political commentator * author * publisher * bookseller * radio presenter * blogger * Conservative candidate * former lobbyist * Jack Russell owner * West Ham United fanatic * Email iain AT iaindale DOT com
Promise to come back and listen to the soundtrack to this tomorrow (Mrs Lobster sleeps right now). In the mean time I thought you might be interested in this clip which also features our Tone.
I suggest phone cam foolery calms down a bit and does some research into the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, and the truly barbarous effects on civilians and mostly conscripted soldiers inflicted by the leadership of Iran and Iraq at the time - it might help him/her put Chris Palmer's comments into some sort of context.
phone cam foolery How grown up of you to use adult words like that twice in just one very rude rant.
The good news for the worlds future, is that I have suddenly become convinced today although I am not sure why, that it now does not matter what the likes of people like yourself say, anymore.
The Isralis, George Bush and Tony Blair know what they are up against, and the plan is already set in motion.
Irrational 'liberal' loons like you and the BBC, are just serving to lull the enemy into a faulse sense of security. Which is why the government dont even bother to try to shut you types up.
The big poker game has reached the flop. Just hope for your childrens/chums at schools sake, that the civilised world dont turn the douce, and the Iranians dont river the ace.
Or look forward to possibly 10 Million dead human beings and riding a pedle-cycle to work,for the next ten years. If you still have a job/paper-round by then.
Sorry if you dont understand my meaning. Poker is after all a grown-ups game.
verity I agree I quite like David Bowie, some of my mates went to school with him. DB is far to rich and successfull for anyone to believe he would commit suicide so I think our beloved David is safe.
The Uk went into this illegal conflict based on an hysterical lie from Blair. So how come there are so many people only too willing to accept everything being said about Saddam'a barbarism as fact. I'm no supporter of Saddam but one thing that can't be disputed is that, despite the sanctions, he maintained an infrastructure far superior to that existing at present.So much for the billions being poured in by the USA/UK.One day Bush and his little lapdog will be called to account for this atrocity.
Phone Cam and Iain....sometimes the c word is really the only one that gets the appropriate sentiment/description accross...unfortunate, but economical and succinct.
Putting this video up on your site is massively misjudged - I had to check for a moment that I hadn't wandered on to Indymedia or one of the murkier corners of the Guardian talkboards. Clearly this video has impressed some of your commenters - the sort of people who think that changing 'LIVE' to 'EVIL' is clever - but it really is just a crude and nasty piece of propaganda which has nothing to do with discussing the real issues to do with Iraq.
I'm a Conservative who hates Tony Blair but even so the fact that you would carry such a video has made me totally re-assess you and your site. I think I'll stick to Conservative Home in future.
Just think, when David Cameron gets a few more TV hours under his belt to do the lip-synch, we can have a duet.
By the way Mr Palmer, though you are lurking beneath Bush I am sure you are not as anatomically desirous as PCF makes you out to be. Saddam's murderous past was of course when your lot was supplying him with the wherewithall to do it!
It cannot be disputed that more Iraqis (and US and British troops!) have died as the result of the Iraq war than would have otherwise.
No WMDs have been found and the country is fragmented and ungovernable. Iraq was a colossal strategic failure that has taken an enormous toll in lives and in undermining regional stability, also in cash.
The Iran-Iraq war was horrendous. Apparently not so horrendous to put off the US government - and a certain Mr Donald Rumsfeld - from supplying arms and chemical weapons components.
Th Iraqi mass graves are also horrendous. There are mass graves in Rwanda - no intervention there - and human rights abuses in many countries that the US and UK are willing to turn a blind eye to. Uzbekistan, for example.
A question for Blair - are the deaths of 37 Lebanese children in an Israeli airstrike a price worth paying for a retirement career on the US lecture circuit?
I am not a "liberal" - I was an Armed Forces officer until I resigned in the aftermath of the Hutton inquiry.
Israel has a right to existence and a right to self-defence, but military action must be discriminate and proportionate.
Two points arise from Chris Palmer's post timed at 11.43:
a) How many bodies have actually been discovered - is it hundreds or thousands? And,
b) How does Chris Palmer know there are more graves to be discovered? Presumably there's some basis for that assertion.
That's not to support Saddam's heinous actions but merely to understand the point more clearly, and to enable a simple arithmetical calculation as to the accuracy of his views.
iain-not-dale-wrote: "Israel has a right to existence and a right to self-defence, but military action must be discriminate and proportionate."
A quixotic notion, coming from an ex-military man. When you are fighting for your life, there is no such thing as proportionality. You take the most extreme action to ensure that you are the one who survives.
Re the dead women and children in Lebanon, their deaths are on the hands of Hezbollah, who cynical used their own people as human shields.
Anti-American racism. Simply the term that describes all the hatred of America and of course democracy(as exemplified by the BBC and others here). I am quite aware they are not a distinct race, but it makes my point.
As usual Verity is right. If only all of these people had been so concerned about the Israeli civilians being slaughtered for months on the border for months. But then they were only Kews weren't they? Hezbollah will have to go, and the Lebanese people would be well advised to do it themselves before Israel does.
Well-oiled mind-shott, what ARE you going on about. a considerable majority of the American people are anti-George Bush and that doesn't make them anti-American, so how does that translate to Europeans?
You don't like the BBC? KKK more to your liking then?
Michael Oakeshott seems to have confused or conflated criticism of US foreign policy with racism.
It's easy to go round at a time of heightened tension apportioning blame. I wonder what ways forward Verity and Michael are suggesting to end the slaughter.
lobster blogster - I don't suggest any ways to end this military action and I don't recommend ending it until every last Hezbollah vermin-vomit is lying flat with his head facing Mecca. A shame that Lebanon was too cowardly to do it. And tragic that these iguana wee-soaked toerags are stationing themselves in normal neighbourhoods and houses, but the fact is, they are. Surely to God after 50 years they should know that blackmail does not work with Israelis.
The Israelis must prevail in this and my heart is with them.
Michael Oakeshott said: "I am quite aware they [the Americans] are not a distinct race, but it makes my point."
No,it doesn't. It weakens your point because the reader is immediately distracted by the ignorance of the sentence. The word "racism" is losing its meaning, thanks to illiterate lefty usage.
for gary powell to have a go at phone cam foolery for obscenities is an absolute travesty. He uses them constantly.
The main point of the video, which is very good, is that NO weapons of mass destruction have been found. Let us all never forget that. Bush and Blair keep saying the war is supported by the United Nations resolution! BUT they went in getting good servicemen and women killed and thousands of Iraqi civilians.
This war has not made the world a safer place and both Blair and Bush should be charged with war crimes.
I do hope that future comments will be made without profanities. They do cheapen a good debate.
Anonymous I most certainly do not. Is this someother garypowell you are refering to?
Dont enforce your ignorence with lies and hypocracy.
You write on everyblog I have ever seen and your political veiwpoint changes more times per hour than the Lib/Dems.
I am beginning to believe that Anonymous does not really exsist at all. No real person could be in so many places at once. You must just be a computer virus thats gone crazy on us.
"Best thing to do with a crazy computer virus is just ignore them," as my mother used to say.
iain-not-dale-wrote: "Israel has a right to existence and a right to self-defence, but military action must be discriminate and proportionate."
A quixotic notion, coming from an ex-military man. When you are fighting for your life, there is no such thing as proportionality. You take the most extreme action to ensure that you are the one who survives.
Not true. Without wanting to drag this thread down a blind alley, some correction is needed - most of my colleagues in uniform (and retired) will agree with me.
Soldiers of most modern armies will seek to employ proportionate force, both out of reasons of individual and collective morality and out of legal accountability - illegal acts are punishable by military and domestic law and there is an International War Criminal Court in the Hague (from which the US "opted out"). There are aberrations and atrocities, and the less discriminate that rules of engagement are, then the more likely these are to occur.
There is also the strategic element - military philosophers from Sun Tzu to Clausewitz have commented on the folly of indiscriminate destruction and slaughter. This lesses the scope for compromise and increases the resolve of those on the receiving end. The IDF air strikes and bombardments - and the failed infantry assaults - have been wholly counterproductive. How many lives have been lost because of similar US errors in Iraq?
There is a bottom line beneath all the jargon. Nearly 40 children are dead in the latest incident. Whatever one's religion or ethnic group, that is a terrible and abhorrent thing.
I enjoyed the song and hated the moonbat blurb at the end. IMO, supporting the USA in Iraq is pretty much the only good thing Blair has achieved in his 9 years. I respect Blair, it's the rest of his party I can't stand, and I'll be sorry when he stands down.
It appears that Verity believes you can just fight your way out of trouble, but Iain not-Dale, with his military background disagrees. Personally I couldn't agree more with Iain not-Dale.
Ian-Not-Dale is trying to win the argument, as so many do here, by conflating two different points and answering the wrong one.
I wrote: "When you are fighting for your life, there is no such thing as proportionality. You take the most extreme action to ensure that you are the one who survives."
Ian-N-D responds to this point by noting that Sun Tzu and Clausewitz "have commented on the folly of indiscriminate destruction and slaughter." I am going to have the temerity to get up on my hind legs and say I agree with Sun Tzu and Clausewitz and note that at no point did I recommend indiscrimate destruction and slaughter. Just destruction and slaughter of the people who are focussed on destroying me. I stand by my statement that it's human nature to take whatever steps ensure your own survival.
Lobster Blogster added: "It appears that Verity believes you can just fight your way out of trouble,". Well, yes, I do believe that, actually. What would you do? Offer sweeties? Mint tea? "Sit down around the table" and try to understand the other fellow's point of view? So your enemy can live to see another day and destroy you later?
Hardly a sincere point from you Verity. If you wanted my point of view you could have just asked, but you seem happier making up answers in your own fantasy world.
Back to Iain's original post, I enjoyed the lip-syncing of the clip. It must take hours and hours to put one of these things together. I hadn't been aware there was such a Bush/Blair video genre around before.
Remember that Princess Tony charged the taxpayers £3,000 for make-up last year? I think he had it all slapped on in that video. He looks like Vivian Leigh playing Blanche Dubois.
Yes, I fail to see the merits of this particular video.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how many Iraqis would have died under Saddam, had he still been in power. Far more than after the USA/UK invasion I would wager.
Now we've got him - that's got to be impeachable!
ReplyDeleteI thought that was fantastically well put together. I particularly liked the "evil" instead of "live"... priceless indeed.
ReplyDeletePhone Cam, not acceptable. You get a yellow card. Apologise and it will be rescinded.
ReplyDeleteOh really Phone Cam Foolery. So all those recently discovered (and yet to be discovered) mass graves don't actually exist. Right...
ReplyDeletePromise to come back and listen to the soundtrack to this tomorrow (Mrs Lobster sleeps right now). In the mean time I thought you might be interested in this clip which also features our Tone.
ReplyDeleteCan somebody explain to me the relevance of the song 'changes'? I feel I must be missing out on something. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteWhy is your opinion correct and palmer's wrong, phone cam fool?
ReplyDeleteNo Graham Poll indulgence here, Iain, straight red for this buffoon.
In view of the unexplained death of Dr David Kelly, I don't think I like your headline.
ReplyDeleteHmm, I would think that either 'Cracked Actor' or 'Always Crashing in the Same Car' would be more apt for Mr Tony.
ReplyDeleteWhat a shame that piece of comedy was spoiled by anti-American racism and more silly negative talk about the successful Iraq war.
