Thatcher

[EM]

As we normally do on these sorts of threads/strings. ...

Perhaps a new thread/string?

Care to digress on why you spout this sharn?

[shetlandpeat]

I like to call them strings, but to accommodate you I include thread.

 

Thinking of you

 

luv Peat

[OP8S]

The point I was trying to make was that the majority of world leaders only care about holding onto the power that they have gained whether it's been gained by violence or a so-called democratic election. Do you think Thatcher shed a tear, or even had a sleepless night after sending troops to the Falklands, Northern Ireland knowing that a good proportion would lose their lives. I doubt it. It was a political desicion made to ensure that the public would regard her as a strong leader & hopefully vote for her political party again. The same could be said for the Blair administration, sending in the troops to Iraq under the pretense of there being weapons of mass destruction. Bit of a mistake that, especially when they couldn't find any. I don't suppose that was much comfort to the families of the soldiers that were killed or lost limbs.

These people whether it is Oslama, Blair, Saddam, David Cameron & his cronies, Mugabe, the list is endless only care about themselves & the political power that they so tightly grasp. They have very little idea nor do they care about us, the little people. If they have to send a few hundred, thousand troops, not to mention the many innocent civilians to their deaths purely to retain their position in World Politics then they will do so at the drop of a hat, without emotion.

Now I'm off to practice levitation, another of my superpowers.

[EM]

^

@shetlandpeat

 

It is quite clear you like to do this given your habit of continually doing so. What I seek to understand is what the purpose of using such a confusing and otherwise unused term for something which is generally referred to as a thread? From your response I can only assume that you do so purely for selfish reasons.

[shetlandpeat]

I thought I said that, but thank you for pointing that out.

 

Folk in power do tend to want to remain in power. It feeds them. It is what you do with that power. Sadly, this country, Great Britain is tied in with so many agreements that they have to comply.

 

 

As for the General Belgrano..

 

The sinking of the Belgrano became a cause célèbre for anti-war campaigners in Britain. This was for a variety of reasons, including because the ship was outside the 200 mile (320 kilometre) Total Exclusion Zone that the British had declared around the Falklands, because the ship was on a westerly heading at the time it was attacked, and because a Peruvian peace proposal was still on the table at the time of the attack.â€

 

http://belgranoinquiry.com/

 

This may be the reason that the order to sink a ship was "evil".

 

There are many things we will never know as we will not be around when the full details are released, or an e-petition could do it, power to the people, except children, religious folk and those deemed mad.

[scoots]

And that is an objective source, I'm guessing? Open-minded people who have no axe to grind?

 

As for what goes through people's minds, when they hold power, who knows? Only the person holding the power. I do think there is s line to be drawn between those who hold absolute power and those who are democratically elected. One uses force, terror, torture and murder to maintain their position, the other the ballot box, spin or - rarely - popular policies or charisma (Maggie is the last I can think of who had that force of personality in this country). Can you honestly tell me that makes them equals in evil? Honestly??

 

As for the decisions they make, and/or have to make, it's generally held that someone, somewhere, has to make important decisions. Sometimes those are life or death difficult decisions.

 

If you were leader, and were informed that a group of British schoolkids were about to be executed in a foreign country, and the only forces nearby were available but likely to incur injury or death if deployed, would you leave the kids to die? Or would you leave the soldiers to do what they're trained to do (and, in my experience, do pretty damn well) and rescue them, casualties/fatalities and all?

 

Just asking. I'm not saying she was great. Just saying I DON'T believe she was "evil". That's hysteria, hyperbole, not fact.

 

I found what has since become one of my favorite quotes in another thread

here, which came from Theodore Roosevelt, on this very matter...

