Religion preys upon the weak willed and stupid ,of which there are many, the clever ones realise this and build their power bases from it

Why people feel the need to live their lives according to a fairy story is beyond me?

On that, we can agree, weak people seek direction from outside, strong people make their own journey and do what is "right" because it pretty damn obvious.

My fridge came with a book, I never used it to guide my life. Religion is for the weak.

Agree entirely. That doesn't mean Britain & France were wrong to oppose Germany in WW1.

In the same way as it isn't wrong to oppose and confront dictators and regimes.

As you say, the wrong part of it is in not dealing with and planning for the aftermath of the removal of the dictators and regimes.

The US wanted a nice quick and easy war in Iraq. Get rid of Saddam in a few months, another couple of years of setting up a parliament and support and they'd be gone. Whereas they should've planned for 20 years of military and civilian support after the "war" had ended.

Groups like IS and others in Libya etc are always going to appear after a dictatorship is removed. It appears IS is much more extreme than most, which is why it's important to defeat them. But they're the next step that has to be overcome to reach a relatively stable, relatively democratic way of life for these countries. And we should be there to support them.

and what if they don't want democracy??

Western imposition of standards, LEAVE THEM TO IT.

Okay, so you keep shouting 'leave them to it' - When do you suggest we actually get involved (if ever?).

When ISIS have steam-rollered Syria??....Or claimed Iraq fully as their own??.... Wiped Turkey away??....Increased the number of terrorist incidents in the UK?

I fully agree that if this was a simple Civil War between two historic enemies, fighting to gain control of an established patch of land, then we leave them to it - However, we have one side who have stated an intention of a long term strategy of establishing an Islamic Empire, which would take in areas with zero desire to become 'Islamic' (including ourselves).

Simple strategy for the West is to support Assad - Yes, it would be ironic and a tad embarrassing, considering we initially opposed him, but he is a Stalin figure, in that he is the lesser of the two evils - Wipe ISIS out, then attempt somehow to work with Assad. It might seem unlikely, but I never ever thought I'd ever see Adams and McGuiness playing polite politics in Northern Ireland, so we have to be positive that somewhere in the future some sort of calm can be restored to the World.... I just can't envisage ISIS ever being part of such a settlement, as its obvious we are dealing with something far beyond human with these particular extremists.

We should never get involved, not our issue, not our concern. We live on a island, unless they start taking sailing lessons. ignore them. ISIS are a wasp, leave them alone and they'll sting someone else.

So we should have waited for Hitler to have come sailing up the Thames before we started fighting back??

had we not gotten involved, Hitler would have left the UK alone. We wasted millions of lives fighting an ideal.

Wont someone please think of the oil

That's an interesting opinion - The likelihood that Hitler would have left us alone after taking the rest of continental Europe (including Russia) seems highly unlikely though.

At best, through negotiation heavily weighted in the Nazi's favour, we would have become a meaningless colony of a German Empire - Perhaps allowed to 'govern' ourselves, but, ultimately, under the umbrella of the Nazis - There is no chance that Hitler would have left us alone considering we still had bits of our own empire scattered around the globe, bits which would have come under increasing attack from Nazi allies, which would be buoyed from an overwhelming European campaign.

I agree that ISIS are, at present, just an annoyance, but for the long term it would be advisable to do away with them now, than to allow them to grow into a serious threat.

A theory which doesn't really stand the acid test of "He probably wouldn't bother with The Channel Isles either".

But the absolute stupidity of all of this is that following WW2, we (the Allies - mostly US & UK), apparently learned the lessons of post-WW1 and we set about rebuilding the infrastructure, industries and economies of Germany & Japan. The Japanese and to a lesser extent, the Germans embraced the philosophies of W Edwards Deming, they focussed on product improvement and customer service.

We bombed the [is[/ihit out of Iraq and then did fookall else but allow Haliburton to steal billions of $ in the name of rebuilding infrastructure.

