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Sorry this is about something several pages back now, but I thought it deserved a small effortpost:JFairfax posted:hmm, that's not what I recall, I'll check my copy when I get home but I seem to recall it mainly talking about the relationship between Bagdhad and Washington as it related to Kuwait, not trying to say that Iraq had a claim, just detailing Iraq's aggression and thinking - not saying whether it was valid or not. This is the problem paragraph: quote:Although the official Washington version of events presented Iraq’s occupation of neighboring Kuwait as an arbitrary and unwarranted aggression, Kuwait had actually been a district of Iraq, under Ottoman rule, up to the First World War. After the war, to exert leverage against the abundantly oil-rich Iraq, the British Colonial Office established tiny Kuwait as a separate territorial entity, in the process cutting off most of Iraq’s access to the Persian Gulf. In 1961, Kuwait became “independent”, again because Britain declared it to be so, and Iraq massed troops at the border, backing down when the British dispatched their own forces. Subsequent Iraqi regimes never accepted the legitimacy of this state of affairs, making similar threats in the 1970s, even crossing a half-mile into Kuwait in 1976, but Baghdad was also open to a compromise with Kuwait under which Iraq would gain access to its former islands in the Gulf. This is ridiculous on its face because Iraq didn't exist before the First World War. It was cobbled together by the British out of parts of three Ottoman provinces, Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul, after they banded together to assert their independence after the British proposed a somewhat differently-shaped (and differently-governed) mandate. Kuwait City was founded in 1613 by Ottoman exiles, and drew most of its prosperity from being a well-placed seaport that didn't abide by Ottoman laws and trade restrictions. It wasn't until 1881 that it became an Ottoman province in its own right that just so happened to border Basra province (so, still not part of what would eventually become Iraqi territory). Then, in 1899, it declared independence and became a British protectorate when the sultan called in the Royal Navy gunboats, and in 1913, the British and Ottomans agreed that it should become an autonomous territory of the Ottoman empire - so, still not part of Basra province. The dispute in the Twenties did happen, but it was a territorial disagreement between two nations, not one nation getting mad at a bunch of uppity secessionists. See, with the chaos of the Ottoman collapse, the Sultanate of Najd (what we now call Saudi Arabia) embarked on a campaign to unify the Arabian peninsula, and decided that Kuwait looked appetising. The Kuwaitis held them off until Britain could deliver the smackdown, but the borders of the two proto-nations (and what had recently become Iraq) had got a bit fuzzy, as they tend to do in desert wars. The Brits negotiated the Uqair Protocol with the Saudis in 1922 (Iraq and Kuwait weren't invited), and reached one of those famous compromises where everyone is equally unhappy. The Iraqis were mad because the British had stuck to the 1913 borders for Kuwait that had been agreed upon with the Ottomans, which were, admittedly, pretty close to what Kuwait's borders had always been as a British protectorate/Ottoman province/independent sultanate, but were significantly less bearable now that Iraq was an independent nation rather than part of a vast empire, and needed its own trade routes. The Kuwaitis were mad because the British had created a huge neutral zone with Najd, which ate two-thirds of their territory. The House of Saud were mad because the British didn't let them keep the shiny toys they wanted. Certainly, though, it wasn't the kind of unprincipled land-grab that Blum suggests, just a bunch of lazy, irritated bureaucrats smashing everyone's heads together and ordering them to have a time out while they dug out the rulebook. Looking at Blum's footnote, it seems that he got most of his highly distorted take on the region's history from a 21-page essay by Ralph Schoenman, a Galloway-esque dictator-chaser who might occasionally raise a valid point, but should always, always be backed up with lots of other sources and fact-checked hard. The fact that he so uncritically took info from this single, deeply unreliable source suggests that he's shaping his facts to the narrative rather than shaping the narrative to his facts, and makes me deeply distrust the book as a whole. You shouldn't have to pore through a history book and check every cite to make sure that the author hasn't sourced from the era's equivalent of Infowars articles. 1270 AD: Louis IX launches the Eighth Crusade, and promptly dies while besieging Tunis from drinking bad water, causing the campaign to collapse. Darth Walrus fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Jul 19, 2016 |
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Jul 19, 2016 22:09
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"Inevitable happens"
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Jul 19, 2016 22:09
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Dead Cosmonaut posted:Is it me or has Corbyn been improving as a public speaker Considering people slated Owen Smith and Andrea Leadsom as leadership candidates for their 'lack of experience' it's pretty astounding he does as well as he does. Going from a lifetime backbencher to leader without even the help of a supportive team around you must be crazy.
