Jeremy Jew hater

[BobG]

It's a name. Call it Tosspotville if you like. It don't make a blind bit of difference. I never did understand  people who get hung up about a name. You say Beijing don't you? You say Mumbai don't you? They're not the English names for those places either.

Grow up.  The point of this thread is far, far, far more serious than having a hissy fit about a proper noun.

Bob

[Sad-Rovers]

If it's just a name you won't mind calling it by the proper one that your fellow countrymen died to reinstate then will you, you condescending old ball sack?

[Sprotyrover]

Bob you are a pudding the place you have referred to is the FALKLAND Islands.

[Dagenham Rover]

Falkland Islands, let's face it Las Malvina's sounds like a cheap Spanish wine bar 

[idler]

It's a name. Call it Tosspotville if you like. It don't make a blind bit of difference. I never did understand  people who get hung up about a name. You say Beijing don't you? You say Mumbai don't you? They're not the English names for those places either.

Grow up.  The point of this thread is far, far, far more serious than having a hissy fit about a proper noun.

Bob

You must be the only person in the UK Bob that would call it by it's foreign name rather than it's usual British name.

[Copps is Magic]

The more pertinent comparisons are with the cold war era, not the 1930s. The threat of nuclear destruction changes a lot of things.
It seems to me Russia is not interested in invading the Baltic Nato countries. It's primary worry/fear/motivation is the Nato missile defence system (which it believes is not actually a defence system at all). It's secondary concern is ethnic Russians in its former sphere of influence. There exists a minority of such people in the Baltic countries but they are a minority.
There is a peaceful/diplomatic solution to be found in Ukraine.
Nato is playing its part in this unfortunately, from the Military plans to defend the Baltic region, from the military exercises and 'war games' to the missile defense system itself and increase of troops. This has all happened on Obama's watch and the person we should fear most on the side of the west is Clinton.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Copps

That is a quite spectacularly naive reading of the situation.

The driving force behind this issue, as it was with Ukraine, as it was with Georgia, as it was with Chechnya is about Russian pride.

Putin's entire public image and political popularity is based on telling the Russian people that he is the new Stalin. The hard man who will not be f**ked around. The one who will assert Russia's right to throw its weight around.

He is the hard man who pulverised Grozny as revenge for the embarrassing and bloody defeat First Chechen War. He's the hard man who cyber-destroyed the Georgian state in a morning when they tried to face down Russia over South Ossetia and Abkhazia. He's the hard man who walked into Crimea when Ukrainians overthrew his corrupt puppet.

The Russian people lap it up. Their economy is a basket case because of the collapse of the oil prices. They have a horrifically poor and unhealthy population. Their economy has been raped by his gangster cronies. But they love him because he makes them feel powerful.

But that can't stop. He can't be seen to back down. And the Baltics are the next most obvious target. At least they are IF there is any doubt that NATO wouldn't respond. If he did a Ukraine in the Baltics, in defiance of NATO, that would be the ultimate nationalistic victory. But if he does that in the Baltics, and if NATO let's him, then why not Poland? And Hungary? And Romania? And...?

[Glyn_Wigley]

The big difference though is that the Baltic Sates are not just in NATO but the EU, with a whole separate trenche of mutual assurance treaties.

[Copps is Magic]

. Corbyn. He's messing about with the future of the planet.

By the way, something's bothering me.

I thought the line was 'Corbyn is unelectable'.

How is he messing with the future of the planet if he can't get into power?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Copps mate. You're getting cause and effect muddled up.

[Copps is Magic]

I had a feeling I would be wrong / naive / making a mistake even before I started posting, stubbsy. That doesn't concern me. See me, what I'm doing is probing these subtle changes in mindset of people who want anything but Corbyn. I'm a proverbial gynecologist.

Is Corbyn now setting, not only, the political agenda of the left but the whole country? The way people are worrying about him you'd suspect so. I'm still really waiting for the alternative - if it's 'I agree with what Jeremy has to say but I'd look to negotiate with ISIS' then I'm personally going to need a bit more convincing.

As an aside, how many MPs would you predict will switch back to supporting Corbyn after he wins the leadership race?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Go to bed and sleep it off lad.

[wilts rover]

It's a name. Call it Tosspotville if you like. It don't make a blind bit of difference. I never did understand  people who get hung up about a name. You say Beijing don't you? You say Mumbai don't you? They're not the English names for those places either.

Grow up.  The point of this thread is far, far, far more serious than having a hissy fit about a proper noun.

