mkpdavies

I don't support his position, but as I know his background I understand it (and thus respect it).

Your mate Knapman seems to think the whole party should support Israels actions. I bet you still respect him.

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ukpatriot

So you support the illegal land grabbing, the forced eviction of palestinians from their homes and land, the apopalling treatment of Palestinians by the Israelis, the destruction of Arab homes, the murder of women and children, the destruction of the Lebanese infrastructure, the forays into other countries' territory, the illegitimate possession by IOsrael of WMD, the overt racism of certain right wing Israelis who claim to want Jordan, chunks of other neighbouring countries, plus the West Bank and Gaza, all to build 'Eretz Israel' to be filled with settlers who have no, absolutely no, blood ties with the Middle East, do you?

You ought to be utterly ashamed of yourself. There are thousands of decent Jewish people who have been horrified by what the Israelis ahave done, and many of these in Israel itself have gone to jail because they oppose such disgraceful measures as those used by the Israeli Government.

Do you or do you not believe that one Arab life is of equal value to one Israeli life?

Mikeuk

Well of course I don't agree with that; anyway he's retiring. The new leader won't take that view.

I'm afraid these Tory ex-MPs have been through a kind of brainwashing course.

Clippo

I accept entirely Aardvark’s implied assertion that promotion in defence or for any sphere of human like activity Business, Police, Science Health Education Politics … you name it, is not down to ability alone. Yes there is luck, there is ability in different areas and there is of course Cronyism & the Peter principle.

However, I would draw your attention to a recent humorous posting on ‘talk about anything’’ by Biscuitman which is particularly appropriate in this context.

http://www.democracyforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=13220

story no.5

without reproducing the whole lot here, the

Moral of the story:
b******t might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there.

This is at the hub of my previous argument – if you think that the top people in all aspects of government, or the CDS particularly are b******tters, and devoid of any independent thought, then you must have led a very sheltered life. Look at the arguments currently in the Cabinet – and these are supposed to be Tony Blair’s puppets. And look at the arguments in UKIP about the leadership. If you seriously believe all these people in top positions are yes men (or yes women) of a particular party or person then I’m afraid I can’t help you. You had better check into the sanity clinic asap.

This mini-whirlpool started because I dared to counteract one of MikeUK’s claims that Cameron & some of the Tories were using the term disproportionate and I happened to see a report in the Telegraph that Cameron was back tracking (again). I also pointed out, trying to make a more balanced case, that I thought I saw the said CDS state that Israel’s response was not disproportionate. I haven’t been able to verify this yet. My single point was that the CDS has access to all sorts of intelligence and heads a big team of advisors of almost inevitable opinion divisions but crucially he knows a damn sight more about he situation than any of you or myself. Therefore, my inclination was to believe him more than evidence from journalistic sources which is considerably suspect.

But with no attempt at determining the truth & depth of the report, or the whole of what he said or justifications, three of you waded in with attacks on what I’d said. It seems to me that this paranoid response, & the absolute non-acceptance of any Keith Hands & Michael Hillier’s arguments, (some of which I agree with but some of which I disagree), really only confirms that you aren’t really interested in a balanced & fair debate.
( I hope I didn’t dream this CDS interview – that would make you all look very silly. I could cover myself by claiming I was going for a GLW award).

Last few things:-

Aardvark wrote:-

Couldn’t be retrospective a**e covering could it to cover their own mistakes in office could it? Anyway, I stated in one of my recent posts that I thought I heard the reporter in said interview say that the CDS was due to retire but still in office. On your logic, if he’s still in office he’s doing the master’s bidding. Similarly if he’s retired / retiring, he’s obviously joining your list of dissenters. If you believe their assertions to have merit then logically you must believe his. Not disproportionate twice.

Now I see Roger Knapman has waded into the fray on the not disproportionate side. That’s put the cat amongst the UKIP pigeons hasn’t it.

To UKpatriot who wrote:-

Sticking your neck out there – you know nothing of any of my educational qualifications – perhaps I’ve used many, many longer words than you. But I’ll take pity on you and not chop, (& I think I could), because I repeat I am trying hard to be unbiased in the blame culture here.

