When do we get to vote for or against war ?

[Bing'o'Merry]

Seems relevant...

 

[kimba]

Yes! A large percentage are too dumb to be allowed to vote on a matter of foreign policy and going to war is an act of foreign policy.

 

I can see it now: Flash back to the mid 90s

 

Mr Higgins. Should we go to war against the Serbian nationalists?

 

Eh! What?

 

I said should we go to war against the Serbian nationalists?

 

Dunno mate. What they been up to anyway?

 

There are reports of Bosnians being murdered and villages destroyed by groups of Serbian nationalists. The UN have declared it genocide. Didnt you see the news about it yesterday? It was on all the channels. The EU held a special meeting on the situation yesterday morning.

 

Cor ! didnt know anything about thaaaa''at.

 

Dont you follow the news?

 

Well yers sometimes. I heard Barcelona lost to Manchester two days ago

 

But as a voter Mr Higgins do you think we should go to war against the Serbian nationalists?

 

Blimey! That's a tough question. Let me talk to the missus on that one. She watches the BBC News once or twice a week :D

 

 

War is not all about making money and arms dealers. There are far more issues involved when deciding to send troops to a war. Unless you are a leading authority on global affairs and an expert on foreigh policy and diplomatic manoeuvring your best bet is to stick to the domestic bread and butter issues when voting and keep your nose out of things you dont even have a half assed idea about and let the officials you elected take care of foreign policy

So going to war would rely on this mr Higgins bloke then would it ?

[Arguendo]

Seems relevant...

 

 

I like it, but it'll never happen, the level & type of democracy will always be controlled or manipulated by the wealthy elite.

[Arguendo]

So going to war would rely on this mr Higgins bloke then would it ?

 

It seems HM’s somewhat, offensive & patronising perception of the British is that we’re far too dumb to understand anything other than the sports pages of the mirror, never mind deciding on important issues, such as; should we engage in a conflict with another country. He wonders why people become somewhat anti-American, well with an attitude such as what’s gathered from his posts towards the British, makes you wonder doesn’t it. All his post give the impression that he prefers a dictatorship, when important issues such as war/conflict is to be decided on.

[kimba]

We have been at the forefront of democracy in the world and given the advancement of technology now there is no reason why its not due another evolution to give a truer form of democracy that could never have been perceived way back when.

 

Given that bush got in by fiddling the votes I don't doubt any american would be skeptical about democracy and understand what its truly about.

 

No disrespect to the yank but we are not as stupid as he would make us out and I ask that we not be judged on the standard of intelligence of the average American

[Rupert_Baehr]

So you saying majority of population too dumb to decide on the fine details about war or no war ?

 

...

 

Pretty much. I wouldn't trust the average member of the public with a toilet roll ... even if I had two.

 

I would...

 

And this is exactly why. No decision should be made based on whether you think people are being used as soldiers or cannon fodder.

 

Decisions like "do we go to war?" or "do we cut this much appreciated service in order to afford this more beneficial but unliked service?" need to be made based entirely on the facts and logic, not emotions, and unfortunately, a large proportion of the population (including the "elite") don't know how to tell the difference between the two, and allow their opinions to be manipulated based on those emotions.

 

I agree with your suggestion that such decisions should be made based entirely on the facts, but history suggests that that is not always the case. - Or if the decisions were based on the 'facts' then those facts were assumptions.- Not facts. Politicians (in the UK and in many other countries) have made the wrong decision many times.

 

We need to keep out of all wars, until we are willing to fight wars as the given enemy fight them.

 

That way we would really only fight a war if we had no other choice.

 

If you're fighting a declared war against a country, you can do that. - for instance, the Germans had nerve agents (Sarin and Tabun or their pre-cursors) during WWll. Had they used those weapons against the UK, they could have brought the country to its knees in a very short time. They did not do so and that may well have been because they thought the UK had even more sophisticated agents. Sometimes you just get lucky.

