Remembrance Sunday again

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PedallingSquares
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Re: Remembrance Sunday again

Post by PedallingSquares »

rjb wrote: 13 Nov 2022, 12:28pm I was looking forward to a viewing of "All Quiet On The Western Front" but not broadcast this year in favour of War Horse. :(
I rode out to the 'War Horse' Memorial in Featherstone Saturday.Nothing to do with the film it's just a nice place to sit and think.The little tree garden with a tree for each of the 353 fallen is quite poignant.I knew there'd be a service yesterday hence me going Saturday.

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Biospace
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Re: Remembrance Sunday again

Post by Biospace »

ANTONISH wrote: 14 Nov 2022, 10:07am
One has to bear in mind where appeasement got us before WW2.
I don't think the appeasement of Putin was suggested, we're likely in this position because of his perception of the West as duplicitous, divided, over-woke and weak. The mis-management of the West's relationship with Russia since the USSR collapsed is without limit.

Some high level British retired military have been warning of just such a problem if we poked for long enough, hard enough. This isn't to excuse the Russian escalation of the war with Ukraine (which has been running since 2014) in any way at all, it's unfortunate we don't hold a higher moral authority when it comes to illegal invasions of sovereign territory.

All the while we've been doing nothing but appease China as we have allowed ourselves to be ever more dependent on it, through nothing but excess greed and laziness. The Chinese have been buying up strategic ports the world over (even within the Commonwealth) while torturing and abusing its own citizens as well of those of nations into which it has expanded. Construction of militaristic islands in the South China Sea and increasingly throwing its weight around rather ominously should be a high level warning to everyone.

Now Russia is pushed into China's orbit even more than before. Once the generation of politicians who lived through WW2 vanished (largely coinciding with the fall of the Soviet Empire), it didn't take long for huge mistakes to be made. Cameron and Osborne were perfect examples, though of far less significance than the Blair administration.

It is all deeply depressing to see innocent men, women and children being culled in Europe once again as a direct result of politicians' mistakes, all the more so in that it provides a distraction for the actions of the real expansionist world power.
mattheus
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Re: Remembrance Sunday again

Post by mattheus »

Biospace wrote: 14 Nov 2022, 2:52pm
ANTONISH wrote: 14 Nov 2022, 10:07am
One has to bear in mind where appeasement got us before WW2.
I don't think the appeasement of Putin was suggested, we're likely in this position because of his perception of the West as duplicitous, divided, over-woke and weak.
"this position" - do you mean the land war in Ukraine? I'd say that is mainly due to a powerful world leader deciding to invade a neighbour.

I'm not disputing your other analysis, nor am I saying that other governments are all angels, but ... well the situation seems simple to me.

I think most people attending Sunday's ceremonies, then reading about Ukraine will think similar thoughts. There will no doubt be further conflicts in my lifetime, and I will be writing similar things about other world leaders.

:- (
Biospace
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Re: Remembrance Sunday again

Post by Biospace »

mattheus wrote: 14 Nov 2022, 3:24pm
Biospace wrote: 14 Nov 2022, 2:52pm
ANTONISH wrote: 14 Nov 2022, 10:07am
One has to bear in mind where appeasement got us before WW2.
I don't think the appeasement of Putin was suggested, we're likely in this position because of his perception of the West as duplicitous, divided, over-woke and weak.
"this position" - do you mean the land war in Ukraine? I'd say that is mainly due to a powerful world leader deciding to invade a neighbour.

I'm not disputing your other analysis, nor am I saying that other governments are all angels, but ... well the situation seems simple to me.

I think most people attending Sunday's ceremonies, then reading about Ukraine will think similar thoughts. There will no doubt be further conflicts in my lifetime, and I will be writing similar things about other world leaders.

:- (
Yes, Putin's war with Ukraine, clearly because Putin decided to invade a neighbour.

This was only a surprise in that there hasn't been war involving large and powerful nations in Europe for so many decades, Putin had spoken about how Russia would perceive an expansionist NATO as a threat to Russia many times. We continued NATO's expansion regardless, apparently insensitive to Russia's concerns.