The major difference between now and post-WW2 is back in 1945, there may well have been opportunists but they'd look like rank-amateur Wild West carpetbaggers when compared to the vulture capitalists and NeoCons who control today's economies. These people don't want to see a thriving Iraq, Syria or anywhere else, they want to see a subjugated nation, willing to give away its natural assets for a bowl of rice and some clean water.

It is the NeoCons who should be brought to account, they have encouraged this situation, purely in the name of short-term profit.

If the economies of Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria had been allowed to flourish, there never would have been an audience for ISIS.

The same goes for what Israel is doing to Palestine. If Sodastream had actually invested in Gaza, instead of looking at cheap real estate and even cheaper labour, it's extremely doubtful whether Hamas would be where they are now

Anyone using the word 'gotten' immediately renders their opinion invalid.

Basically they want me, my wife, my kids, my parents dead, for no other reason than I dont blindly follow their fairy story, their version of Lord Of the Rings or Harry Potter

Get rid now

but you follow another story, because you're white and right?

This post deserves more likes than any other on rl fans
come on i'll be the first.

I dont follow any story, I dont need a book to tell me right from wrong, catholic,jew,christian,mormon,hindu,scientology no problem with any

IS are different, when the local jehova's knock on sunday and we discuss belief they dont hack my head off afterwards, nor me theirs

Must be right, we had it in writing;



As we all know, Herr Hitler was a man of his word, and peace in all Europe duly and rapidly ensued.

Operation Sealion and Directive 16, like the Moon landings, are clearly just fakes.

War could have been avoided had Britain surrendered to Germany, but I have this pernickety thing whereby surrendering isn't quite equivalent to "being left alone". Call me picky.

Why? Gotten is, in fact, an old English word and the use of it is to be lauded before it disappears from our wonderful language for ever.

As long as it isn't used in the ised American way which idicates gaining a possession (e.g., 'I've gotten a new dumpster truck...'), it's fine.

Standee uses it in it's correct English format to indicate the past participle of 'get'. I.e., 'We shouldn't have gotten involved' is perfectly correct English.

Not to criticise any ill-gotten misconceptions, of course.

[url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28939350Indefinite ceasefire agreed[/url

Let's see eh?

And in other news.

I actually thought that this dopey bint taking herself across the pond to the US would keep her quiet, apparently not:

First rule of any debate is not to reveal your shortcomings. Has she not heard of Google before pressing Tweet?

Idiot

Is she worth following for amusement value?

Not really mate, there's far too much tragedy to balance the amusement. You'd just end up gnashing your teeth or banging your head on a desk.

She really is fooking thick

Or, as the Oxford Dictionary puts it, "[iThe form gotten is not used in British English but is very common in North American English[/i." It may have roots in Old English/Norse but realistically it simply wasn't used here until the relentless barrage of American TV began to affect our language. Even now it's rarely used, and long may that continue.

Besides, it sounds stupid and the user sounds like a stupid pubescent American.

[size=85P.s. when trying to educate one's audience in the English language, it strengthens one's argument to ensure one's spelling and grammar are correct.

[/size

I suppose the more people dumbly parrot American language abuses then the more will follow, and sadly eventually these horrible Americanisms will, by default, become assimilated.

We already have, in rugby league, widespread use of O-ffense and DE -fense, which I have spelled in American as thankfully all other instances of use of the English word "defence" are still used with the emphasis on the second syllable. But what was wrong with Attack & Defence?

Other words and phrases heading the same way:

"Momentarily" - as in "I'll be with you momentarily". No, I'm gonna need much more of your time than that, pal;

In every other news report, that news reporters' staple verbiage, the awful, ponderous and usually superflous, "in the coming days";

"To go", meaning to take out;

"Can I get". Urrrrrrrgh;

"Step up to the plate" - aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrghhhhh!

... and sadly a regular on these very forums, the truly awful "Go figure!"