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.

Terrorists = Enemies

Isn't it funny how we use words to downplay our feelings of guilt; to put ourselves in the best possible light?  Hence, if foreign troops were in our country thinking that they can put us right and much improve the way we do things, we would call our men of violence fighting the enemy, resistance fighters.  We call the equivalent men of violence fighting our best intentioned armed forces in Afghanistan, the resurgence.

The West now calls its enemies 'terrorists' to help justify the West's war crimes of aggression.  For me, NATO's armed forces are also the men of violence, killing and maiming (but not in my name) to stupidly think they can defeat terrorism and bring voting to all (democracy) down the barrel of a gun!  How immoral.

Bishop Tutu called 9/11 an act of terrorism, not an act of war.  The surviving perpetrators needed to be brought to justice in a court of law.  Instead, the West had hundreds of thousands more innocents slaughtered since their commencement of their War of Terrorism on 10/7 (7 October 2001).  Except, they were foreigners in far off lands, so that was OK.  How despicable!

All the main Western political parties think they can get rid of terrorism by doing it better; defeating evil by doing evil in a bigger and grander and more successful way in the war of terrorism!  How foolish!

For Israel, attack is the best form of defence

Israel only ever tries violence, terrorism and targeted assassination as the best forms of defence.

The nation was born in 1948 out of Israeli violence and terrorism against the British.  Terrorism was rewarded and its attacks and aggression on its neighbouring countries since then hardly endeared it to those nations.  An Israeli promotional film, I recently saw at church, actually admitted it was surrounded by enemies, as if this was something to be proud of rather than ashamed of, as a sign of failure.

After 64 years, I would have thought Israel would have tried a different strategy to win friends and influence people - even if this was only out of sheer self-interest to improve its security and future prospects.  But, then, it is an outpost of what the Palestinians see as the loathed USA/West in the very heart of the Arab/Muslim Middle East.  So, what more can one expect from Israel/USA/UK than continued warfare to ratchet up the hatred, to never bring peace with justice for either Israel or Palestine?