Bob

Is it anywhere close to that place known as Tibet, which you also wont find on any map? Under illegal occupation and subject to ethnic cleansing for 60 years, the arbiters of moral outrage had little to say when we conducted trade deals and offered contracts to build our nuclear power stations to the country that occupies it.

I should have gone to Tibet in 2008 to do the Lhasa - Kathmandu bike ride. The the Buddist monks staged their protests to bring world attention to what was going on there, the Chinese closed the border, and that was that. I haven't had a Chinese takeaway since.

The latest action being the current destruction of the Buddhist centre at Larung Gar.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3703568/Stunning-Tibetan-Buddhist-mountainside-city-s-home-10-000-monks-nuns-DISMANTLED-Chinese-workers.html

Why are the Baltics more important to you than Tibet? Is it too far away?

[wilts rover]

What he hasn't done is what Corbyn and in particular, McDonnell did for decades, which was to support both the aims and the operational approaches of groups taking up arms against the British State, and to praise them for doing so.

When you defend the British state you need to be entirely sure that its actions are correct and the right ones, both morally and legally. Are you sure of that when it comes to the history of British actions in Ireland/Northern Ireland?

The IRA killed 656 British soldiers between 1969 and 1996, absolutely terrible for those people involved and their relatives. Just this week I came across the story of the SS Scillin, an Italian freighter it was carrying 800 British POW's from North Africa back to mainland Italy when it was hit and sunk by a British submarine mistaking it as a troop supply ship sailing to Africa. Only 27 POW's survived.

Terrible, but these things happen in wartime. Except the government back home knew the Scillin was only carrying POW's as they had broken their shipping codes, but refused to tell the sub as they thought this might indicate to the Italians about the broken codes. Even more terrible, but again these things happen in wartime.

Except they then refused to tell the relatives what happened and lied about it for the next 50 years. Some papers are still secret/have not been released/been destroyed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Scillin
https://www.british-genealogy.com/archive/index.php/t-19687.html

So the British state killed more of its own soldiers with one torpedo, than the IRA managed in 27 years. Deliberatly and then covered it up for 50 years.

Around the same time the Chinese invaded Tibet we sent soldiers to Kenya to put down the Mau Mau uprising. Exactly what went on there is subject to some dispute, detention camps, rape, torture, murder with allegations of hundreds of thousands killed by the British, as again the offcial papers were destroyed/kept secret. However in 2011 the government were forced to admit that other records had survived and that the contents of these records proved those allegations were true and allowing for recompence to the survivors.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/aug/18/uncovering-truth-british-empire-caroline-elkins-mau-mau
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/statement-to-parliament-on-settlement-of-mau-mau-claims

Back to the actions of the British state in Ireland/Northern Ireland...

[wilts rover]

The irony of Smith declaring himself an isis apologist in the midst of this discussion can't be lost to anyone.

At least Jezza's shown off his cast-iron consistency again by underlining how he would refuse to negotiate with a terrorist organisation that considers innocent civilians, women and children as legitimate murder targets.

Oh, wait a mo....

Corbyn has been consistent with his support for a minority population that has (in their view) come under oppression by a major power, including the occupation of their land.

Whatever ISIS are they are certainly not a minority population and it is they who are the power occupying someon else's territory.

In all your attacks on Corbyn you have yet to explain what it is that Smith will discuss with ISIS? Just thought I would remind you.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Wilts.

It's not about morality. Morality rarely comes into foreign policy. If it were about morality, Lithuania and Tibet would be far down the list of priorities of the past few years. The rap sheet would start with  Rwanda and even more dreadfully, the Democratic Republic of Congo where up to 6 million people have died in conflicts over the past two decades and no-one in the West gives a f**k.

But it's not about morality. Certainly it's not for Corbyn, because he stridently opposed NATO intervention in Kosovo to prevent Serbia carrying out the kind of bestial massacres they did in Srebrenica.

It's not about morality, because there was a moral case for removing Saddam, and look where that led to.

It's not about morality I'm afraid. And it's certainly not about morality in the Baltics. It's about hard-headed application of obligations under treaties. The sort of thing that actually prevents wars from starting in the first place.

I can shed as many tears as you over Tibet, but it's got nothing whatsoever to do with the question at hand. Because we're not discussing morality.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Wilts.

Presumably Smith would talk about the same things that Corbyn would talk about.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-says-there-could-be-benefits-to-opening-diplomatic-back-channels-with-isis-a6817181.html

What exactly IS this spat about?

[Glyn_Wigley]

The irony of Smith declaring himself an isis apologist in the midst of this discussion can't be lost to anyone.

At least Jezza's shown off his cast-iron consistency again by underlining how he would refuse to negotiate with a terrorist organisation that considers innocent civilians, women and children as legitimate murder targets.

