You don't know that. I must admit that you hold me at a disadvantage there. Yes, I have heard it - not just on the BBC , but across the British media. And i do trust things that come from both sides than just if it comes from ' the usual suspects'. However, you make a serious point.
I get the sense that us Brits *like* a good story, and i am just as much a sucker for a hard luck story as anyone else. maybe more than most people, even.
These Libyan guys have been under a military dictatorship for more than half my lifetime, and various british PMs have come and gone , and done very little about dictators except put them in place and sell them guns .
I don't like the way that Britain handled Uganda and Idi Amin, I didn't like the way they handled the situation in our own backyard in Ulster, I didn't like the way they invited the butchers of teinnaman square over here on a state visit and let her have dinner with the Queen, and i definitely didn't like the way that tony Blair took us into a war on false pretences. Maybe you can see a pattern forming here.
But Cameron is a new guy. He is a tory, and the Tory Party in the UK is really a party with a historical record for looking after business interests. However, I think that if someone in Libya wants to take down Gaddaffi and replace him with a home grown democratic government, then we must support that in any way possible.
So, these Libyan chaps suddenly explode onto the world stage, they rout gaddaffian forces and are suddenly holding half the country in their hands as two Libyan pilots refuse to open fire on them and go take their planes to Malta and ask for political asylum there.
Have you any idea how overjoyed that made me feel? "Yay for these Libyan guys!" I said to myself. if these guys had ousted Gaddaffi's regime and had a free Democratic People's Republic of Libya set up by the end of the week, i would have been delighted. Sadly, gaddaffi has brogught in mercanaries and they are stamping out the revolution before it can take over. Their leaders have appealed to the International Community for assistance, they are portrayed as brave freedom fighters, begging for our help in taking their country back.
Sadly, my heart rules my head at times like this, and I assume that these guys are pretty much like me.I assume that they have honour and integrity and are getting into politics out of the best motives- to help their own people and establish a better place for them to live in. so, yeah , of course I support them.
And, it seems , so do the French, The Americans and even the Cameron Government. Ii mean , isn't it wonderful to see so many world leader doing the right thing here for a change?
No, you are right. It probably isn't. These are not people with any sort of real record for acting in the wider interests of the free world, yet. I mean, I did hope that Obama would be another JFK. I did hope that he would intervene in Dafur and he didn't. I didn't have any illusions about Cameron looking after the NHS, but here he is, joining an international coalition to help topple Gaddaffi.
So, yes, if these guys are going to ' do the right thing' and go after gaddaffi on the ground and in the air, i support, not ' my countries policies' as a whole, but I support them on this.
unfortunately, I suspect that deep down , it is not about freedom and democracy for them , it's about oil and other ' national interests'. i hope that the Libyans will establish a democratic government without any interferance from Uk/US? French interests. But I can see too many people want things to go the other way.
The british Government, if it runs true to form , will try to impose its own will on the new regime if one emerges - as will the Americans and the French, I suspect. i don't really know who these Libyans are, or what sort of agenda they have. they could turn out to be Islamic extremists - I don't really know.
Perhaps we should not be backing them to the extent of arming them - we armed the Mujihadeen in Afghanistan and they somehow morphed into the Taliban and are poining their rocket launchers at us.
Even so, I still think that getting rid of gaddaffi was a good idea. Maybe we can work with the new guys, maybe we can't but lets see.
no subject
I must admit that you hold me at a disadvantage there.
Yes, I have heard it - not just on the BBC , but across the British media. And i do trust things that come from both sides than just if it comes from ' the usual suspects'. However, you make a serious point.
I get the sense that us Brits *like* a good story, and i am just as much a sucker for a hard luck story as anyone else. maybe more than most people, even.
These Libyan guys have been under a military dictatorship for more than half my lifetime, and various british PMs have come and gone , and done very little about dictators except put them in place and sell them guns .
I don't like the way that Britain handled Uganda and Idi Amin, I didn't like the way they handled the situation in our own backyard in Ulster, I didn't like the way they invited the butchers of teinnaman square over here on a state visit and let her have dinner with the Queen, and i definitely didn't like the way that tony Blair took us into a war on false pretences. Maybe you can see a pattern forming here.
But Cameron is a new guy. He is a tory, and the Tory Party in the UK is really a party with a historical record for looking after business interests.
However, I think that if someone in Libya wants to take down Gaddaffi and replace him with a home grown democratic government, then we must support that in any way possible.
So, these Libyan chaps suddenly explode onto the world stage, they rout gaddaffian forces and are suddenly holding half the country in their hands as two Libyan pilots refuse to open fire on them and go take their planes to Malta and ask for political asylum there.
Have you any idea how overjoyed that made me feel? "Yay for these Libyan guys!" I said to myself. if these guys had ousted Gaddaffi's regime and had a free Democratic People's Republic of Libya set up by the end of the week, i would have been delighted. Sadly, gaddaffi has brogught in mercanaries and they are stamping out the revolution before it can take over. Their leaders have appealed to the International Community for assistance, they are portrayed as brave freedom fighters, begging for our help in taking their country back.
Sadly, my heart rules my head at times like this, and I assume that these guys are pretty much like me.I assume that they have honour and integrity and are getting into politics out of the best motives- to help their own people and establish a better place for them to live in. so, yeah , of course I support them.
And, it seems , so do the French, The Americans and even the Cameron Government. Ii mean , isn't it wonderful to see so many world leader doing the right thing here for a change?
No, you are right. It probably isn't. These are not people with any sort of real record for acting in the wider interests of the free world, yet. I mean, I did hope that Obama would be another JFK. I did hope that he would intervene in Dafur and he didn't. I didn't have any illusions about Cameron looking after the NHS, but here he is, joining an international coalition to help topple Gaddaffi.
So, yes, if these guys are going to ' do the right thing' and go after gaddaffi on the ground and in the air, i support, not ' my countries policies' as a whole, but I support them on this.
unfortunately, I suspect that deep down , it is not about freedom and democracy for them , it's about oil and other ' national interests'. i hope that the Libyans will establish a democratic government without any interferance from Uk/US? French interests. But I can see too many people want things to go the other way.
The british Government, if it runs true to form , will try to impose its own will on the new regime if one emerges - as will the Americans and the French, I suspect. i don't really know who these Libyans are, or what sort of agenda they have. they could turn out to be Islamic extremists - I don't really know.
Perhaps we should not be backing them to the extent of arming them - we armed the Mujihadeen in Afghanistan and they somehow morphed into the Taliban and are poining their rocket launchers at us.
Even so, I still think that getting rid of gaddaffi was a good idea. Maybe we can work with the new guys, maybe we can't but lets see.