious faction under control. It is no wonder that the whole area is a basket case. Have to agree about Afghanistan that they should have only gone in with the one aim in mind and if not successful then should have retreated out. Or to be more precise like at school gone in caused a bloody nose then leave. There was another interesting article in our local rag about the latest about the Malaysian aircraft and that is at a distance it could have been mistaken for Putin's plane which was returning from Brazil with him on board. Sure the colours are the same but reversed and at that distance a trigger happy bugger would not admit now that it was a mistake. Can see a lot of sabre rattling going on again over this. Trouble is that we and probably the next generation will not be around before the truth of it all comes out so until then going to keep an open mind because the only fact that I know is I am going to be fed BS just as with each and every other bloody conflict that has gone on.

[j.sabourn]

They went into Iraq under a lie, both the USA and the UK Les. It was pure change of government status they were after. Pure political indiscretion, both leaders at the time have a lot to answer for including at the top of the list the PM of the uk who was in at the time, and now wanders the world on the talk shows making a further fortune to his already well off estate. How anybody could have given such a wally more that one turn in office always makes me wonder. JS

[Louis the fly]

While world leaders queue up to condemn Russia and Putin the massacre of children continues in Gaza. Fragmentation bombs dropped on civilians, when they explode thousands of metal shards are released to kill and maim as many as possible. There is nowhere for the people to run to, surrounded on all sides.
How many world leaders have stood to condemn Israel and Netanyahu..... not one.

[j.sabourn]

The answer is simple Louis. Get Hamas to stop firing rockets into Israel. Israel is claiming the right of retaliation and protection of its citizens. Hamas stops, the war stops. JS

[cappy]

While world leaders queue up to condemn Russia and Putin the massacre of children continues in Gaza. Fragmentation bombs dropped on civilians, when they explode thousands of metal shards are released to kill and maim as many as possible. There is nowhere for the people to run to, surrounded on all sides.
How many world leaders have stood to condemn Israel and Netanyahu..... not one.

######if someone came to my house every day and night and put rocks thro the window ..........ie hamas .........in due course i would stop that by any means.......which israel is doing

[robpage]

Oh ! Ye of little faith , Tony Blair is the Middle Eastern Peace Envoy , put your trust in Tony he will either fix it or blame Gordon , you know it makes sense , and with the Chalcot report getting nearer , he might want to spend a bit of time out of the country anyway .

Anyone who can actually explain what Tony does , answers on a Postcard please , because I cannot work it out