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Jul 19, 2016 22:10
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Dead Cosmonaut posted:Is it me or has Corbyn been improving as a public speaker Corbyn has spent most of the past 20 years going to public events as a speaker on various causes. He has been a pretty drat good speaker for years in terms of getting his view across, he just seems to have just finally adjusted to the second largest stage in British politics in that he now avoids media bait a lot more.
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Jul 19, 2016 22:12
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Dead Cosmonaut posted:Is it me or has Corbyn been improving as a public speaker The rest of the PLP have degenerated into a shitheap so it's hard to tell really.
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Jul 19, 2016 22:12
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Bryter posted:She wrote an article prior to the GE about how Ed Miliband saying Rosamund Pike should play James Bond was proof that he's a political mastermind lol Anne Perkins wrote one of the stupidest loving things I've ever read after that very short lived "Jeremy Corbyn said he'd maybe have a conversation about women-only train carriages" non-event , she is totally useless. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/26/labour-women-only-train-carriages-jeremy-corbyn
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Jul 19, 2016 22:13
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qhat posted:Reminder that for a good few decades we were exploding some of the most powerful thermonuclear bombs ever created all over the planet. Only problem it's ever caused is CERN have a tough time finding steel which hasn't been ever so slightly contaminated. Not sure how much one should trust QI, but one of their facts was that carbon dating of modern artifacts was all hosed up because of nuclear testing.
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Jul 19, 2016 22:15
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https://twitter.com/krasnyy_/status/755359247525941248 We now have a British contender for the mantle.
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Jul 19, 2016 22:16
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Yinlock posted:sorry i'm just tired of the pro argument of "minimal civilian casualties" like that's a good thing. oh only a small number of innocent people will die horrifically, what a releif. "Minimal civilian casualties" is striving for no civilian casualties. It would be silly to dismiss any attempts to reduce the number simply because the number zero isn't on the table.
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Jul 19, 2016 22:16
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TheRat posted:Not sure how much one should trust QI, but one of their facts was that carbon dating of modern artifacts was all hosed up because of nuclear testing. steel from ancient wrecks is valuable for geiger counters because its not been affected but i think it only matters for metal
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Jul 19, 2016 22:17
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Pissflaps posted:If they try to mess with our Falkland Islands again they'll be asking for it. We should nuke the Falklands to make them unattractive to any would-be invaders.
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Jul 19, 2016 22:18
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goddamnedtwisto posted:Depends. A sub-kiloton yield exploded at ground level won't actually throw a lot of nasties into the air - the devil's in the details of the exact geography of the area and the weather at the time of detonation, but fallout was barely an issue after Hiroshima and Nagasaki and they were much higher-yield devices exploded at a height that more or less maximised the amount of fallout. You're certainly talking a lot less high-energy material released into the atmosphere than at Chernobyl. Jose posted:for anyone yet to see it
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Jul 19, 2016 22:18
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Darth Walrus posted:Sorry this is about something several pages back now, but I thought it deserved a small effortpost: Thanks, I appreciate this and it's interesting. When I read Killing Hope originally my key takeaway from the Iraq section was not that Iraq was justified in it's actions, but that Saddam may well have believed that he had approval for the attack on Kuwait and been duped into it. I haven't been through and fact checked the whole book assiduously, but certainly in terms of the broad strokes and the narrative that he is putting forwards (the somewhat awful nature of the CIA) I can forgive lapses like this. I still think it's a useful overview of American intervention, but as ever when reading history - never accept anything uncritically.
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Jul 19, 2016 22:21
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And so it begins https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/755511159785156609
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Jul 19, 2016 22:21
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TheRat posted:And so it begins Hahahahaha. Nothing like a little monstering to remind your pet candidate who their boss is.
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Jul 19, 2016 22:24
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It's kind of fun having Jeremy as the incumbent because they already dug up half the country looking for his skeletons and didn't find anything that would stick. Which means all the challengers get to have their poo poo dragged out as soon as they put their head above the parapet.