 

http://thinkexist.com/quotation/it_is_not_the_critic_who_counts-not_the_man_who/12121.html

[scoots]

Peat,

 

As for the Belgrano being "evil", and the treaty on the table, etc, Hiroshima was far more "evil". A predominantly civilian city, where peace was also being considered... yet it stopped the War in its tracks. The Belgrano had a similar effect in pulling up the Argentinian attacks on our ships. Remember them? Sailors dying, burning to death, the maimed and scarred survivors? It was a war, and, sometimes, in a war, difficult decisions have to be made. If that had been a civilian ship, I'd be right there with you. Evil as sin. But they were sailors, just like ours, and we were at war, and it had the outcome I spoke of.

 

Not the sort of decision I'd like to make, but, if I had been her, it's the sort of decision I HOPE I'd have made.

 

No one truly knows if she shed a tear at night for the lives lost, on either side, other than she and Dennis and anyone who might have witnessed this.

But, according to Willie Whitelaw, she did.

 

Not a nice person, yeah, but still not evil IMO.

[shetlandpeat]

We were Allies with the States when they did that.

 

I see your point, but there were points raised as regards to the Belgrano, what it shows is that with a treaty on the table, between us we will still bomb and kill. You would think we would learn.

 

But you are right it is war and

Sailors dying, burning to death, the maimed and scarred survivors? It was a war, and, sometimes, in a war, difficult decisions have to be made.

they sure did on the Belgrano, and for what, a principle...

[scoots]

Japan had approached America with a peace offer, including immediate unconditional cessation of all hostilities. They dropped the bomb anyway. War is not nice.

 

As for being Allies at that time, (we still are as far as I know), is this the killing of millions you refer to?

[EM]

They dropped the bomb anyway.

Two in fact. The first was appalling, though given human nature, inevitable I expect. Nagasaki, however, was well beyond the pale.

[shetlandpeat]

There are plenty of death stats available...

 

In Iraq

 

Documented civilian deaths from violence

102,298 – 111,815

Full analysis of the WikiLeaks' Iraq War Logs

may add 15,000 civilian deaths.

 

oops forgot link

 

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

 

It would be hard to put a number, we may have to accept that we are part of all this. It was ordered by our leaders.

 

We have a habit of invading other countries, as do the US.

 

 

There is estimates that 200,000 died in the fight for Kuwait from direct action and indirect. The holding back of important medicinal drugs, that of course would hit children and the elderly first.

 

Maggie may not have been evil as described if compared to other actions, folk will only talk about what they can see in their own land. On a whole, miners getting attacked pales into obscurity compared to 300,000+ casualties of both Iraq wars. A third of the way there, i did say 100s of thousands, if not millions. We will never really know.

[unlinkedstudent]

Ha, gotcha SP - Iraq was Bush and BLAIR!

[shetlandpeat]

Ha, gotcha SP - Iraq was Bush and BLAIR!

 

Hmm, gotcha? Iraq was G Bush and Blair and GW Bush and Blair. We had digressed in the discussion about alliances and how Thatcher was left high and dry during the Falklands yet we as a country have helped out the Americans.

 

When Regan (Raygun) won in the States he appointed G Bush as his second or similar, she also bought the Trident system from America and let the USA launch air attacks on Libya from USAF Bases in the UK.

 

hehehe.

 

Strangely about the Nuclear Bombs. The few trees to survive were Ginkgo biloba. Temples were built around some of these trees and are continually rebuilt around the tree as it grow to this present day. Again, I digress

[Guest posiedon]

SP

Strangely about the Nuclear Bombs. The few trees to survive were Ginkgo biloba. Temples were built around some of these trees and are continually rebuilt around the tree as it grow to this present day. Again, I digress

Ha! I have one in my garden, (A ginko not a nuke) the furthest traceable back living thing (if that makes sense) 5,000,000 years.

[shetlandpeat]

Very hardy, I did some research about them, brought here by the Victorians, they soon realised that the female trees stink, so the male is the most popular. Despite their abundance in gardens, they are listed as getting rare in the wild. I have tried growing from seed, as yet no success.