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Iraq war anniversary: Bush hails 'victory'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7305023.stm

He's having a laugh, right? :confused:






comical_ali.jpgw030869A.jpg


Bush and Comical Ali. Separated at birth?
Beep boop. I'm a bot.

Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Aladdin wrote: »
    Bush and Comical Ali. Separated at birth?

    I reckon Comical Ali likes teh kittehs more than Bush!

    As for winning the broader war on terror, say that to the victims of the London bombings.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yerascrote wrote: »
    I reckon Comical Ali likes teh kittehs more than Bush!

    As for winning the broader war on terror, say that to the victims of the London bombings.
    Or indeed to the tens/hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed by terrorist acts in Iraq since the US invaded and removed Saddam from power.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    There does seem to be less violence in Iraq but thats largely because the US are paying really dodgy people not to fight. So once that money dries up they may well just go back killing each other. They are following the old 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' approach and its kicked their arse every other time they've used it so it probably will here.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Aladdin wrote: »
    Or indeed to the tens/hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed by terrorist acts in Iraq since the US invaded and removed Saddam from power.

    Yeh but Bush doesn't give a fuck about them, as long as the soil of the good ole U S of A isn't attacked then everything is fine!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Comical ali was one of the funniest guys going.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    MrG wrote: »
    Comical ali was one of the funniest guys going.
    He was at the time ...he could have gone on to have a tv show ...Friday night with Ali.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I'm convinced that advisors in the White House are deliberately making Bush look like an idiot now. Think about it - he's only got a couple of months left in office, so they've nothing to lose by giving him speeches like this. Coming up next week - Bush claims that the war against terror has been a huge success, presumably.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    stargalaxy wrote: »
    I'm convinced that advisors in the White House are deliberately making Bush look like an idiot now. Think about it - he's only got a couple of months left in office, so they've nothing to lose by giving him speeches like this. Coming up next week - Bush claims that the war against terror has been a huge success, presumably.

    Why would they want to do that? Surely that would only harm the chances of the Republicans staying in power after he's gone.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I think we've been winning the war on terror for decades. In 1972 in the UK there were over 1,000 terrorist bombings and 400 approx people died.

    The only difference between Al-Qaeda and the IRA is the IRA didn't intentionally set out to kill people, and they didn't kill themselves in the process.

    Britain has always been a target for terrorists, just most of us haven't been alive long enough to realise.
    The Iraq war, imo has made more people WANT to hurt us, but it hasn't changed the liklihood.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Whowhere wrote: »
    the IRA is the IRA didn't intentionally set out to kill people,

    :confused:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Whowhere wrote: »
    I think we've been winning the war on terror for decades. In 1972 in the UK there were over 1,000 terrorist bombings and 400 approx people died.

    The British Government won nothing during the 70's and 80's in the fight against terrorism here.
    Whowhere wrote: »
    is the IRA didn't intentionally set out to kill people

    You're joking right? Sure they may have warned security forces about some bombs but they certainly intended to kill. Maybe you mean they didn't set out to kill civillians? That's also wrong in many cases. It was a dirty war here, thank fuck it's over.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Whowhere wrote: »
    The only difference between Al-Qaeda and the IRA is the IRA didn't intentionally set out to kill people, .

    You need to take that bag off your head ocasionaly ...get some air.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Sorry, you misunderstand me. The IRA didn't intentionally set out to mass murder civilians. Their primary targets, and you should already know this were police, soldiers and people who supported them.

    I think we can all agree the IRA certainly had the capability to do far more damage than they ever really did. It doesn't take a genius to plan a credible attack that could kill hundreds of people.

    The difference between the IRA and Al-Qaeda is that the IRA never set out to kill hundreds of people en-masse.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Whowhere wrote: »
    Sorry, you misunderstand me. The IRA didn't intentionally set out to mass murder civilians. Their primary targets, and you should already know this were police, soldiers and people who supported them.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsmill_massacre

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Mon_restaurant_bombing

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrods_bombing

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/8/newsid_2515000/2515113.stm

    The people who supported the police and soldiers were normal civilians

    I can't see the difference - Al-qaeda are murdering bastards, the IRA are murdering bastards, (and for the record the UVF/UFF/INLA are also murdering bastards as well)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru

    That's my hometown, Enniskillen. I was 2 years old and was at that remembrance ceremony with my mother. She wheeled me away from the ceremony before the bomb to a nearby park, because I was crying too much.