Oh, wait a mo....

Corbyn has been consistent with his support for a minority population that has (in their view) come under oppression by a major power, including the occupation of their land.

Whatever ISIS are they are certainly not a minority population and it is they who are the power occupying someon else's territory.

In all your attacks on Corbyn you have yet to explain what it is that Smith will discuss with ISIS? Just thought I would remind you.

He might be being consistent with his support for a minority. However, that is not what I said - He is NOT being consistent with his stance regarding negotiating with MURDERING TERRORISTS.

[Glyn_Wigley]

In all your attacks on Corbyn you have yet to explain what it is that Smith will discuss with ISIS? Just thought I would remind you.

I don't know. But then, that's why you talk to them in the first place, n'est pas?

[wilts rover]

What a right little set of jingoistic warmongers some posters appear to have turned into. Appeasement, the Cold War, you will be sending troops out to sock it to the Mahdi and going around breaking windows because we didn't light up for Mafeking next.

It's 2016, not 1966, 1936 or even 1916. Russia has £27billion in investments in the City, which is only a small fraction of what it has tied up in Western Europe as whole. Russians own vast amounts of property in the UK - including some municiple football pitch in Chelsea. In turn British firms have assests in Russia.
http://openeurope.org.uk/intelligence/foreign-policy/uk-russia-sanctions/

Even with the current sanctions financiers are looking to see how they can expand Russian investment.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/05/22/russian-corporate-deals-are-starting-to-come-in-from-the-cold/

The world has moved on, we are interlinked into one global economy now, even more so with mainland Europe relying on Russian gas supplies.

The fallacy that Britain is a world superpower and Vlad Putin will be doing the polka over whatever Jeremy Corbyn says about NATO is just that - a fallacy. There is no way on this earth that British intervention in the Baltics would be anything other than a suicide mission for everyone involved. Britain has an army of 150000 troops and 400 tanks, Russia has 766000 troops (plus 2.5 million reservists) and 15000 tanks.

It's irrelevant whatever we say. Any NATO defence of the Baltics would need to come from the US and any debates on NATO are more relevant in terms of Anglo-American relations than Anglo-Russian ones. Just like our 'independent' nuclear deterrant submarines, we cant work without American guidance. And if you can predict what is going to happen in the US in the near future, then well done to you.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/vladimir-putin/11586021/How-Putins-military-firepower-compares-to-the-West.html

[Copps is Magic]

We shouldn't be talking to ISIS. Full stop.

It does not call for the simple granting of autonomy to its members and supporters in Syria and Iraq—it works to end the autonomy of others in both places, and far beyond, not least through ethnic cleansing and the worldwide export of wanton violence.

You won't get it more succinctly put than that. It's about legitimacy, and 'round the table' talks with ISIS (on an end game which is the end of humanity) are legitimacy they don't deserve.

[NickDRFC]

In all your attacks on Corbyn you have yet to explain what it is that Smith will discuss with ISIS? Just thought I would remind you.

I don't know. But then, that's why you talk to them in the first place, n'est pas?

N'est-ce pas*

[BillyStubbsTears]

Wilts

What on earth does a globalised economy have to do with the possibility or impossibility of conflict?

In 1914, not only did we have an intricately linked "global" economy (the quotes being because obviously there were fewer players and a smaller pot) but most of the leaders of Europe were related. Didn't stop the whole thing collapsing and 10 million lives being gobbled up. (NB: of course, a major mistake on Germany's side was thinking that Britain's commitment to its Treaty of London obligation was less than certain.)

Regarding your playground insults on jingoism and the insanity of the U.K. going to war in the Baltics, you are doing the usual thing that those out on the Left do. You are equating "preparedness to go to war" with "wish to go to war". Stop being so silly and maybe we can discuss this like grown-ups, eh? Unless this is another one of those issues on which there is to be no discussion.

On the defence of the Baltics, the whole point about NATO is that it is a COLLECTIVE. The USA is the major part of that collective, but the whole concept of NATO will collapse of the second most important power rips up Article V.

But that brings us to the crux. Because that's what Corbyn has always argued for. He wants the EU to collapse. He wants NATO to collapse. Just stop a while and think who would benefit most from those outcomes.

[Glyn_Wigley]

We shouldn't be talking to ISIS. Full stop.

It does not call for the simple granting of autonomy to its members and supporters in Syria and Iraq—it works to end the autonomy of others in both places, and far beyond, not least through ethnic cleansing and the worldwide export of wanton violence.

You won't get it more succinctly put than that. It's about legitimacy, and 'round the table' talks with ISIS (on an end game which is the end of humanity) are legitimacy they don't deserve.