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Jul 19, 2016 22:31
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OwlFancier posted:It's kind of fun having Jeremy as the incumbent because they already dug up half the country looking for his skeletons and didn't find anything that would stick But he shagged a black woman once! (Or more times)
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Jul 19, 2016 22:34
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Jose posted:steel from ancient wrecks is valuable for geiger counters because its not been affected but i think it only matters for metal Where 'ancient' is World War 1, sure. Edit: Kaiserliche Marine. Kriegsmarine was the Nazis. feedmegin fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Jul 19, 2016 |
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Jul 19, 2016 22:36
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Dead Cosmonaut posted:Is it me or has Corbyn been improving as a public speaker I don't think so - I think he's consistently given great speeches from the first ones on his campaign trail when running for leadership. There's just a massive difference between how well he copes with giving speeches to a crowd of his supporters and how well he does giving speeches in a hostile chamber while being barracked from all sides and being personally uncomfortable with attacking people rather than ideas.
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Jul 19, 2016 22:37
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Guavanaut posted:Don't dial-a-yield warheads dialed right down to the bottom end produce a comparative lot of poo poo compared to their actual blast damage? Not as bad as a huge reactor meltdown, but not the kind of thing that you'd want to clean up after. Oh yeah, it's going to effect house prices, that's for sure, but you miss out on (most of) the really nasty isotopes of strontium and iodine that you get from larger detonations. A lot of the problems are from the uranium and plutonium in the tamper and secondary which don't get fissioned, but as heavy metals they tend not to drift that far.
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Jul 19, 2016 22:38
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Corbyn gives good speeches when it's a focused speech on something he cares about otherwise he tends to ramble and jump back and forth between different subjects.
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Jul 19, 2016 22:40
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TheRat posted:And so it begins
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Jul 19, 2016 22:47
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Dead Cosmonaut posted:Is it me or has Corbyn been improving as a public speaker It's not just you. It's partly that he;s got a lot more prominence so his good speeches are actually being seen, if only on YouTube, and it's partly that I feel like he's writing them with a bit more soundbiteyness in mind - not a full step away from full consideration of the points, but with a bit more of an eye on the 30 second twitter clip. The line about whether he's under pressure, in particular, is a gem. deletebeepbeepbeep posted:Corbyn gives good speeches when it's a focused speech on something he cares about otherwise he tends to ramble and jump back and forth between different subjects. I have to say this kind of showed in his EU speech when I went to the rally during the campaign. He cared about quite a lot of the debate, and some sections of it were strong, but the speech as a whole was a little unfocussed and lacked an overall message. And he had trouble knowing when to pause for applause. I suspect he was also pretty knackered from all the campaigning and doorstepping. None of the others, TTBOMK, was touring the country doorknocking with CLPs. He's getting better, but as ever, he's not the best option - just the only one available. thespaceinvader fucked around with this message at 22:57 on Jul 19, 2016 |
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Jul 19, 2016 22:54
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thespaceinvader posted:It's not just you. Yeah, I loved that - seen him using it in a few places. Just watching the full walk in the park interview from a few days back and it's striking how the snippets actually shown on the various news websites have been of the inconsequential parts (his beans, his allotment, a description of the park, pokemon) rather than the many things of substance he's talking about. The marginalisation is still going on.
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Jul 19, 2016 22:58
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Prince John posted:Yeah, I loved that - seen him using it in a few places. Well duh, didn't you see that Guardian article about how it's all right to poo poo all over the left when it's What The Public Wants. E: also it's loving HILARIOUS how baffled that interviewer sounds by the interview. What is WRONG this person is NORMAL and talking like a PERSON Does. Not. Compute.
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Jul 19, 2016 23:00
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https://twitter.com/georgeeaton/status/755522094302130178 George Eaton confirms the Smith faction plan to quit the party if they don't win.
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Jul 19, 2016 23:07
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LemonyTang posted:https://twitter.com/georgeeaton/status/755522094302130178 Haha, oops: quote:“It’s game on,” a senior Labour figure told me afterwards, deriding the “hubris” of Corbyn. Had the leader remained to vote, a Unite amendment proposing a freeze date of 24 June - the day after the EU referendum - would have passed. That's a couple of hundred thousand votes lost....