    Surprisingly, despite incidents like that, Enniskillen was one of the least sectarianly divided places in Northern Ireland when I grew up.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Addict wrote: »
    That's my hometown, Enniskillen. I was 2 years old and was at that remembrance ceremony with my mother. She wheeled me away from the ceremony before to the bomb to a nearby park, because I was crying too much.

    Surprisingly, despite incidents like that, Enniskillen was one of the least sectarianly divided places in Northern Ireland when I grew up.

    My aunt went to school with one of the victims.

    Out of them all it still strikes me as the worst atrocity by any of the players - I can remember we'd all just come back from the chruch service (it's one of the two times the year my Dad would go) and I switched on radio 1 and there it was on the news. I just went downstairs and all anyone could get out of me for the next few minutes was 'The bastards, the bastards'
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I think what Whowhere is trying to say is that the likes of the IRA and other 'conventional' (for want of a better term) terrorist groups in NI or Europe did put limits to what was considered "acceptable", while the likes of Al Qaida attempt to inflict the maximum amount of carnage possible.

    Had this also been the aim of IRA, the Loyalist Groups, ETA and many other such groups in Europe, they could have done so easily. A couple of car bombs outside a football ground just after a game's finished could easily kill hundreds and would have been as easy to execute as buying a pint of milk (for those terrorist groups).

    But that doesn't make them any less odious of course. The only reason they did not go for such things is because they considered it counter-productive to their aims and feared it would turn opinion against them (ETA found this out to their cost when they decided to cause maximum carnage against civilians and planted a napalm bomb in a supermarket car park and exploded it without warning, killing 22 and causing horrific burns on many more. The repulse was such, even amongst ETA supporters, that the tactic was immediately abandoned).

    Given that all these terrorist groups despise the civilians, see them as 'the enemy' and quite happily kill them when they can, if they thought they would gain more than lose by doing Madrid-style massacres, they certainly would- no doubt about that.

    In fact I find their terrorism more disturbing in some ways than the likes of Al Qaida. They certainly created far more anguish and suffering for continuous periods of time than religious extremist terrorism does.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The biggest explosion since the second world war happened in Manchester ...right in the heart of a shopping centre. Blew the centre of the city away. Not many coppers or soldiers there except shopping with the wives and kids maybe ...the IRA were criminal murdering cowards. To say they tried not to kill to many civilians is history being rewritten.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The biggest explosion since the second world war happened in Manchester ...right in the heart of a shopping centre. Blew the centre of the city away. Not many coppers or soldiers there except shopping with the wives and kids maybe ...the IRA were criminal murdering cowards. To say they tried not to kill to many civilians is history being rewritten.
    I'm not for one second defending their actions or pretending they're not murdering scum... but if their objective was to kill as many people as possible in Manchester, why did they give prior warning and allowed people to be evacuated?

    No. Their intention was not to kill as many people as possible. Otherwise they would have detonated the bomb without warning. I'm sure they wished to kill as many as possible in their hearts, because they're scum, but chose not to purely for tactical reasons.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    My aunt went to school with one of the victims.

    Out of them all it still strikes me as the worst atrocity by any of the players - I can remember we'd all just come back from the chruch service (it's one of the two times the year my Dad would go) and I switched on radio 1 and there it was on the news. I just went downstairs and all anyone could get out of me for the next few minutes was 'The bastards, the bastards'

    Personally I think Kingsmill or Omagh was worse.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Aladdin wrote: »
    I'm not for one second defending their actions or pretending they're not murdering scum... but if their objective was to kill as many people as possible in Manchester, why did they give prior warning and allowed people to be evacuated?

    No. Their intention was not to kill as many people as possible. Otherwise they would have detonated the bomb without warning. I'm sure they wished to kill as many as possible in their hearts, because they're scum, but chose not to purely for tactical reasons.

    The tactical reason being job creation maybe ...cos if you went into the city to watch it being rebuilt every sign was for a big Irish construction company!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Those bombs in Manchester and London in the mid 90's were intended to destroy the financial heart of Britain and make them surrender that way. Or so the story goes! ;)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    J wrote: »
    When I was in the RN I saw intelligence photos of IRA guys that had their faces and limbs blown off when bombs they'd laid went of prematurely. So don't think they didn't get blown up too.

    Yeh but they didn't intentionally go out to kill themselves, the most notable IRA man to die in a bombing is probably Thomas Begley who died in the Shankill Road bombing.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yerascrote wrote: »
    Personally I think Kingsmill or Omagh was worse.

    It's always going to be a personal thing - I know people who reckon the lynching of the corporals was the low and my second platoon sergeant reckoned it was Bloody Sunday (cos, sir them paras were wee cunts and they was a fuckin disgrace to the whole fuckin army)
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