Park Life

I expect he's got at least 3 games to see how it goes.

It's a very good primer on the whole thing and what can so easily happen to almost anybody in the wrong place at th wrong time.

The Tories modernised the steel industry. The Tories and then Labour chose not to subsidise industry. The Germans chose to subsidise their industry and hold off the inevitable, however now that the subsidies have stopped they are closing all their coal mines. Industry, on the hole has gone East and no British government has tried or could change that situation. What part of "only European country in surplus" don't you understand? You started the argument about the 80's ffs and now you've whizzed through to the present day One argument at a time surely The laid the groundwork in the 80's when your lot were busy dismantling Britain and selling out the workforce and selling off assets. Thought you were the one giving out history lessons. Really this is playschool stuff for me. Best stick to your crop circles Think I'll continue making you look a muppet in here thanks.

They'd never go for it mate. Italian ice cream is way better.

The Tories modernised the steel industry. The Tories and then Labour chose not to subsidise industry. The Germans chose to subsidise their industry and hold off the inevitable, however now that the subsidies have stopped they are closing all their coal mines. Industry, on the hole has gone East and no British government has tried or could change that situation. What part of "only European country in surplus" don't you understand? You started the argument about the 80's ffs and now you've whizzed through to the present day One argument at a time surely The laid the groundwork in the 80's when your lot were busy dismantling Britain and selling out the workforce and selling off assets. Thought you were the one giving out history lessons. Really this is playschool stuff for me.

Brett Easton-Ellis Impereal Bedrooms, got me to go back and re-read Lunar Park and Less Than Zero. Never been a massive fan of his, but now beginning to catch hold.

Where did I say the bit in bold? I have stated absolutely nothing even resembling this, a pure contortion on your part. Cite direct quotes where I have claimed that women had only been subjected to tyranny in Afghanistan and nowhere else. If you can't do that, then stop being an divvy and misconstruing my words, as I have asked you to do several times now. Wind your fucking neck in with that shite, or'pipe down' as Stevie would say. I was highlighting the difference between crimes against women in the U.K vs under a Taliban rule when I responded to HF, as he had brought up cases of acid attacks and so on in Britain. I haven't even read the Mail article, I glanced over the pics to see if the chick was bangable: she passes the test just about, good for her. "If it had not been a military failure and a moral disaster then we would not have the daily mail printing pictures of Islamic plastic surgery disasters. Whether all that i just said is right or just some of it is irrelevant, the 'shocking' picture in the daily mail isnt 'shocking' at all, its depressingly predictable." You talk as though this article in the Mail is somehow evidence that the campaign in Afghanistan has failed. That's rediculous hyperbole, similar to the brand that the paper in question produces. If this is the sort of logic you apply in life, good luck with the macaroni-economics, you'll need it. If the conflict had been a military and moral failure as you claim, the Taliban would still be in charge. The two goals I stated have been achieved to some degree, the first one we can safely call a success. to disrupt terrorist networks in Afghanistan to degrade their ability to launch international terrorist attacks. - Success. The Al Quaeda forces have been absolutely decimated. The international terrorist threat from Afghanistan has been reduced. RE stable government, Karzai is there till 2014. Given the difficulties in establishing a government in a failed state, compromises have had to be made. One of these compromises is putting up with the corruption within the Karzai government, or at least proceeding with a government that had significant elements of corruption. He won't be publicly criticized for diplomatic reasons, but efforts are being made to deal with the corruption in its various forms. It's a start, and while the Afghan people are naturally fed up of conflict, the vast majority do not want to return to Taliban rule. Certain things are hard to measure because the concurrent war in Iraq has had such an affect on the Mid-East region, though I would happily speculate that Afghanistan/Pakistan are more stable now than they would have been had the situation been left alone. As for the effectiveness of the campaign, this is prone to constant fluctuations in any war; it is inevitable in one where the strategy has had to change from dealing with an initial crisis situation to a prolonged counter-insurgency battle. There have been many problems: anyone who spoke Arabic languages was treated with suspicion in the CIA, and there has been a lack of translators as a result; the British had forgotten the lessons learned from Northern Ireland about counter-insurgency, and they had well publicized problems with equipment and funding; the terrain has historically presented severe problems in all the Afghan wars; IEDs were poorly dealt with to begin with; the Iraq invasion had negative effects on the mission in several areas. The conflict has presented a constant barrage of ever-evolving problems, we intervened in a desperate mess and this was always going to be the case. I would say this basic axiom holds true with regard to war: you don't achieve anything if you give up at the first sign of struggle. If we had done so it would have been a great victory for the jihadists. The mission is now to provide stability in Afghanistan and this means training the Afghan army and police force. Does this represent the moral failure you speak of? What would have been more palatable for you, if we had pulled out after the first civilian casualty and left the country to be gripped by Taliban forces once again? Given your highly emotional responses to this topic, I wonder if your opposition to the NATO mission was a blind one based on a severe mistrust of Bush/Blair, and a squeamish attitude towards the inevitable atrocities that occur in war. That goes for the rest of you too. I have yet to see a compelling or even remotely plausible case be made for inaction. For those of you who agree that intervention was necessary but it has ultimately failed, I have yet to see any of you make a case as to why you believe this, and what you would have done differently. I have to say my feeling is that the lack of public support for the conflict now is mostly because people are so uninformed about it. The 'I don't know why we even went in the first place' crowd appear to be the largest in numbers, certainly the loudest. Here's an interview with Gen. Jack Keane from the 19th, he has worked with Gen. Patraeus and is close to him: http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11252 Slate also have a journo embedded in Afghanistan at the moment and he's doing multiple articles during his stay: Here's the latest - http://www.slate.com/id/2270855/ Here's a list containing the other ones so far - http://www.slate.com/?id=3944&qp=44788 Karzai is the most corrupt person in Afg, is this the guy you're hanging your hopes on? Father christmas was your dad btw. You know the one in red.

