Sorry for the gaps, folks. I have a coursework due in this week (actually yesterday but I’ve got an extension to the 10th) so I’m slightly busy. Forgot to post anything yesterday!
Open letter to Jacques Chirac
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!
You prick.
The Sun in factual cockup shocker (tits on page 3)
The Sun are quoted as printing “If you’re not proud to be British… you’re probably French” in today’s “we won the Olympic bid, ya boo sucks snail-eaters” edition.
Now, excuse my pickiness but mathematically and statistically speaking you’re actually more likely to probably be Chinese. Or American. Or Canadian. Or African… as there are more of them than the French.
Wow. Surprise. Another factual inaccuracy in a British tabloid.
Probably going to get some flack for this, but…
We all know about the shocking events in London this morning. I don’t even need to re-emphasise what I think of terrorists but I’d like to sidetrack slightly and comment on some related statements.
Number one was Bush-monkey jumping on the bandwagon and saying that this proved that his precious “fight against tererorerorizzzmmm” had to continue until it was won. Problem is that it’s not a “fight” I can ever see having a victor. It’ll never end. Add to that the fact that if we weren’t involved in his little personal crusade, there’d likely be 30+ people still alive this afternoon.
Secondly, a stamenent I heard as part of Ken Livingstone’s otherwise fairly uplifting speech (even if the guy has the oral charisma of a wet sponge). He emphasised the cowardly nature of the attacks on people going about their daily lives, heading to work and so on. Innocent, harmless citizens.
I draw the jury’s attention to the number of innocent Iraqis killed by stray bullets, bombs and missiles. Those slaughtered deliberately as a result of bad intelligence, or pure weapon-related overkill. While I cannot and never will condone terrorism – or what the US (and sadly also us) are doing in Iraq – it just smacks of hypocrisy to more or less say that Iraqi civilians don’t count while ours do. You can argue that our citizens were deliberately targetted, but I recall one wedding party being wiped out by a US missile because someone thought they might be Al Quaeda. Dead innocents are dead innocents, regardless of how they end up like that.
Having said that, I just wish I believed in a hell so that I could satisfy myself with the knowledge that the ***** who committed those foul acts this morning would spend eternity burning there. Instead, I just hope we can capture them and lose our copy of the Geneva Convention down the back of the sofa, the same way Bush has.
Amen.
And you point to part of the problem quite well, but I’d take it a step further. The mindset amoung many of the people in the “Western World”, the politicians at least, seems to be:
“Our” people are harmless and innocent, but “Their” people are still Iraqi, Afgani, etc. and therefore are neither innocent nor harmless until they prove it on an individual basis.
Problem is, they think that by sacrificing themselves, they think they are going to a better place.
It’s a terrible cruel world out there.. and no I don’t think this “war” will end , most certainly not in my lifetime.. I doubt even in my son’s, thats the scary part.. just how long can countries and their peoples carry on without seeing that it really does seem pointless.. get the people in charge of these sacrificial “heroes” banged up, chemically castrated and maybe we could head towards some sort of peace…
My thoughts are with the familes most affected by todays atrocities.
(Just a by the by note.. at least I can go see Queen play next week instead…. they aint taking that away from me! :o))
well said Mosh.
With regard to the death of innocent Iraqis; I made the same point to a colleague yesterday when he was advocating what amounted to genocide amongst the world’s Muslim population. I don’t think he got the point, or perhaps didn’t want to.
Wulvern
You are so right, its the backlash here and in the states that is so worrying over and above the terrible carnage of yesterday. There actually are people that think that we can kill all the terrorists and that will make everything better!
I couldn’t agree more Mosh. Of course the people who did this have to be brought to justice. But I only hope that Mr Blair has the sense that Mr Bush apparently lacks, to target the individually guilty. People are not wrong because they believe different things than we do. They are only wrong if they choose to kill people in an attempt to make them think like they do. And we are equally wrong if we choose to kill people in an attempt to make them think like we do.