But the IRA and Taliban are more legitimate? Please draw us the line where non-legitimacy becomes legitimacy as it's a bit nebulous. And completely irrelevant as far as the victims - and future victims - are concerned (Don't worry, the maiming/death you suffered wasn't legitimate you know').

[Copps is Magic]

Do read the article.

ISIS has no claim to anything anyone other than itself would recognise as legitimate. Not even other terrorist groups or other hardline muslims. That's the concrete history we are dealing with here.

Just because one terrorist group may have 'legitimate' political claims behind it doesn't justify terrorism. What  you seem to be wrestling with is the abstract notion of legitimate killing which you really could extend to any form of killing, political or not. The justifications and punishments for that really are hugely dependent on circumstance* so you're going down the wrong alley looking for an absolute answer to that question.


*Not for my moral compass by the way, which would be pretty consistent, but for the rest of the human race. That's just the way it is in any pragmatic appraisal.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Copps

Right. So we're agreed that BOTH leadership candidates have aired ideas on this topic that you fundamentally disagree with?

[Copps is Magic]

Once again, best to watch the source material on these matters and not read what the papers report because they all report it differently and engage in various degrees of mis/selective-quoting. What Corbyn said to me was unclear. A politicians answer again. If he genuinely did think negotiating with ISIS was an option then I disagree with that. Since then, however, he's more concretely said he has no intentions for any negotiations.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Copps

You really ought to give me a bit more credit than to always assume that I get my information from the newspapers. In this particular case, I gave you that link because it was accurate and quick. I'll give you the video link to the BBC interview where he said that we should have "back channels" open to ISIS and mused that similar approaches were taken with the IRA and the Taliban. He did say that he wouldn't call it "dialogue" exactly. And in the recent debate he actually DIDN'T say that he wouldn't negotiate with ISIS: he said, "not round the table, no." So yeah, I see what you mean about "politicians' answers". And spinning from the likes of you. Jeremy is true, clear and consistent except when he isn't.

This New Politics eh? What do you make of it?

[i_ateallthepies]

BST, I am in awe of your patience.

[Copps is Magic]

Copps

You really ought to give me a bit more credit than to always assume that I get my information from the newspapers. In this particular case, I gave you that link because it was accurate and quick. I'll give you the video link to the BBC interview where he said that we should have "back channels" open to ISIS and mused that similar approaches were taken with the IRA and the Taliban. He did say that he wouldn't call it "dialogue" exactly. And in the recent debate he actually DIDN'T say that he wouldn't negotiate with ISIS: he said, "not round the table, no." So yeah, I see what you mean about "politicians' answers". And spinning from the likes of you. Jeremy is true, clear and consistent except when he isn't.

This New Politics eh? What do you make of it?

And Owen Smith?. Where does he rank in your consistency barometer?

Is this comment about 'new politics' meant to be a reference to something I've said? Because I don't believe I've said anything of the sorts. Corbyn's major policies certainly don't appear to me to be anything 'new'. They are are actually pretty conventional socialist ideas - building your way out of an economic crisis through infrastructure, homes available for all (council built and ultimately available to buy) and targeted wealth re-distribution policies (geographical or otherwise). Essentially, as I've said before, this to me is what labour should be about - not about letting the banks run amok, unfettered private control in the housing market and international skirmishes without popular support.

Perhaps you mean new as in the man, the politician, and how he conducts himself. I'm just going to repeat myself on this, he is one of the most consistent politicians around. Does that mean I think the sun shines out his arse and he never mumbles stupid stuff when being interviewed - of course not! There seems to be a perception here that Corbyn supporters have lost sight of their critical faculties on all matters relating to everything by virtue of them being a Corbyn supporter. He does do somethings differently that I like - such as not living up to the antiqued, quasi-macho charade that is PMQ's and submitting to the politics-media complex.

I'm the son of a miner, I grew up in an entrenched labour town, and I got a very critical and good education - I'm exactly the type of person who SHOULD vote labour. But for a long time I haven't. Why? Because of the practice of labour in power, not what I was told in manifestos and political proclamations. Do I think Corbyn is going to achieve everything he says he is and change this and achieve equality in society? No, but I get the impression he's going to have a good go.

If you mean new as in 'entryist' then I've just outlined my circumstances above. I find this phrase particularly worrying. It's basically scorn and derision on those people realising their lives are political (and always have been). Which is a terrible, anti-democratic idea.. The reality is, in terms of the testaments I've read at least, most of the people supporting Corbyn should more correctly be described as returnists in one form or another.