In supporting Ukraine (quite rightly, imo), we've involved ourselves in this war to a high degree without pressing for continued peace talks.

I'm extremely uneasy that the whole of the West is being drawn into something few are aware of.
Tangled Metal
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Re: Remembrance Sunday again

Post by Tangled Metal »

Out of curiosity, do you think Russia should have a veto on sovereign decisions of other countries? I don't doubt the consequences of sovereign nations deciding to and being accepted into NATO are as you claim, but does that mean nato and sovereign countries aspiring to nato should concede to Russia?

Concede or appease? What is the difference ultimately?
jimlews
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Re: Remembrance Sunday again

Post by jimlews »

Some random thoughts.
I think it is right to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom.
I am less comfortable with all the military paraphernalia that surrounds it.
I have some sympathy for the white poppy.
But it is difficult to be a pacifist with people like Putin in positions of power.

**Ukraine is the only country in the world to have given up it's nuclear deterrent.
I wonder if Putin would have attacked if Ukraine still had that deterrent.

I quite like the formulation "Speak softly but carry a big stick".

The notion that there should be negotiation to end the invasion of Ukraine is, in my opinion, based on an erroneous premise.
Namely that it is possible to have fruitful negotiation with an unreasonable aggressor.
Putin is not a reasonable man. He has a Stalinist mindset and Stalin's answer to any problem was murder.

**INCORRECT.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum
Last edited by jimlews on 15 Nov 2022, 8:29pm, edited 1 time in total.
reohn2
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Re: Remembrance Sunday again

Post by reohn2 »

jimlews wrote: 15 Nov 2022, 5:03pm Some random thoughts.
I think it is right to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom.
I am less comfortable with all the military paraphernalia that surrounds it.
I have some sympathy for the white poppy.
But it is difficult to be a pacifist with people like Putin in positions of power.
Ukraine is the only country in the world to have given up it's nuclear deterrent. I wonder if Putin would have attacked
if Ukraine still had that deterrent.

I quite like the formulation "Speak softly but carry a big stick".

The notion that there should be negotiation to end the invasion of Ukraine is, in my opinion, based on an erroneous premise.
Namely that it is possible to have fruitful negotiation with an unreasonable aggressor.
Putin is not a reasonable man. He has a Stalinist mindset and Stalin's answer to any problem was murder.
+1 and the only way to deal with a bully,in this case a murderous one on huge scale,is to face him down and squash him as Hitler and the Nazis were squashed in WW2.
And the big nuclear stick unfortunately has to be carried with people with the likes of him and whilst others like him in power around the world.
I didn't used to think so but have changed my mind on the issue.

BTW I read today that our own PM's wife has £490 million of business interests in Russia!
-----------------------------------------------------------
"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
Mike Sales
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Re: Remembrance Sunday again

Post by Mike Sales »

jimlews wrote: 15 Nov 2022, 5:03pm
Ukraine is the only country in the world to have given up it's nuclear deterrent.
Up to a point.
The Libyan disarmament issue was peacefully resolved in December 2003 when Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi agreed to eliminate his country's weapons of mass destruction program, including a decades-old nuclear weapons program.[1] Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Libya's nuclear program was "in the very initial stages of development" at the time.[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disarmament_of_Libya
From the 1960s to the 1990s, South Africa pursued research into weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear,[2] biological, and chemical weapons under the apartheid government. Six nuclear weapons were assembled.[3] South African strategy was, if political and military instability in Southern Africa became unmanageable, to conduct a nuclear weapon test in a location such as the Kalahari desert, where an underground testing site had been prepared, to demonstrate its capability and resolve—and thereby highlight the peril of intensified conflict in the region—and then invite a larger power such as the United States to intervene.[4]
Before the anticipated changeover to a majority-elected African National Congress–led government in the 1990s, the South African government dismantled all of its nuclear weapons, the first state in the world which voluntarily gave up all nuclear arms it had developed itself. The country has been a signatory of the Biological Weapons Convention since 1975, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons since 1991, and the Chemical Weapons Convention since 1995. In February 2019, South Africa ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, becoming the first country to have had nuclear weapons, disarmed them and gone on to sign the treaty.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Afr ... estruction
It's the same the whole world over
It's the poor what gets the blame
It's the rich what gets the pleasure
Isn't it a blooming shame?
mattheus
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Re: Remembrance Sunday again

