British military chiefs are being ejected from US meetings about Syria

Ok lets not turn this in to a nationalist p1$$ing contest! America and the UK will always have a bond, will always be tied together in almost every way. The actions of our government or even our military chiefs, whom are tied politically, are not to be then used to generalise an entire population. There is enough division in the world and as much as I am a nationalist, I am Human first, as we all are and part of the so called 99%, as we all on here are...Unless some of you are eccentric millionaires. Let's not let the policies of those in power influence how we are towards one another.

So we are now "persona non grata" in Americas war planning sessions, maybe they should take note of our caution.

Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem called "The White mans Burden", in 1899 which has been used ever since by the British to describe our "coloured colonial cousins"...although it was subtitled "The United States and the Phillipine Islands".

It was a nod and a wink to America, and it's first steps on the road to imperialism after recently winning the Phillipines from Spain.

Take up the White Man’s burden
Send forth the best ye breed
Go send your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child
Take up the White Man’s burden
In patience to abide
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple
An hundred times made plain
To seek another’s profit
And work another’s gain
Take up the White Man’s burden
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better
The hate of those ye guard
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah slowly) to the light:
"Why brought ye us from bondage,
“Our loved Egyptian night?”
Take up the White Man’s burden
Have done with childish days
The lightly proffered laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years,
Cold-edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!


In September 1898 Kipling wrote to Roosevelt, -
'Now go in and put all the weight of your influence into hanging on permanently to the whole Philippines. America has gone and stuck a pickaxe into the foundations of a rotten house and she is morally bound to build the house over again from the foundations or have it fall about her ears'.

America has stuck her pickaxe in the foundations of a rotten Iraq and now she's going to do the same with a rotting Syria, and she will be duty bound to build them again.

She has bound her sons to serve her captives needs for more than ten years now.

Does America really believe she has a "Divine Burden to reign God's Empire on Earth"..

Britain has known war for over a thousand years from the Celts to the Romans, and from Germany to ( for the fourth time) Afghanistan.

We are now weary of burying our sons in foreign fields.

For that reason parliment has said NO. It's just a shame they didnt say it over ten years ago.

America should heed Britains warning, we have a millenium of experience to judge from.

reply to post by andy1972


So do you and Cranial work in the same room?

www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by JBA2848


Meh.....probably..

America has sentanced it's sons and it's grandson's to know nothing but war and destruction.

Britain, however, after burying generation after generation has finally woken up to the fact that war is not necessary unsless it's to defend your own backyard.

reply to post by andy1972

Britain, however, after burying generation after generation has finally woken up to the fact that war is not necessary unsless it's to defend your own backyard.

You're saying these words as British pilots are flying combat missions in support of coalition military operations in Afghanistan.....every ... single ... day. :shk:

Let's not fall ALL over ourselves. Your nation decided to sit this out by the difference of one vote. A vote which many were expecting, publicly to all but rubber stamp the OTHER direction. If another big attack gets staged by the rebels, London could turn on a dime and in a flash to be right in the middle of it .....and I rather expect to see that happen if shooting starts.


I was outright shocked the other day in World History, when a student brought up Bush and Iraq relating to Syria and made the statement that Iraq was all our fault and at least Britain knew better!

If that instructor wasn't so strict, it took all I had not to turn in the class and very rudely remind the idiot that British Troops had full operational control of the Basra sector of Iraq for MOST of the war.

Of course......these little things don't get mentioned while it's an "America is bad...while we're all peaceful people wishing THEY would stop fighting!" kind of debate going on.

There will always be a special relationship, British Imperialism is the mother of American Imperialism.
We have a shared history up until the revolution. That will never go away.
I dont think the British are as bombarded with propaganda as the americans, but "our guys" are trying to catch up.
If there was no Magna Carta, I doubt there would be a US Constitution.

The fact is WE ARE ALL BROTHERS AND SISTERS and the world is our cousins, yet we will kill each other over the most stupid things.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000

Let's not fall ALL over ourselves. Your nation decided to sit this out by the difference of one vote.

Don't want to sound pedantic but it was 13, the motion was defeated 285 - 272.

And to be honest that majority failed to fully reflect the public's opinion, most polls show 66% of the population are against military intervention - we really have had a belly full of burying our dead in foreign lands over issues that really have little to do with us and we certainly get very little gratitude for.

These feelings are exacerbated by the domestic situation - services being slashed, piss poor wages and a general perception of overall decline.

We don't want to see more of our own die and spend billions on a war when we are struggling to house, feed and care for ourselves - there comes a time when you've got to put your own house in order first.

If another big attack gets staged by the rebels, London could turn on a dime and in a flash to be right in the middle of it .....and I rather expect to see that happen if shooting starts.

Possibly.
But it'd still be against public opinion and that could well prove to be the straw that breaks Cameron's back - he has an election to think about.

"America is bad...while we're all peaceful people wishing THEY would stop fighting!" kind of debate going on.

I for one certainly don't think 'America is bad' - far from it - certainly not the American people.

But I think andy1972 was trying to point out, (and I'm sure he'll correct me if I'm wrong), that by taking military action in Syria the USA is committing itself to what will probably be another Iraq or Vietnam - and for what?

Yes, the international community has a moral responsibility to protect but surely that should be done in accordance with international law, the same international law both our country's constantly preach adherence to when it suits.
Neither the USA or the UK are world's police and we should never be so arrogant to presume to be, something we have done far too frequently in the past.

On a slightly different note; it seems that a slightly more conciliatory tone is coming from both Iran and Russia - can the USA / France respond in kind?

reply to post by Freeborn

Yes, the international community has a moral responsibility to protect but surely that should be done in accordance with international law, the same international law both our country's constantly preach adherence to when it suits.

Neither the USA or the UK are world's police and we should never be so arrogant to presume to be, something we have done far too frequently in the past.

Exactly !

Any war crime should be handled by the UN Security Council, NOT an individual country. And certainly NOT by means of warfare before any damn evidence is even presented on the table.

The rest of the world is sick and tired of this independent self-interest policing crap.

I find it interesting that Serco is now being targeted for fraud. Serco ran one of the command and control servers for STUXnet to target Iran.

Private security giant faces police inquiry into possible fraud over £285m prison contract
www.dailymail.co.uk...

Is Serco behind Stuxnet?
www.abovetopsecret.com...

What are they up to in the UK? Is the Rupert Murdoch scandal spreading even wider? Was News Corp only a starting point?

And as the UK targets its own security contractors. Syria has now decided to create his own private security contractors.

www.fijitimes.com...

Maybe some body should tell him how hard it is to control those private contractors before they do something like gas citizens in Syria and get Assad in trouble. Remember Saddam gassing the Kurds. The MeK did that for him. The Iranians who had there own base in Iraq and did Saddams dirty work for him.

reply to post by Freeborn

Possibly.
But it'd still be against public opinion and that could well prove to be the straw that breaks Cameron's back - he has an election to think about.

That's probably the most encouraging thing about it, right there. He has self interest and political survival to motivate him. That makes me feel better that he won't just commit British forces covertly instead of openly. It sounds like he'd be thrown in the Thames directly if he was caught doing that. At least, I'd hope.

In terms of our respective nations? Well.... We have scumbag human trash for leaders and you have scumbag human trash for leaders. When the US needed to learn how to spy? They modeled the OSS on British Agencies. When the US needed to learn how to make the most elite rescue teams possible? They went to the S.A.S. to learn and model Delta on them (the SEALs have to some degree as well, by their histories). We're hip to hip and hand-in-glove. Always have been (well...since you all burned our house down in 1812, anyway )

Originally posted by Freeborn
But I think andy1972 was trying to point out, (and I'm sure he'll correct me if I'm wrong), that by taking military action in Syria the USA is committing itself to what will probably be another Iraq or Vietnam - and for what?

I will not correct you Freeborn, as you are right.
The point i was trying to make with the White mans burden poem is in the first few lines,
"Go send your sons to exile, to serve your captives needs".

America, if it invades Siria, will be effectively binding it's sons in exile to serve in yet another war which serves no purpose other than the strategic control of the middle east and its resources.

They will invade and they will have to spend another 15 years trying to pacify the country, just like Iraq and Afghanistan, at the cost of thousands of lives.

They will then spend trillions more rebuilding it's infrastructure, while America itself spirals even further into an economic wasteland that cant even feed and house its own people.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
reply to post by andy1972

 

Britain, however, after burying generation after generation has finally woken up to the fact that war is not necessary unsless it's to defend your own backyard.

You're saying these words as British pilots are flying combat missions in support of coalition military operations in Afghanistan.....every ... single ... day. :shk:

Let's not fall ALL over ourselves. Your nation decided to sit this out by the difference of one vote. A vote which many were expecting, publicly to all but rubber stamp the OTHER direction. If another big attack gets staged by the rebels, London could turn on a dime and in a flash to be right in the middle of it .....and I rather expect to see that happen if shooting starts.


I was outright shocked the other day in World History, when a student brought up Bush and Iraq relating to Syria and made the statement that Iraq was all our fault and at least Britain knew better!

If that instructor wasn't so strict, it took all I had not to turn in the class and very rudely remind the idiot that British Troops had full operational control of the Basra sector of Iraq for MOST of the war.

Of course......these little things don't get mentioned while it's an "America is bad...while we're all peaceful people wishing THEY would stop fighting!" kind of debate going on.

edit on 4-9-2013 by Wrabbit2000 because: (no reason given)

Wether they vote was won by one or one hundred votes, it remains the same.

For once the people we voted into power have had the balls to put what the man in street has said to the forefront and act upon it.

This should have happened in 2001, but unfortunately, it didnt.

Great Britain now knows that it was a war based on lies,and this time, is not prepared to let it's sons die needlesly.
There is no glory in a death that has served for nothing.

American and British boy's still die or are wounded everyday, and for what..they die for each other, not to keep the world safe from terrorism and thousands more will die for the same lie if you permit your government to send them once more into the breech.

reply to post by TrueAmerican


I for one commend Britain's Parliament on not to intervene. It is not in Britain's best interests at this time overall. It is however a long standing ally and patriot of the US and it's people. The closest of any Nation on Earth. I see the validity on one hand to exclude them but on the other I see it for the snub that it is.

The US Government will regret the day that is surely to come when most of the world turns on it and it needs Britain in it's corner. Fair weather friendship is not a good policy ever.

Logarock

Originally posted by Whateva69
Any country that says no to USA is regarded as an enemy, it happened to newzealand when they said no more bombs on their reefs, if I remember' .

Oh by all means New Zealand.....those now self righteous driftwoods from the days of the Empire. Why don't you set the example by giving the land back to the natives, pack up and go home.

Whats this got to do with what i said ?

The United States down rated New Zealand from allies to enemy because they were no longer allowed to use bombs in their waters. i think this occurred after Project Seal (The Tsunami Bomb Project)

Love and harmony
Whateva