 

Right so we are too dumb to vote for or against war but are allowed to choose which party is allowed lead us?

 

How do you fight a 'conventional' war against an enemy without a country?

 

When I was first appointed, I was instructed to comply with 'The Rules and Articles of War' (There were books ...but they weren't comprehensive. There was also Case Law - but nobody takes Law books into a fight.)

 

It is possible to destroy an enemy. That's called genocide and it is both an infringement of the 'Rules and Articles' and an outrage. A crime against humanity.

 

If war was given the vote I would bet it would get the no vote 9 out of 10 times , war never benefits the general population ( unless of coarse you have shares in haliburton which will then see a 500 fold increase )

 

Only 9 times out of 10? - nearer 999 times out of 1000, I suggest. When did the common man ever elect to go to war? - About the same time that Turkeys voted for Christmas - andfor much the same reasons.

 

War may not be given the vote however it is the population which after fierse protest may see a end to a conflict as was the case with Nam .

 

I gather you're not a student of Carl von Clausewitz and you may not be entirely familiar with 20th Century history. The war in Vietnam was not brought to a close by 'protests'. - The Americans were forced to withdraw (admit defeat) because although their forces had both the firepower and the willpower to end it, their politicians declined to allow them to do so.

 

Democracy is a sham, as you have no real say or control over what the voted can or cannot do. War is a practice that is never that straightforward, as Iraq and recently Libya show. Both we were told, were to help the people from a tyranny, but the reality was that we were the real tyrants. In Iraq 1.5 million dead and rising, the country in ruins, the infrastructure ruined, but now with the right sort of democracy, a puppet government, dancing to western corporate interests.

 

What has 'Democracy' got to do with anything? The United Kingdom has a Democratic Election Process. One man, one vote (unless, of curse, you can load the system and obtain 30 postal votes for a 2 bedroomed flat ... and since there are no ID cards and no fraud-proof means of detecting imaginary voters, you can probably do that.)

 

You vote. You get to choose whichever candidate the party tells you to vote for. In some parts of the ountry, choosing between parties is a joke.

 

You do not live in a democracy.

 

Libya was in better shape, free education, $1000 a month to adults, and the greening of the deserts through aquifers rebuilt and modified, as well as a heath service. So we have bombed all of that to pieces, just like Iraq, so they will be forced borrow from the IMF (western banks) and we get oil deals on the cheap. The Un regarded Gaddafi as a benevolent despot and a model in his class.

 

Political Chess Snap playing? (our politicians aren't smart enough to play Chess.) We (the Brits) don't like Gaddhaffi. He funded the IRA (proven fact) and he was probably behind the Lockerbie disaster. It's 'get even' time.

 

Is that smart? (don't ask me - I'm not a diplomat, I'm [retired] military.)(Actually, I don't think it is smart - but that's my personal opinion.)

 

 

So there are Just wars, but mainly just for our corporate interests, as we do not in practice give a sod about the populations involved, so stop pretending we are actually helping anyone but our on corporate and to a lesser degree these days strategic interests.

 

Who does Libya and Iran sell their oil to....China. A bad move, as we want to grind China down, what real democracy, actually likes practicing free market economics, when its all normally cartel controlled by western corporate interests.

 

We probably agree here. IMO, there is no such thing as a 'Just' war. All wars are just wars and the losers are the common people.

 

Why on earth would we want to grind China down? What has China done to you? (Apart from providing you with cheap consumer goods.)

 

The Chinese understand war. So they don't fight military war. - They use economic forces to further their interests. Economic forces which are readily accepted - indeed welcomed - by the 'other side' (us.)

 

...So pretend all you like, the reality is not democracy in practice, but an ideal we worship instead, as who likes real competition when the resources of the world have been regulated by a cartel who can fix prices to what they like. What do you think inflation is all about????????

 

I gather you didn't read economics, either. Inflation is too much money (or in the case of the UK) too much credit) chasing too few goods.