Huge sums of money for madrassas and terror come from Saudi and the US does fuk all about it. I wonder why.

Cause the history of Afg is littered with stable governments. The whole thing now is well within the realms of fiction.

Cole is a better left back, Bale is a left-winger really now. Bale's better than Zhirkov as well, maybe Malouda too. You're right about him having been converted to more of a winger. Bale is special. Lot of people thought it was massive money a couple of years ago, but proving to be very astute.

The Tories modernised the steel industry. The Tories and then Labour chose not to subsidise industry. The Germans chose to subsidise their industry and hold off the inevitable, however now that the subsidies have stopped they are closing all their coal mines. Industry, on the hole has gone East and no British government has tried or could change that situation. What part of "only European country in surplus" don't you understand?

This debate isn't about the miners strike, it's about the general shocking malaise the Tories left the manufacturing and industrial base of Britain in. Blitheley going around asserting that 'old industry' would be consigned to history. It isn't what the Germans did and they have a trade surplus and the HIGHEST WAGES IN EUO[PE...Hoe is this possible? Doesn't compute surerly?/

Surely thats just politics though, nothing new. Blame everything on the last lot and hope it sticks. The truth of the matter for me lies in three parts. 1. A disasterous banking crisis (without getting into semantics over regulation etc) 2. An idealogical decision to vastly increase the public sector. 3. An inability over 13 years to tackle some of the massive reforms of the day. Public sector pensions, welfare etc. Labour inherited a fantastic economic boom time and while doing some very good things (as you can when times are good), also dodged a lot of the big decisions that this lot are now taking, supported it must be said by all sides. Some of those were Labours fault, some wern't but hey thats politics. Did anyone of the Labour benches get up and compliment the coalition on some of the great things that were announced today? Is Jeremy Paxton going to focus on any of the good stuff tonight? Overall, given the job that had to be done, I think today was a spectacular achievement that has put this country on the right path. (And before the usual suspects jump in that does not mean that I am happy about any cuts or job losses). Our over reliance on the financial and wervice sectors are in main due to the Tories decimation of our industrial base in the 80's. That my dear is a FACT. I'll not pretend to be competent, never mind an expert talking about those times, however how you could have prevented the unstoppable march to the cheap wages of the East is beyond me. If it was simply down to the Tories why didnt Labour redress it during their 13 years. How did Germany do it? Much easier to quote what they did and how and then explain why Labour didnt do it, no? They concertrated on quality and innovation and are currently the only Euro country with a trade surplus. What they didn't do which the Tories did was give up and try and compete against the far east with the bargain basement stuff. The also didn't start portrraying workers as the enemy or greedy or unreasonable, the worked with them to develop excellent chemical industry, car industry, and hi tech and engineering products. In England of course we did the opposite, Thatcher started a war with the workers. i'vve read through some fo this thread and although I detect a lot of passion and energy, you really are very poorly informed, regurgitating the worst kind of nonsense. So what do you think were the arguments at the start of the miners strike?? Ian McGreggor who had modernised by mechanising the steel industry (a great success at the time) was brought in to sort the unprofitable and subsidised coal industry. The miners didnt like the idea of mechanisation because they new it would cost jobs. Rather than have union leaders who could see the way the world was going and accept change was neccesary, they decided instead to strike. (Lets not forget they had already brought down the Heath government in 74). The rest as they say is history. Here's a clue...How partnership with the state is healthy. The glory of German industry is not in the big firms that are well known around the world, such as Daimler-Benz, Volkswagen, Siemens, or Bayer (see table 16, Appendix). It is in the small- and medium-sized firms that constitute what the Germans call the Mittelstand . Although that term has political and social as well as management connotations, it has been widely accepted to mean companies that employ fewer than 500 workers. Such firms constitute 98 percent of all German companies, hire 80 percent of all employees, are responsible for a significant share of exports, and provide one of the firmest foundations of the middle class. The government has supported and furthered the Mittelstand , in part for political reasons, but also because it makes a crucial contribution to the economy. The government has established special provisions that permit those firms to cooperate if they do not thereby hinder competition. It makes available special funds to promote research and development by Mittelstand companies. After unification, the government used investment and tax incentives to encourage Mittelstand companies to invest in eastern Germany. What Germany didn't do is try and drive wages down (they have the highest average wages in Europe) and try and turn Germany into little China which is the route the Tories took in the 80's. With a serious lack of Govt money and support and coming out with statements about manufacturing being 'old industry' etc and other nonsese, they let our manufacturing base die on the vine. In another time they would have all been lynched not knighted. The Toreis have historically alwasy been short termist (and labour of late). The German coal industry btw is still subsidised to the tune of 2.7 billion Euro's a year. It hasn't stopped it having the only surplus in Europe or the highest wages in Europe. I bet this is really irritating for old skool tories....