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Jul 19, 2016 23:12
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LemonyTang posted:https://twitter.com/georgeeaton/status/755522094302130178 Sadly he seems to have quoted enough other people for it to be credible. I'd say incredible but still credible. Prince John posted:Haha, oops: I read that as a nominated candidate based on the ruling of him automatically standing that he wasn't allowed to vote any more. Still, someone else seems to have had to leave as well which was an error.
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Jul 19, 2016 23:15
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Prince John posted:Haha, oops:
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Jul 19, 2016 23:15
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Andi Fox also had to leave to care for her disabled husband, apparently.
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Jul 19, 2016 23:21
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TheRat posted:He was asked to leave because he wasnt allowed to vote on it though? I don't doubt that you may be right, but what's the hubris being referred to in that paragraph if not a voluntary absence from the vote? Just a general comment on his not resigning that's been lumped into the same paragraph as votechat?
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Jul 19, 2016 23:22
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Prince John posted:Haha, oops: More people than Corbyn left between the ballot vote and the cutoff vote. The ballot vote had 31 participants, the cutoff one had 28, so iyou might just as well blame any of the other people who left. TheRat posted:He was asked to leave because he wasnt allowed to vote on it though? Not the case per the report Ann Black sent to my CLP. She doesn't comment on why he left before the cutoff vote, just notes that he did. Eh, one way or another there would have been a cutoff, that seems to have been unlikely to change, and even 24 June wouldn't have saved those hundred thousand or so who joined after the quitters started quitting.
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Jul 19, 2016 23:23
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Prince John posted:Haha, oops: He couldn't have remained to vote, he was a candidate at that point. They did wait for someone to leave because they had care responsibilities, then pulled out some extra agenda items not on the agenda.
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Jul 19, 2016 23:24
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TheRat posted:He was asked to leave because he wasnt allowed to vote on it though? Yes I thought he wasnt allowed to vote because at that point he was officially a candidate in the leadership contest.
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Jul 19, 2016 23:25
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Thundercloud posted:He couldn't have remained to vote, he was a candidate at that point. They were on the agenda: https://twitter.com/georgeeaton/status/752598691857375233
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Jul 19, 2016 23:47
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goddamnedtwisto posted:Depends. A sub-kiloton yield exploded at ground level won't actually throw a lot of nasties into the air - the devil's in the details of the exact geography of the area and the weather at the time of detonation, but fallout was barely an issue after Hiroshima and Nagasaki and they were much higher-yield devices exploded at a height that more or less maximised the amount of fallout. You're certainly talking a lot less high-energy material released into the atmosphere than at Chernobyl.
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Jul 19, 2016 23:49
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Pissflaps posted:They were on the agenda: Where would we be without your pedantry? Suspending the Labour Party CLPs from meeting certainly wasn't on the agenda.
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Jul 20, 2016 00:04
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Thundercloud posted:Where would we be without your pedantry? Perpetually mistaken.
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Jul 20, 2016 00:08
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Pissflaps posted:Perpetually mistaken. Surely it's you who's wrong, given that you disagreed with me and I was correct, suspending all CLPs was not an agenda item. Also is this like your full time job? Or is there a pissflaps collective? Because having looked at some Blairites twitter feeds you are posting on them as well. It just seems more trolling and pedantry than any one person can manage.
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Jul 20, 2016 00:14
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TomViolence posted:The real travesty of this is that the families of our 179 dead soldiers have a much better chance of getting justice than the families of the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians do. It's a bit hard to reconcile that disparity. It's not hard at all. We live in a system of independent nation-states. There is little to no recourse for legal redress between citizens of those states anyway, and almost none in matters of security/defense/war. The fact that the other fuckers die in a war isn't even a negative in the eyes of much of the military, it's kind of the point (I'm reminded of the time we had a USAF Major declare that "Collateral damage has collateral benefits"  ). The same kinds of systems, mechanisms, and/or institutions that would let foreign civilians sue our leadership would, if they were rigorous enough to allow for success, be rigorous enough to basically prevent war anyway.
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Jul 20, 2016 00:20
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