 

In global markets, it can be too many people chasing too few goods. - And the major factor there is food, closely followed by oil.

[thompsonbass]

Unfortunately people don't turn out to elections and referendums like they should. It's not so much that people don't care, but they're not really encouraged to care all that much.. voting, especially with our out-dated first-past-the-post that many people were conned into saving earlier this year, doesn't really make people feel like they're making a difference anymore..

[Rupert_Baehr]

Not a war; UK did not 'go to war'.

HM The Queen is the only person who, as Head of State, is legally competent to declare war.

 

You do surprise me.

 

Surely it's 'The Queen in Parliament' who can declare war?

 

(It's a while since I studied Constitutional Law, but I was not aware that the country had reverted to being an absolute Monarchy.)

 

Neville Chamberlain declared war in 1939. That was his right.

 

When did the Monarch re-gain the right?

[Bing'o'Merry]

I agree with your suggestion that such decisions should be made based entirely on the facts,

 

There are lots of facts like "innocent people will get hurt" and "this war will be very expensive." Different people give different values to different facts. What matters is that a majority view decides. The people who make the pro-war argument carry the burden of proving the case for war to the rest of us. The "fact" of the matter may be irrelevant in the context. If we had to vote on it every time it would be nearly impossible for elites to take us to war because the facts against will nearly always outweigh the facts supporting a war.

 

but history suggests that that is not always the case. - Or if the decisions were based on the 'facts' then those facts were assumptions.- Not facts. Politicians (in the UK and in many other countries) have made the wrong decision many times.

 

Wrong for who? They may often seem like "stupid" or "harmful" decisions or policies but we should look first at who benefits each time. 99 times out of 100 it's the same old wealthy elite. People are so quick to point out how "stupid" and "wrong" our bumbling leaders are whilst they are properly screwing us up one side and down the other. As if they just accidently invaded a load of countries that happen to have oil and just are accidently stealing our pensions and making our paper money worthless. Each time the policy seems stupid until you spot that the same group of wealthy elites benefits each time. These policies are far from wrong if you happen to be one of those guys.

 

We should stop focusing on how "stupid" they all are and start focusing on how ruthless and vicious and uncompromising they are.

 

 

If you're fighting a declared war against a country, you can do that.

 

So you buy in to the propaganda that you can fight a war against "terrorism?" A strangely undefined concept with an elusive enemy that so neatly replaced the Russians and can encompass all manner of sins from freedom fighters to political dissidents. Who are the terrorists exactly? Who gets to say? I say that term is being expanded every day as fast as the police state all around us.

 

How do you fight a 'conventional' war against an enemy without a country?

 

You don't, investigating and preventing terrorism is called "police work" and it has nothing to do with MI5 or the Army. A "war on terrorism" is just an open ended excuse to bomb third world countries and clamp down on political dissidents. If you want to stop terrorism, here's what our government should do....stop funding it, stop participating in it, investigate the CRIME SCENE and follow CLUES as to who did it and who their accomplices are, hold those guys accountable and start listening to/addressing the grievances that give the terrorists their support base

 

There. There's four practical things that we could do right now to stop terrorism without inventing the mythical ability to declare war on a concept instead of a nation state and all the resulting rewriting of our laws that this seems to entail.

 

Only 9 times out of 10? - nearer 999 times out of 1000, I suggest. When did the common man ever elect to go to war? - About the same time that Turkeys voted for Christmas - and for much the same reasons.

 

Now we are getting to the real crux of the matter. when we pose the question "When do we get to vote for or against war?" The answer is never and the reason is above The common man never wants it. War doesn’t benefit us and we would never vote for it, only with a massive disinformation campaign can a government get us to unwillilingly and tentatively support it.

 

It only benefits those wealthy elites in power. That's why humanity can't seem to rid itself of war even though everyone you talk to on the street despises war. They use false flag terrorism, lies, media deception to convince YOU to go along with it. You will never be allowed a vote on it unless everybody has been sufficiently brainwashed to vote yes.