Cause the markets have told them to.

Ok then Chez, here we go, I'll keep it brief: "What exactly are we doing there and why? So what was the justification for going to war in Afghanistan then KSA?" 1. What exactly are we doing? - The most pertinent goal of the intervention was: to disrupt terrorist networks in Afghanistan to degrade their ability to launch international terrorist attacks. Why? - 9-11 2. What exactly are we doing? - Establishing a stable government in Afghanistan. Why? - The Taliban government that had established itself over the 96-01 period coalesced with Al Quaeda forces. Bin Laden's funds allowed them to build extensive training camp facilities; most of the 9-11 hijackers passed through such camps in Afghanistan. Not only did the Taliban have majority control over Afghanistan, by 2001 any resistance to them was on its last legs: shortly before the intervention some of the most senior figures of the United Front were killed by suicide bombers. Without intervention, it is clear that the Taliban/Al Quaeda forces would have established 100% control of the country. Osama Bin Laden roamed freely with his brigade in the country, regularly massacring people and filling mass graves. It was more than a mere 'terrorist safe haven'. Given that the chief interests of the jihadist is to reestablish a Caliphate and kill infidels (ie us), allowing them to establish such control in a key region was unacceptable in the eyes of most Western governments. Afghanistan shares a border with Pakistan - a country with a nuclear arsenal - and the Taliban/Al Quaeda forces had a desire to take over that country; they would have had a real chance of doing so had the intervention not taken place. To me it seems the prospect and potential result of inaction in this case was not a route that could be justified. If you feel we should have given the Taliban/Al Quaeda coalition the benefit of the doubt in this instance so be it, it's not something I am capable of doing personally. I'll leave it at that for now, but with regard to your other points: Although an improvement in the human rights situation in Afghanistan was inevitable given the unprecedented brutality of the Taliban, I have never stated that that was the motivation of the intervention or part of the just-cause, merely it has been a by-product of the NATO mission. Given that this thread cited an instance of brutality towards a woman, I thought it would be a relevant time to bring that up. You're a smarter person than me and you study cheesy-economics so I would appreciate it if you wouldn't continue to misconstrue my posts when I've made it clear that that wasn't related to the motivations for the action in Afghanistan. Fair assesment. I'll have a look at it later in detail.

As expected.

Correcto. The war with the banks will come.

Aye, but to achieve that you need a workforce of emotionless, humourless Nazis, remember? Oh shit! Knew there was a flaw.

