People, people!
Have I not said unto you: Google is your very good friend..?
Google has changed its search algorithms to be more user specific and to use fuzzy logic. Hence what you see in a search will differ from what others see. The fact that we all read the forum biases the results towards it.
One consequence is you can no longer send search strings and expect the recipient to see what you did. Another consequence is that you are a bit more trapped in what you already know.
A similar problem exists for more and more websites. Content is varied according to the viewer, and may also vary each time the site is viewed because the site owners are testing the effiacy of different layouts and measuring time on site and click through for each variation.
Yes, switching off this user-sensitive bias in Google is on my 'to-do' list.
What is so annoying - about all these providers in IT land, Microsoft, Google, etceterah - is that they don't tell you what they are doing, it's axiomatic with them that all their customers are just too stupid to make their own decisions.
Spent years refining the way in which you use Microsoft Office, memorising the menus, keyboard shortcuts, and so forth? Tough *****, we will introduce the Ribbon to slow you down without giving you the option to use a legacy interface. Like the Google homepage, where you can compile your own little screenful of applets to provide information and feeds you are interested in? No worries; we're going to change the tabs from the top to the left leaving you with an annoying column of dead space and no way to get rid of it. Not only that, but when we invite you to comment on how much you like the new layout, we're just going to ignore you if you say you don't like it at all.
Who's killing Iraqi civilians at the moment? Certainly not the coalition armed forces, most of whom (including the UK) have withdrawn, I think you'll find that's terrorists/ insurgents. Some are Iraqi and many (like in Afghanistan) are "foreign fighters", extremists from elsewhere.
As for Afghans, it's true, the number of civilian non-combatants being killed is dreadful, but again, a) the Taliban and AQ are killing far more than ISAF, by a factor of tens, and b) succesful attacks on Taliban compounds are frequently passed off by their propaganda as civilians, or their favourite - "wedding parties". Similarly the number of ordinary Afghans killed and maimed by initiating road side IEDs and mines is much, much greater than Afghan security forces, or ISAF. ISAF needs to further reduce accidental casualties and is actively trying to, with some success. The same can't be said for the Taliban/HIG or whoever.
Speak to ordinary Afghans (and I have) and they would prefer a stable, balanced regime to the Taliban. We need to give them the chance to have one by assisting them to get a secure, functioning state set up and running. If they don't and it becomes a haven for terrorists to train and organise again, and you will see the results over here.
Unfortunately the same can also be said for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of North Western Pakistan and Somalia....
Last edited by Rhythm King; 10th-December-2009 at 11:43 AM. Reason: Tpyo
An interesting thread for me - much of my military background was associated with the generation or consumption of intelligence reports. And my experience is that no major decision for action would be taken on the basis of singular and uncoroborated reports.
The simple conclusion I came to myself is that Bush wanted regime change so some excuse needed to be found to justify the invasion of Iraq - and it needed to be a biggie hence the 45 minute WMD angle. Since the invasion I believe that the WMD angle has been all but completely discredited. Even up to Gulf War 1, when the Iraqis did have a credible ballistic missile capability and the warheads to place on these, there was no threat to the UK mainland and at best Saddam might have managed to hit sovereign base areas in Cyprus. After Gulf War 1, Iraq was bankrupt and we were crawling all over the country so the idea that Saddam could not only rebuild programmes destroyed by coalition forces, but expand considerably on the capabilities inherent in these programmes in secret is far too much for me to believe.
However, intelligence is not a precise science. It involves the collation of information that is often contradictory and judgement calls by individuals who can make mistakes and be influenced by others. Despite what you might read in the papers, technical intelligence collection (imagery, signals intelligence etc) is not omniscient - satellites and aircraft cannot be overhead all of the time. Human intelligence may be even less reliable. It's entirely possible that the intelligence services had sources in the Iraqi military, however, the Iraqi forces were very compartmentalised (as you'd expect in a repressive regime) so even senior officers would be unlikely to know what was happening in hidden programmes.
We'll never know the truth, so we're left to our own judgements and I've made mine - the WMD angle was nonsense and the USA got us to help them force regime change on a soveriegn nation (albeit a detestable one) without any real justifiable basis. Just think that if we invaded countries to force regime change everywhere the locals are corrupt and brutal we'd end up invading 60% of the sovereign nations across the globe.......
Like others have said I place an Afghanistan in an entirely different category. And also like others I wonder if we can make any long-term change in this troubled country.
Agent 000
Licensed to Dance
Actually it has, at several times during its history, most recently whilst King Zahir Shah was on the throne, between the 30s right up until the end of the 70s, just before the Soviets waded in.
ISAF is not an occupation force trying rule the country, it is an assistance force helping them while they try to sort out their own government. Hamid Karzai was selected by Afghans, not the West and had he left power following the elections, the West would have done business with his successor.
A lot of the Taliban, HIG AQ etc are not ethnic Afghans and a lot of their money and support comes from out side the country, or from drugs.
What is needed is some form of dialogue to try and reconcile the various elements, but without ISAF support, the terrorists would over-run the country and impose their interpretation of the law as they had previously, women would be subjugated, people executed and beaten and any crackpot terrorist organisation that brought funding to the table would be allowed to set up shop as before.