 

The war in Vietnam was not brought to a close by 'protests'. - The Americans were forced to withdraw (admit defeat) because although their forces had both the firepower and the willpower to end it, their politicians declined to allow them to do so.

 

It is impossible to say to what extent politicians were influenced by domestic unrest. It is certainly true that opposition to the war will have restrained the actions of the more bloodthirsty warmongers in the Whitehouse. Eventually the united states pulled out of the conflict and the peace movement can be proud of the victory that they achieved.

 

What has 'Democracy' got to do with anything?

 

The question was "When do we get to VOTE for or against war?"

 

The United Kingdom has a Democratic Election Process. One man, one vote

 

I would consider the electoral process in the UK democratic if it had a DEMOCRATIC OUTPUT. Almost no-one I know wanted to go to war against Libya, no-one wanted to be blackmailed in to giving billions to the banks, no-one wants pensions robbed or education to be cut. No-one wants the 90 day detention law or ID cards. ....

 

... and since there are no ID cards and no fraud-proof means of detecting imaginary voters, you can probably do that.)

 

Oh wait yes some people do think we should have ID cards, People who WANT a police state. You find a lot of those types in the army or police force. There in a minority, but I wouldn't put it past them to rig an election or two.

 

Political Chess Snap playing? (our politicians aren't smart enough to play Chess.)

 

OH YES THEY ARE! Just because you don't know what they're doing doesn't mean they don't know what they're doing. Or have you figured it all out by yourself because you're so smart and they're so stupid?

 

We (the Brits) don't like Gaddafi. He funded the IRA (proven fact) and he was probably behind the Lockerbie disaster. It's 'get even' time.

 

I doubt David Cameron’s only motives are "get even." I think that this war has everything to do with political chess playing by the super elite and not petty revenge. They've never liked Gaddafi's nationalism or refusal to go along with western corporate interests, they've been trying to remove him from power for years. I think there is a multitude of other issues too including the timing of the Arab spring, a real attempt to isolate China, Oil and maybe you’re right even a certain amount of machismo too though I think the most likely reason David took us to war was because he was ordered to by his masters.

 

I very much doubt it had anything to do with protecting civilians either. That was the made up P.R. reason they had to give US so that WE would go along with THEIR GREEDY WAR.

 

Why on earth would we want to grind China down? What has China done to you? (Apart from providing you with cheap consumer goods.)

 

Read the PNAC document rebuilding America’s defences. http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf According to these guys (who also presided over the U.S. foreign policy during the last administration) the United States should use it's overwhelming military might to impose an American style solution on the world (I’m paraphrasing, but not by much!). They also say That the united states should prevent any other regional power from becoming a superpower and competing with the U.S. That's a reason why powerful elites would want to grind down China, the one they've given us.

 

I gather you didn't read economics, either. Inflation is too much money (or in the case of the UK) too much credit) chasing too few goods.

 

In global markets, it can be too many people chasing too few goods. - And the major factor there is food, closely followed by oil.

 

It was firmly established by antifascist in this thread http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=824560&page=2 that you clearly don't know the first thing about economics Rupert_Baehr. You should stop lambasting other people for not reading things that you yourself haven’t read.

[Rupert_Baehr]

I wonder why you are so distrustful of your fellow man.

 

Because I've been around him for 60- odd years.

 

I was (I have to admit) born at night ... but it wasn't last night.

 

 

 

It was firmly established by antifascist in this thread http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=824560&page=2 that you clearly don't know the first thing about economics Rupert_Baehr. You should stop lambasting other people for not reading things that you yourself haven’t read.

 

No it was not. it was alleged - and the allegations were unsupported.

 

If you wish to support antifascist's allegations -feel free!

 

But be prepared to defend your stance! (And any academic reputation you may have.)