Surely thats just politics though, nothing new. Blame everything on the last lot and hope it sticks. The truth of the matter for me lies in three parts. 1. A disasterous banking crisis (without getting into semantics over regulation etc) 2. An idealogical decision to vastly increase the public sector. 3. An inability over 13 years to tackle some of the massive reforms of the day. Public sector pensions, welfare etc. Labour inherited a fantastic economic boom time and while doing some very good things (as you can when times are good), also dodged a lot of the big decisions that this lot are now taking, supported it must be said by all sides. Some of those were Labours fault, some wern't but hey thats politics. Did anyone of the Labour benches get up and compliment the coalition on some of the great things that were announced today? Is Jeremy Paxton going to focus on any of the good stuff tonight? Overall, given the job that had to be done, I think today was a spectacular achievement that has put this country on the right path. (And before the usual suspects jump in that does not mean that I am happy about any cuts or job losses). Our over reliance on the financial and wervice sectors are in main due to the Tories decimation of our industrial base in the 80's. That my dear is a FACT. I'll not pretend to be competent, never mind an expert talking about those times, however how you could have prevented the unstoppable march to the cheap wages of the East is beyond me. If it was simply down to the Tories why didnt Labour redress it during their 13 years. How did Germany do it? Much easier to quote what they did and how and then explain why Labour didnt do it, no? They concertrated on quality and innovation and are currently the only Euro country with a trade surplus. What they didn't do which the Tories did was give up and try and compete against the far east with the bargain basement stuff. The also didn't start portrraying workers as the enemy or greedy or unreasonable, the worked with them to develop excellent chemical industry, car industry, and hi tech and engineering products. In England of course we did the opposite, Thatcher started a war with the workers. i'vve read through some fo this thread and although I detect a lot of passion and energy, you really are very poorly informed, regurgitating the worst kind of nonsense.

Surely thats just politics though, nothing new. Blame everything on the last lot and hope it sticks. The truth of the matter for me lies in three parts. 1. A disasterous banking crisis (without getting into semantics over regulation etc) 2. An idealogical decision to vastly increase the public sector. 3. An inability over 13 years to tackle some of the massive reforms of the day. Public sector pensions, welfare etc. Labour inherited a fantastic economic boom time and while doing some very good things (as you can when times are good), also dodged a lot of the big decisions that this lot are now taking, supported it must be said by all sides. Some of those were Labours fault, some wern't but hey thats politics. Did anyone of the Labour benches get up and compliment the coalition on some of the great things that were announced today? Is Jeremy Paxton going to focus on any of the good stuff tonight? Overall, given the job that had to be done, I think today was a spectacular achievement that has put this country on the right path. (And before the usual suspects jump in that does not mean that I am happy about any cuts or job losses). Our over reliance on the financial and wervice sectors are in main due to the Tories decimation of our industrial base in the 80's. That my dear is a FACT. I'll not pretend to be competent, never mind an expert talking about those times, however how you could have prevented the unstoppable march to the cheap wages of the East is beyond me. If it was simply down to the Tories why didnt Labour redress it during their 13 years. How did Germany do it?

Opposition to what? More of the same? It's naive in the extreme to think that both parties don#t cow to the same puppetmasters. Bet nobody could name even 5 significant differances between the parties. Even regarding Euro there is little between them.

Surely thats just politics though, nothing new. Blame everything on the last lot and hope it sticks. The truth of the matter for me lies in three parts. 1. A disasterous banking crisis (without getting into semantics over regulation etc) 2. An idealogical decision to vastly increase the public sector. 3. An inability over 13 years to tackle some of the massive reforms of the day. Public sector pensions, welfare etc. Labour inherited a fantastic economic boom time and while doing some very good things (as you can when times are good), also dodged a lot of the big decisions that this lot are now taking, supported it must be said by all sides. Some of those were Labours fault, some wern't but hey thats politics. Did anyone of the Labour benches get up and compliment the coalition on some of the great things that were announced today? Is Jeremy Paxton going to focus on any of the good stuff tonight? Overall, given the job that had to be done, I think today was a spectacular achievement that has put this country on the right path. (And before the usual suspects jump in that does not mean that I am happy about any cuts or job losses). Our over reliance on the financial and wervice sectors are in main due to the Tories decimation of our industrial base in the 80's. That my dear is a FACT.

Oh that's so last year Alexis.

In the arena of pan-political agenda management, someitmes ideas take hold and then they are difficult to shake. They build and hum in their own momentum. They become mis-shapen, they swirl in clouds of bite size information that travel around the world many times over in a day. They rarely return to the source. In wars there are no such things as facts....only propoganda. In this super-colliding-data fracture, there is slippage, there are mishapen forms, there are lights that flicker a warning but then darken forever. Thee is half-light, there is muzzle flare, there is lazer targetting, but rarely are hi value targets hit. It is common that the ratio of dollars is heavily weighed in the favour of fire and forget, dream and remember...look into the haze of phosphorous skybursts. Many things are lost, sometimes nearly everything can be reconstituted however you want and the war, specifically in Afg is no different, it is a fiction, a media fiction that is sometimes segues into fact, but the facts must remain hidden, for the facts are the enemy, best to stick with the mythology.

If post-invasion hand wringing leads to serious concerns about womens rights in a country thousands of miles away, I await with baited breath the invasion of Saudi Arabia. That just shows how ignorant you are according to KSA. He is a mere plaything. I let him run around like a wet nose puppy for my amusement. Slaps will be administered if I tire of his quaint little yelps and shoe chewing.