ron_jon

Just been on youtube.com watching some videos this evening on iraq and afganistan.

I must first say what an amazing job our guys are doing out there and they need gratitude for their amazing courage.

But what I would like to know, do the other people on this forum think that the best thing tony blair can do before he leaves office is bring our boys out of afganistan and iraq ??

I know it is an awful situation out there but your opinions please.

R J

unclebuck

Especially from Afganistan. What pointless (mis)adventure.

GC8

I think so yes; we're on a hiding to nothing in Afganistan. I dont want any British doldiers dying there in my name, to satisfy someones misguided political ambitions.

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

If you start it, you have to finish it. Its like giving in to terrorists, once they know that they can break your resolve, it just makes it easier to hurt you more in the future.

Note, I am not passing comment on should we have sent them there in the first place.....


(P.S. Look at Vietnam, the Americans pulled out, and if they had stayed for just a little longer they would have won. Pulling out was a defeat that has tainted them for decades)

unclebuck

'They' didn't start it Blair did. Let's send the **** out there and see how he copes.

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

Please can we send Prescott as well....

....oh and the rest of the cabinet can go in shortly after

Jamie

Let them do the job and finish it.

Sbradley

Regardless of the rights and wrongs of our being there in the first place, the only remote hope we have of salvaging anything from the mess we've made is to stay there and help the local administration remain (get) in control and start to restore some semblance of normality to the country.

In Iraq that means getting water, sewage and power supplies back and reliable and showing that actually we can do something positive rather than bombing the **** out of them and then leavig them to clear it up. Oh, and creaming off the most lucrative rebuilding contracts, of course.

We need to be working with and to be seen to be working with the legitimate governments in Afghanistan and Iraq, not abandoning them to their fate. If we walk away now then the rest of the Arab world will (quite rightly) point the finger and condemn us. And the War on Terror (c) Bush Enterprises, 2003 will be lost...

SB

vindaloo

Regardless of the current feelings and emotions...

We went in to do a job... The job is only completed when anarchy cannot reign if we leave.

Having ripped two countries apart we have a moral obligation to stay until the new regimes are established beyond casual toppling into chaos and anarchy. Plus our own security can be said to depend on it.

Otherwise we're the two faced lying b*stards factions of the Arab and Islamic world thinks we are.

J.

Vapid

They aren't 'our boys'.

Answering your question should we withdraw from our illegal occupation, obviously yes.

myblackwrx

iTrader: (1)

We can't win in afghanistan the Russians were there for 10 years and lost heavily

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Yep, with more men, more equipment, and more money.

Alcazar

myblackwrx

iTrader: (1)

Yep they lost 15000 dead and another 35000 injured does anybody want to see that death toll from the british armed forces?

Vapid

A bloody nose might teach the army and politicians a lesson.

OllyK

Britain was in Afghanistan before that and we took a kicking that time as well.

SJ_Skyline

http://www.britishbattles.com/first-...l-gandamak.htm

The British were massacred in the first Afghan war, very few survivors from a camp of 16,500.

DCI Gene Hunt

Amazingly the same................

Quote:

Originally Posted by Britishbattles.com/first Afghan war 1842

The causes of the disaster are easily stated: the difficulties of campaigning in Afghanistan’s inhospitable mountainous terrain with its extremes of weather, the turbulent politics of the country and its armed and refractory population and finally the failure of the British authorities to appoint senior officers capable of conducting the campaign competently and decisively.

davegtt

As others have said, forgetting the rights and wrongs of being out there in the first place I also believe we ae morally obliged to stay out there and at least try and finish the job. You cant go blowing another country to bits tearing down a government/dictatorship (Iraq) and then just pack your things and leave. If we genuinely did this for the Iraqi people (not that I believe that either) then what help have we actually been?

lozgti

Wouldn't that mean policing things for time immemorial?

I'm just wondering where the next deployment will be and how army cutbacks has helped them.Have to spread the jam very thin I guess

Farce

Dream Weaver

I think we should pull out now, and not just armed forces. Just cut all ties with these extermist Eastern countries.

We may lose a bit of oil, but who cares we'll have to find other sources of fuel. We keep ourselves to ourselves, and likewise for places like Afghanistan etc - if there are no dealings then no-one will be offended.

David Lock

I agree with the sentiments of those that say we need to finish what has been started. The obvious nightmare being that we won't be able to. There is also a need to look at Afganistan and Iraq as different problems and heaven help the West if the Pakistani regime changes and adopts an anti-West stance. IMHO it was incredibly stupid to go in in the first place. Before the Iraq invasion I even wrote to Short, when she was still in the cabinet, asking her to float the idea of Western forces and resources being sent to Ethiopia and Sudan instead. The 2 million dead there makes Iraq look like a tea party. Obviously I knew it would do no good but it made me feel slightly better

So I think I'll be the one person voting "Not sure". What a mess. dl

Simon S3

Can you expand on this stupid statement?

Vapid

There hasn't been a stupid statement. What you've done is quote part of what I said.

To elaborate, a few thousand deaths and maimings might change the politicians way of operating, through pressure back home if nothing else. As for the army a whole bunch of corpses might knock some of the bluster out of the rank and file meatsacks and put people off joining up to be indentured slaves.

DCI Gene Hunt

dangle............... dangle.................. nibble, nibble....... we have a bite

Abdabz

Hmm Hmm sure tastes gurrrrd

Frosty The Snowman

I said no, we're out there now and we should finish the job if that's possible.

One thing I would say is that the Balkans have taken a long time to settle down, since 1991, but it seems as though that's working, to me anyway.

Jay_bee

iTrader: (1)

Id be interested to see out of the 13 people so far that said "Yes" keep them there, how many of these people are facing the prospect being stationed out there themselves or have family out there.... ****** idiots!

Vapid

Don't you think the real idiots in this case are the people that signed themselves up to the armed forces? They made their beds, now they can lie in them and if they come back in a box or missing some parts maybe they could consider it a lesson hard learned?

Jay_bee

iTrader: (1)

Moley

iTrader: (9)

As much as i think Vapid is an idiot, i have to agree with him on this.
Surely when people join the armed forces they must be aware they might have to go to war at some point