Look to the bigger picture – Iran, Islamic militancy, nuclear weapons in the Middle East (yes Israeli as well).


As for the rest of your responses, utter drivel – you may have read my responses but you clearly haven’t understood them

Finally, these arguments are not really getting anywhere. I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree. I have many other interests besides sitting at the computer all day & I've used up much of that precious time. I am busy reading some of Biscuitman's pension reform proposals for UKIP and I think that's likely to be more intellectually productive for me.
PS UKpatriot - two quite big words in that last sentence and both together!

Mikeuk

Good to see some commonsense from Sir Malcolm Rifkind.

Former Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind has written for this week's Spectator (not yet online) and urged the Conservative Party to split with Tony Blair on three foreign policy fronts:

"There must be a clear recognition that the invasion of Iraq was a serious mistake that has helped the terrorists. It has also made Iran the power in the Gulf. While the government may be in denial, there is no need for the Conservative party to be. That does not mean, however, that British troops should be withdrawn from Iraq. It is essential that they remain there as long as their presence might help the Iraqis."

"Conservatives should not accept Blair’s simplistic belief that all Muslim terrorism is part of a single plot. Conservatives are rightly suspicious of a Manichaean division of the world into good and bad; terrorist and freedom-loving. The war in Chechnya, for example, is between Chechen nationalists and Russian nationalists, not between terror and freedom. The same applies to Kashmir. The Israeli–Palestinian issue is also much more than a battle against Hamas and Hezbollah terrorism."

"Conservatives should reject a philosophy of pre-emptive wars (or, as Blair prefers to call it, liberal interventionism) fought by ‘coalitions of the willing’."

mkpdavies

Rifkin is spot on there imho, but his party are on dodgy ground as they helped Blair implement his insane war.

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Clippo

MikeUK,
In view of our recent exchanges, I want to genuinely stress that the following is no way critical of you & your views personally. I am only publishing this to make you aware that sometimes all is not what it seems.

A few days ago, I was having a free read of Private Eye in the local WH Smiths. First time I’ve read it for many, many years but as you probably know & whether you agree with their sentiments or not they don’t pull punches in analysis of personalities in the news. However, lo & behold there was ‘piece’ about Sir MR in relation to the current Israel / Lebanon conflict. I only skimmed the article but I thought the gist was that he has deep financial links to a company either based in or supplying Israelis with materials to do with their war effort. I can’t verify this because their website naturally doesn’t publish everything.
I also read in today’s Telegraph an assessment of the proposed Spectator article and this can be found at :-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...nrifkind10.xml
Paragraph 3 was interesting & I have cut & pasted as follows:-
Later in the Telegraph article he calls for less ‘knee-jerk’ hostility to the EU. He doesn’t state directly his position in the respect of the EU, (of course he may do so in the full Spectator article), so I’m suspicious that he is a closet Europhile. Does anybody know his EU preferences? He also has a go at the US for its’ pro war attitude which I’m sure you will like.

My point is thus that I would caution you that his comments about the Iraq war & so on may be more to do with internal Tory in-fighting and public opinion band wagon than his true personal feelings. Maybe like me, he was ‘seduced’ by the propaganda to go to war against Saddam but unlike me, he & many other politicians can’t admit that fact. He’s a slippery politician – take care when quoting him.

PS Matt, What happened to the post about Roger Knapman's 'anti disproportionality' statement - I can't seem to find it?

mkpdavies

it?

http://www.democracyforum.co.uk/view...ghlight=israel

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Mikeuk

I wouldn't believe everything you read in Private Eye. Was it you or the other guy who was previously treating Wikipedia as gospel? :evil:

However if you want to produce this kind of stuff as 'evidence' it surely wouldn't break the bank to buy a copy. :twisted:

We all know he's a Eurofanatic. We're not discussing that. Having spent over 30 years in the Tory Party I should know about Tory infighting.

Aardvark

Knowing the way Private Eye operates I would tend to trust quite a lot of it. They do make honest mistakes, but they've always reported the information I've passed them, which is always verifiable by reference to offical documents, accurately. :roll: