Don't sacrifice our children and young people

I would add, don't let us sacrifice our children and young people in any kind of war.  The West has been too ready to wage war - N America with guns and, germs interpreted as God wiping out the native, first inhabitants.  The American Civil War that killed more Americans than died in any subsequent  war, I have heard!  But 58,000 died in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.  The War that ended the peace in W Europe and that led to our side, our very own nation involved in killing in every single year up to the present, since at least 1914.  Only in one year, in 1968, has a member of the British armed forces not been killed somewhere around the world.  A most disgraceful track record!

Our great friend and ally killing children and young people in Gaza in asymmetric warfare to avoid conflict resolution, conciliation, compromise and any loss of land in Judea and Samaria.  Here, my Good Samaritan/Bad Jew story from the Master Jewish storyteller Himself, comes in.  But that is all wishy washy, left wing, loony liberal rubbish.  And very anti-Semitic!

Armed Forces Day to show reverent respect

How would you like it if the armed forces of another country occupied Halesowen for twelve years to change the way we do things, really quite radically?  One radical change was to bring in voting that, surprise, surprise brought in a compliant government wholly in agreement with the armed forces coercing or forcing the changes the foreign government wanted to see in Halesowen?

In other words, bringing democracy down the barrel of a gun, exactly what we didn't like, one little bit when another world leader (China in the 1950s, 60s, 70s) wanted his way of doing things forced down the throats of the people, via the barrel of a gun.

Remember, democracy only means voting every five years to bring in a very similar government (but with a different name, admittedly) to the previous one.

In addition, our so sincere and well-meaning armed forces have so stirred things up in these foreign lands that many tens of thousands of their men, women and children have been killed in the War of Terrorism.  WE, in the West, are directly and indirectly responsible for these crimes against humanity.  But, we certainly don't think so.  Rather than feeling some discomfort at cutting the lives of foreigners short, we rejoice at what our armed forces have done - calling them heroes and having a special day of commemoration and celebration for the fine things they have done on our behalf.

We cannot even have the honesty to graciously admit that we have lost this fourth Anglo-Afghan war and lost it years before we finally pull out in 2014.  The Vietnam War all over again.  When will we ever learn?

By the way, this makes for four losses in a row, our armed forces are so incompetent.  Every war was fully supported by the main democratic political parties of their time, too.  What a disgrace!  Therefore, is it really worth imposing democracy down the barrel of a gun in foreign lands far from our shores that we never go on holiday to, anyway because of the mess we have left them in?

What a truly sick society we live in.

Not so funny, not so noble, not so proud!

It is funny how we Brits think of ourselves as being so perfect and everyone else so awful! That might explain your anti-foreigner letters. Let me put the other, rarely heard, side of the story.

For many centuries, the good, clean living Brits have been exploring foreign lands and taking home the booty, eg the piracy of the Elizabethans, Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Hawkins. Both men were knighted for their noble efforts and for making their own personal fortune on the backs of the foreigner. Some of their wealth – and ours - came from human trafficking with the iniquitous slave trade. This was a lucrative activity in the organised abuse of black Africans. Our whole nation allowed either one or two million to die or killed them, out of the 12 million carried off as prisoners. It lasted from the 16^th to the 19^th centuries. The foreigner well and truly got it in the neck at the hands of the whites and the church-going, good Christians of the UK.

When the Quakers started pointing out the sheer immorality of this systematic, large-scale abuse of our fellow humans, the Christians and the small minority who were not, argued that the British economy would so seriously suffer that we could not possibly afford to give up enslaving the foreigner!

Eventually, the Church and Parliament abolished the trafficking of Africans but it took another 25 years to end slavery in our glorious and civilising Empire. Much to their credit, the Church of England did acknowledge their major role in slavery, repented and apologised to today's descendants of the slaves.

For many more centuries than the British slave trade lasted, our numerous wars around the world – 7 or 8 against France alone – have killed many more foreigners than British slavery. Certainly, since 1945, 16,000 Brits have died on foreign battlefields but, very many more than 16,000 foreigners have been bumped off by our so beautiful bombs and bullets and righteous rockets. For example, in our war in Vietnam from 1959 to 1975, our good friends and compatriots, the Americans suffered 58,000 deaths in the process of killing an unknown number of Vietnamese whom we labeled as evil, godless Communists. Different encyclopaedias put the figure between 2-4 million. This is genocide of foreigners for which our side is wholly responsible. Both during our war in Korea and during the Cuban missile crisis, the hawks on our side were urging the use of nuclear weapons. Our General Macarthur wanted to nuke a 30 mile wide zone between China and Korea to make it de-militarised (and pulverised and barren!)

The tumultuous end of our Empire in India resulted in the slaughter of over one million Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs and over two million who fled their homes.

Our present major wars in Iraq and Afghanistan always give the fatalities on our side but, rarely, any indication of the casualties amongst Iraqis and Afghans. It appears that their casualties are many times more than ours. But, then of course, the lives of our soldiers are far more valuable, as they have always been, than that of the foreigner.

Having made Iraq and Afghanistan not the most congenial of places in which to live, we then get all hot and bothered when a few of these foreigners finish up our shores. Most of the two millions who have fled are taken in by the rather more welcoming Jordan, Pakistan, Iran and Syria.

Indeed, I think, after centuries of not so noble British history, too many remain as racist, prejudiced and as anti-foreigner as ever. We can war on their shores but we don't like it when these foreigners come to our shores. We can go where we like but they can't come here!

Our enslaving, our imperial ways and our warfare against foreigners is a shocking stain on British history. We remain shameless, unapologetic and unmoved. That is not so funny.