ReplyDeleteI suggest phone cam foolery calms down a bit and does some research into the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, and the truly barbarous effects on civilians and mostly conscripted soldiers inflicted by the leadership of Iran and Iraq at the time - it might help him/her put Chris Palmer's comments into some sort of context.
ReplyDeleteheres a similar one about bush
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kKN92DASn0
phone cam foolery
ReplyDeleteHow grown up of you to use adult words like that twice in just one very rude rant.
The good news for the worlds future, is that I have suddenly become convinced today although I am not sure why, that it now does not matter what the likes of people like yourself say, anymore.
The Isralis, George Bush and Tony Blair know what they are up against, and the plan is already set in motion.
Irrational 'liberal' loons like you and the BBC, are just serving to lull the enemy into a faulse sense of security. Which is why the government dont even bother to try to shut you types up.
The big poker game has reached the flop. Just hope for your childrens/chums at schools sake, that the civilised world dont turn the douce, and the Iranians dont river the ace.
Or look forward to possibly 10 Million dead human beings and riding a pedle-cycle to work,for the next ten years. If you still have a job/paper-round by then.
Sorry if you dont understand my meaning. Poker is after all a grown-ups game.
verity
ReplyDeleteI agree I quite like David Bowie, some of my mates went to school with him. DB is far to rich and successfull for anyone to believe he would commit suicide so I think our beloved David is safe.
Incidentaly, before the 2003 invasion the Baghdad morgue handled seven to ten bodies a day, now the figure is 35 to 50 (from Telegraph.co.uk).
ReplyDeleteI think phone cam foolery deserves much more than a mild rebuke for his offensive language.
ReplyDeleteI am disgusted!
The Uk went into this illegal conflict based on an hysterical lie from Blair. So how come there are so many people only too willing to accept everything being said about Saddam'a barbarism as fact. I'm no supporter of Saddam but one thing that can't be disputed is that, despite the sanctions, he maintained an infrastructure far superior to that existing at present.So much for the billions being poured in by the USA/UK.One day Bush and his little lapdog will be called to account for this atrocity.
ReplyDeletePhone Cam and Iain....sometimes the c word is really the only one that gets the appropriate sentiment/description accross...unfortunate, but economical and succinct.
ReplyDeletePutting this video up on your site is massively misjudged - I had to check for a moment that I hadn't wandered on to Indymedia or one of the murkier corners of the Guardian talkboards. Clearly this video has impressed some of your commenters - the sort of people who think that changing 'LIVE' to 'EVIL' is clever - but it really is just a crude and nasty piece of propaganda which has nothing to do with discussing the real issues to do with Iraq.
ReplyDeleteI'm a Conservative who hates Tony Blair but even so the fact that you would carry such a video has made me totally re-assess you and your site. I think I'll stick to Conservative Home in future.
Just think, when David Cameron gets a few more TV hours under his belt to do the lip-synch, we can have a duet.
ReplyDeleteBy the way Mr Palmer, though you are lurking beneath Bush I am sure you are not as anatomically desirous as PCF makes you out to be. Saddam's murderous past was of course when your lot was supplying him with the wherewithall to do it!
Is this the lunatic thread?
ReplyDeleteIt cannot be disputed that more Iraqis (and US and British troops!) have died as the result of the Iraq war than would have otherwise.
No WMDs have been found and the country is fragmented and ungovernable. Iraq was a colossal strategic failure that has taken an enormous toll in lives and in undermining regional stability, also in cash.
The Iran-Iraq war was horrendous. Apparently not so horrendous to put off the US government - and a certain Mr Donald Rumsfeld - from supplying arms and chemical weapons components.
Th Iraqi mass graves are also horrendous. There are mass graves in Rwanda - no intervention there - and human rights abuses in many countries that the US and UK are willing to turn a blind eye to. Uzbekistan, for example.
A question for Blair - are the deaths of 37 Lebanese children in an Israeli airstrike a price worth paying for a retirement career on the US lecture circuit?