Just think what would have happened in Ireland, if the whole World had turned its back and let the militant Provos over run the place and set up their planned 32 county Marxist state? Instead security was maintained and both sides eventually brought to the table to try and sort it out democratically, give or take the odd remaining terrorist nutters of both persuasions, of course.
It's a bit like dancing. People hear the same tune, but want to interpret it differently; some may want to do a progressive, ballroom style and whizz round the floor, some may want to do some expansive Lindy inspired aerials and others yet may want to do some WCS, with a little room at either end of the slot. You can all argue about who is being the cliquey floor hog, but with a bit of common sense, floorcraft and give and take, it's actually possible for everyone to get along just fine.
From today's online Guardian:
Macdonald [at the time Director of Public Prosecutions, now a practising barrister] said that Blair's fundamental flaw was his "sycophancy towards power" and that he could not resist the "glamour" he attracted in Washington.
"In this sense he was weak and, as we can see, he remains so," Macdonald went on.
"Since those sorry days we have frequently heard him repeating the self-regarding mantra that 'hand on heart, I only did what I thought was right'. But this is a narcissist's defence and self-belief is no answer to misjudgment: it is certainly no answer to death."
In other words, when you are the most powerful man in the country and you embark on a course that ends in a death toll in the six-figure range, you need a better explanation than "Gosh, it seemed the right thing to do at the time" if you are going to get a favourable judgment from history (and safely avoid war-crimes tribunals).
I also like the line "In this sense he was weak and, as we can see, he remains so". Few other than very able barristers can produce this sort of deceptively devastating put-down.
Tricky one, but when making any decision, large or small, the best anyone can hope to do is "what seemed the right thing to do at the time", even heads of state in a quandary. One could argue that it was braver to take the course that he did than some of the alternatives. We are still not in full possession of the reasoning behind the decision and even if we were, there would still be disagreement. I don't think we can predict the judgement of history at this stage as the ultimate outcome of his actions are still unknown and the outcome of taking no action will never be known. Give it another 50 to 100 years before finally making your mind up.
What gives very able barristers special rights of ultimate judgement?I also like the line "In this sense he was weak and, as we can see, he remains so". Few other than very able barristers can produce this sort of deceptively devastating put-down.
P.S. I still don't get this table thing.
Who said anything about judgment, ultimate or otherwise? I was talking about an ability to say something which doesn't sound too terrible until you look at carefully...
What do you do when you want to put text into columns and rows in a word processor? You insert a 'table'. You didn't think it was called that because it looks like something with four legs made of wood, did you?P.S. I still don't get this table thing.
I disagree. He should be able to provide better evidence for why he considered going to war to be the best option. "It seemed right" is hardly a watertight defence.
One could, but a stronger case could probably be made for him being George Bush's poodle and that the main (unspoken) reason behind the invasion of Iraq was oil. If "regime change" were enough of a justification, they would also have invaded Zimbabwe and North Korea.
Regime change is NOT REPEAT NOT a justification for invasion. According to the UN Charter you may not initiate a war against another country except in very restricted circumstances, and you have to get a UN Resolution for it. That's why there was so much guff about the Government's Law Officers giving their interpretation of whether the situation was sufficient to permit an invasion under the existing UN Resolution: Saddam's failure to comply with that Resolution (to allow WMD inspection, not to develop offensive weaponry, blah blah) was the excuse.
Otherwise everybody and his dog in Africa, the Far East, the Middle East and South America could pop into the country next door, install a puppet President, and milk the country dry.
It was just such an action by Saddam Hussein that brought about the UN Resolution which permitted the invasion of Iraq by coalition forces in the first Gulf War. (Who the hell knows what he was thinking..?)
'To effect regime change' is not permitted under the Charter nor was it encompassed within the existing Resolutions. If you do not care about the UN (as is the case with the US, which must curse the President who took them in - Truman?), then that's a different argument. But as it stands Tony Blair was looking for ways to justify an invasion under the existing Resolutions because everyone knew they would not get a new Resolution - not least because every other intelligence organisation was probably informing its government that the WMDs in 45 minutes claim was as big a lie as any in history.
That one phrase sums up my opposition to the invasion of Iraq. Right from the start of George Bush's Presidency, it appeared the Bush administration was looking for reasons to justify an invasion of Iraq (prior to 9/11 a number of senior administration people said this - including Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Rice). The entire structure of the rhetoric was, "we've made the decision to go to war. Our job now is to convince everyone else that it's necessary." The fact that the decision preceded the reasoning was the main warning sign for me.
That mode of decision making is fairly common - where you have a decision made, then work backwards to justify it - is very common. And, in this case, it was rather transparent. Its flaws are well known - mostly that facts and reasoning become subservient the predetermined outcome. Everything is interpreted as, "how does this strengthen our case?" rather than, "does this make our case?" that one would expect with rational decision making. Positive evidence is overstated. Ambiguous evidence is interpreted to support the case. Negative evidence is disregarded. The rhetoric was very strong, "you're with us or against us" implying that if you dared question the US's right to invade, you were anti-American.
And, it seems, a number of people have bought the story: hook, line and sinker.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Bookmarks