Post by mattheus »

If I may briefly return to Remembrance Sunday:

https://twitter.com/MascotSilence/statu ... 2LjbBHasQA
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Mick F
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Re: Remembrance Sunday again

Post by Mick F »

Thank you.
Mick F. Cornwall
Tangled Metal
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Re: Remembrance Sunday again

Post by Tangled Metal »

Technically wasn't Ukrainian held nuclear weapons soviet weapons? As such they gave up or rather wasn't it dismantled soviet nuclear weapons and handed over the material to Russia to deal with in a security pact? A fine distinction but still slightly different to Ukraine giving up a Ukrainian nuclear weapon capability.
Tangled Metal
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Re: Remembrance Sunday again

Post by Tangled Metal »

Has anyone else gone to a remembrance event in an out of the way place like great gable in the lakes? There must be other places like that with a memorial connection. Iirc there's a peak in the mouth of borrowdale that's actually a quarry/mine with a memorial on top in remembrance of those week died in the Great War.

I only ask because when I did the great gable remembrance day it felt really special due to the early start and greater effort to be there. Plus the effort staying warm on top until after it. Hard to judge your time perfectly so you need to arrive earlier to be sure. I'm not really into remembrance but it felt right up there. Would be nice to find other, similar remembrance events / locations and make the effort one year to be there too.
Biospace
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Re: Remembrance Sunday again

Post by Biospace »

Tangled Metal wrote: 15 Nov 2022, 10:20am Out of curiosity, do you think Russia should have a veto on sovereign decisions of other countries? I don't doubt the consequences of sovereign nations deciding to and being accepted into NATO are as you claim, but does that mean nato and sovereign countries aspiring to nato should concede to Russia?

Concede or appease? What is the difference ultimately?

This question very neatly highlights the delicacy and value of cultivating international relations, diplomacy and negotiation.

It's the old question of how do you deal with an awkward, belligerent neighbour. We made a mess of relations with Russia and now find ourselves in a situation where there's little option other than to use force, repeatedly, until Putin realises we're serious.

I sense there are plenty who see the shifting sands of power and influence and are more than happy to see Europe drawn into a conflict.
Tangled Metal
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Re: Remembrance Sunday again

Post by Tangled Metal »

I worked for a company that supplied product into Russia when relations were good under Gorbachev and later Yeltsin I think. A highly bureaucratic country to do business with. A £10-12k order took a contract document 50 odd pages long, everyone had to be signed by a company representative that had registered with the Russian/ UK chamber of commerce or something like that. Every page initialled, signatures needed at key sections and had to be couriered to the Russian customer for signing. Then one fully signed back to us, another to them, another to the chamber of commerce I think and a 4th one. All documentation needed certifying by the Russian/uk chamber of commerce and 4 copies or more of everything. We never dealt with Russian companies again.

That is Russia I reckon, a control to the nth degree even in times of relative cooperation. I very much doubt the West and Russia could ever have kept the cooperation going. There's simply too much of a difference between Russia and western nations. That's my gut feeling. No idea if I'm right and we'll never know if we could have stopped things getting this bad.

However it's where we are and what we have to deal with. The question remains do you concede to Russian demands / appease Putin? What options do we have other than help contain in the hope of a future Glasnost?
ossie
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Re: Remembrance Sunday again

Post by ossie »

Back on topic per chance

My wife has two relatives on our local monument. Her grandmothers brothers. Both ex RN.

I knew her well. I couldn't imagine the hurt she went through, absolutely beyond belief.
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