I am not a "liberal" - I was an Armed Forces officer until I resigned in the aftermath of the Hutton inquiry.
Israel has a right to existence and a right to self-defence, but military action must be discriminate and proportionate.
Before the war in Iraq started 40% of undergraduates in Iraqi universities were women. Bush and Blair have set Iraq back a lot further than 20 years.
ReplyDeleteTwo points arise from Chris Palmer's post timed at 11.43:
ReplyDeletea) How many bodies have actually been discovered - is it hundreds or thousands? And,
b) How does Chris Palmer know there are more graves to be discovered? Presumably there's some basis for that assertion.
That's not to support Saddam's heinous actions but merely to understand the point more clearly, and to enable a simple arithmetical calculation as to the accuracy of his views.
Saddam was evil....and dangerous and it is good he is gone. Ironicaly, things have got worse now since he has gone.
ReplyDeleteThe whole episode is tragic.
Michael Oakeshott - Could you explain what "anti-American racism" is, please? I'm baffled. Which American race is being calumnied?
ReplyDeleteiain-not-dale-wrote: "Israel has a right to existence and a right to self-defence, but military action must be discriminate and proportionate."
ReplyDeleteA quixotic notion, coming from an ex-military man. When you are fighting for your life, there is no such thing as proportionality. You take the most extreme action to ensure that you are the one who survives.
Re the dead women and children in Lebanon, their deaths are on the hands of Hezbollah, who cynical used their own people as human shields.
Anti-American racism. Simply the term that describes all the hatred of America and of course democracy(as exemplified by the BBC and others here). I am quite aware they are not a distinct race, but it makes my point.
ReplyDeleteAs usual Verity is right. If only all of these people had been so concerned about the Israeli civilians being slaughtered for months on the border for months. But then they were only Kews weren't they? Hezbollah will have to go, and the Lebanese people would be well advised to do it themselves before Israel does.
Well-oiled mind-shott, what ARE you going on about. a considerable majority of the American people are anti-George Bush and that doesn't make them anti-American, so how does that translate to Europeans?
ReplyDeleteYou don't like the BBC? KKK more to your liking then?
Michael Oakeshott seems to have confused or conflated criticism of US foreign policy with racism.
ReplyDeleteIt's easy to go round at a time of heightened tension apportioning blame. I wonder what ways forward Verity and Michael are suggesting to end the slaughter.
lobster blogster - I don't suggest any ways to end this military action and I don't recommend ending it until every last Hezbollah vermin-vomit is lying flat with his head facing Mecca. A shame that Lebanon was too cowardly to do it. And tragic that these iguana wee-soaked toerags are stationing themselves in normal neighbourhoods and houses, but the fact is, they are. Surely to God after 50 years they should know that blackmail does not work with Israelis.
ReplyDeleteThe Israelis must prevail in this and my heart is with them.
Michael Oakeshott said: "I am quite aware they [the Americans] are not a distinct race, but it makes my point."
No,it doesn't. It weakens your point because the reader is immediately distracted by the ignorance of the sentence. The word "racism" is losing its meaning, thanks to illiterate lefty usage.
"How does Chris Palmer know there are more graves to be discovered? Presumably there's some basis for that assertion." - Chuck Unsworth
ReplyDeleteThe fact that the number of bodies discovered is less than the people who mysteriously went missing.
for gary powell to have a go at phone cam foolery for obscenities is an absolute travesty. He uses them constantly.
ReplyDeleteThe main point of the video, which is very good, is that NO weapons of mass destruction have been found. Let us all never forget that. Bush and Blair keep saying the war is supported by the United Nations resolution! BUT they went in getting good servicemen and women killed and thousands of Iraqi civilians.
This war has not made the world a safer place and both Blair and Bush should be charged with war crimes.
I do hope that future comments will be made without profanities. They do cheapen a good debate.
Anonymous
ReplyDeleteI most certainly do not. Is this someother garypowell you are refering to?
Dont enforce your ignorence with lies and hypocracy.
You write on everyblog I have ever seen and your political veiwpoint changes more times per hour than the Lib/Dems.
I am beginning to believe that Anonymous does not really exsist at all. No real person could be in so many places at once. You must just be a computer virus thats gone crazy on us.
"Best thing to do with a crazy computer virus is just ignore them," as my mother used to say.
iain-not-dale-wrote: "Israel has a right to existence and a right to self-defence, but military action must be discriminate and proportionate."
ReplyDeleteA quixotic notion, coming from an ex-military man. When you are fighting for your life, there is no such thing as proportionality. You take the most extreme action to ensure that you are the one who survives.
Not true. Without wanting to drag this thread down a blind alley, some correction is needed - most of my colleagues in uniform (and retired) will agree with me.
Soldiers of most modern armies will seek to employ proportionate force, both out of reasons of individual and collective morality and out of legal accountability - illegal acts are punishable by military and domestic law and there is an International War Criminal Court in the Hague (from which the US "opted out"). There are aberrations and atrocities, and the less discriminate that rules of engagement are, then the more likely these are to occur.
There is also the strategic element - military philosophers from Sun Tzu to Clausewitz have commented on the folly of indiscriminate destruction and slaughter. This lesses the scope for compromise and increases the resolve of those on the receiving end. The IDF air strikes and bombardments - and the failed infantry assaults - have been wholly counterproductive. How many lives have been lost because of similar US errors in Iraq?
There is a bottom line beneath all the jargon. Nearly 40 children are dead in the latest incident. Whatever one's religion or ethnic group, that is a terrible and abhorrent thing.
I enjoyed the song and hated the moonbat blurb at the end. IMO, supporting the USA in Iraq is pretty much the only good thing Blair has achieved in his 9 years. I respect Blair, it's the rest of his party I can't stand, and I'll be sorry when he stands down.
ReplyDeleteIt appears that Verity believes you can just fight your way out of trouble, but Iain not-Dale, with his military background disagrees. Personally I couldn't agree more with Iain not-Dale.
ReplyDeleteIan-Not-Dale is trying to win the argument, as so many do here, by conflating two different points and answering the wrong one.
ReplyDeleteI wrote: "When you are fighting for your life, there is no such thing as proportionality. You take the most extreme action to ensure that you are the one who survives."
Ian-N-D responds to this point by noting that Sun Tzu and Clausewitz "have commented on the folly of indiscriminate destruction and slaughter." I am going to have the temerity to get up on my hind legs and say I agree with Sun Tzu and Clausewitz and note that at no point did I recommend indiscrimate destruction and slaughter. Just destruction and slaughter of the people who are focussed on destroying me. I stand by my statement that it's human nature to take whatever steps ensure your own survival.
Lobster Blogster added: "It appears that Verity believes you can just fight your way out of trouble,". Well, yes, I do believe that, actually. What would you do? Offer sweeties? Mint tea? "Sit down around the table" and try to understand the other fellow's point of view? So your enemy can live to see another day and destroy you later?
Hardly a sincere point from you Verity. If you wanted my point of view you could have just asked, but you seem happier making up answers in your own fantasy world.
ReplyDeleteBack to Iain's original post, I enjoyed the lip-syncing of the clip. It must take hours and hours to put one of these things together. I hadn't been aware there was such a Bush/Blair video genre around before.
An absolutely sincere point, Lobster Bloster, and you are in no position to judge otherwise.
ReplyDeleteVerity
ReplyDeleteIt's taken me ages to work it out, but I've finally cracked it - youre Julie Burchill, aren't you?
Remember that Princess Tony charged the taxpayers £3,000 for make-up last year? I think he had it all slapped on in that video. He looks like Vivian Leigh playing Blanche Dubois.
ReplyDelete