Putin is proving to be the “Hitler of the 21st century" says Leo Varadkar

[Thomas]

No I am not anti-British, I want my nation to be the best nation on earth and regret that it is not.

But as you clearly understand but the more usual suspects do not, criticism of our past wrongs does not make us unpatriotic, merely honest. All nations have to come to terems with the misdeeds of their pasts. The Germans could teach us a thing or two about that. Germans today are perfectly capable of being patriotic without feeling any need to justify or minimise the crimes of their past.

And yes, a post designed to spell out some of our past crimes and misdeeds is going to focus on the negative, The purpose of the post after all was to demonstrate that such negative events took place in the past, in a nation where many, including on this forum, wish to pretend it never happened or somehow want to condemn us as being unpatriotic for mentioning past misdeeds.

I don't know what they expected me to say. We brutally mutilated, beat to death, flogged to death, and burned alive prisoners in Kenya in the 1950s. But on the other Engand did win the World Cup in 1966?

Or maybe - we regularly blew political oppnents to bits in India by tying them to the front of cannons before firing them, but at least we gave them railways?

In a post designed to highlight our past misdeeds in the face of numerous denialists - the one you responded to demonstrates the need - such an approach would have been out of context and nonsensical.

I agree with streetwalker. You are anti british.  Im anti british. The difference between us is steve , i admit it , and want my country scotland out of your greater england mythical country that is nicknamed "britian".

For you to try and say with a straight face that you arent anti british after some of the shite you have posted on these forums in the past is laughable.

Not to mention those who follow your left wing ideology , and that party of yours that you flit in and out of love with , are also anti english/british.

Where to begin?

If you arent slagging off your fellow countrymen as racists , for merely questioning labours mass uncontrolled immigration or brexit , your former leader and your personal hero wurzel was on the side of every anti english/british group on the planet from the IRA to islamic militants.

We have  labours current leader , who would sell your country down the river to any old foreigner in brussells , to people like emily thornberry and her disgust at the english flag and white van man.

In scotland , labour were stabbing the scottish people in the back at every opportunity , in the 1979 referendum , and then the 2014 indy ref where you stood hand in glove with the tories.

You are the biggest denialist on here.......where you like to flag up easy and comfortable historical episodes with the typical tut tutting to virtue signal in front of folk like streetwalker , but conveniently ignore or hide from the traiterous betrayal by left wingers and your former party and how they have treated their own people historically.

I would rather face a million russian soldiers in front of me than have a brit left winger in the trench next to me.

[Sheepy]

Anyway, back to Putin.

Yes, he is a bad man and something of a despot. Yes he has launched a war of aggression. Yes some of his forces appear to have been complicit in war crimes.

We should of course oppose all that. But it is difficult to do so with any moral integrity if some of us continue to support the invasion of Iraq or are willing to try and justify our own past misdeeds.

We need to be consistent.

Consistent means we want regime change in Russia and will Goto any means to bring it about. They have already started; they're back turning on Boris as he is next, they did the same with Trump. Meanwhile in the US Biden is about as popular as a coal fired barbecue at a Greta party meeting.

[srb7677]

Anyway, back to Putin.

Yes, he is a bad man and something of a despot. Yes he has launched a war of aggression. Yes some of his forces appear to have been complicit in war crimes.

We should of course oppose all that. But it is difficult to do so with any moral integrity if some of us continue to support the invasion of Iraq or are willing to try and justify our own past misdeeds.

We need to be consistent.

[cromwell]

Mod Notice
Getting a bit heated and stuff being attributed to DD and SW they didn't say Steve,no country has a perfect history and blame lies in many places.

Anyway can we return to the here and now and Putin.
Thanks

[Streetwalker]

'Our adminstration '  was in the main Kenyans . After the Guvonor and Provincional administrators the Kenyans basically were in charge with regional then district commisioners  who couldnt opperate without the tribal leaders who were in charge of law and order . In fact the British government made it clear that Africans must be paramount in the running of Kenya , it was never turned into a full colony of the United Kingdom .

Kenya has a history of violence before during and after colonisation . Its ports were central to the east African slave trade . You need to read more about the backgrounds of these countries /regions before screaming British bad
Even today ,almost 60 years since independence the violence continues , but yes lets talk about the couple of years the UK sent troops there to try and stop the murders of inocent farmers .


Kenya's history of political violence: colonialism, vigilantes and militias (theconversation.com)

[Streetwalker]

Many historical truths were never tested in a court of law for the simple reason that most in the know who spilled the beans are now dead.

The evidence of abuse is nevertheless overwhelming.

And many are never tested in court because there is no evidence .  

No liability was ever admitted by the British government even though it states there were some misstreatment by the colonial administration . That would be Kenyans beating up Kenyans , different tribes having a row in Africa . Tell me something new . 

Its not a coincidence that the vast majority of the claims of colonial abuse took place as we were withdrawing and the countries in question were moving toward independence .  
We gave the colonies  democracy and law and order . Some of them unfortunately rejected one the other or both at the first opportunity .

[johnofgwent]

We live in an age now where several generations have not only not experienced conflict themselves, but also where most have not even been touched by it in other ways such as the loss, maiming or soul destruction of a family member or close friend. That is what really sets most people today apart from the generations that fought the global wars of the 20th century. Many people today have never even set foot in a British Legion. They have no idea what conflict actually means, no concept of what loss feels like. In this environment, its easy to look back at what happened (or what you are told has happened) and be critical that it doesn't meet todays high moral standards

On top of that, we live in an era where 24 hour news and media covers conflicts day and night, not always accurately and rarely for altruistic reasons. We've seen our own and our allies nations fight wars where we have all the advantages, air superiority, fire superiority, material and technological superiority, intelligence (not always) superiority, logistic superiority, and financial superiority. Under such circumstances, its also easy to have high expectations of our servicemen, to make high moral demands of them, and to bandy around comparisons from a "history" we never lived through and also don't really understand

Even when we have all these advantages, when they are diminished or stripped away, such as they were in savage insurgent fights like Afghanistan, when its man against man, reduced to a fight for survival and for the lives of our friends, we all become the same. When its become a down in the dirt fight in the corner of some field thousands of miles away, fighting someone elses moral crusades is the last thing on your mind. Sadly, thats the truth.

Yes. yes Fucking YES.

I've mentioned before how Hitler sent grandad several squadrons of Dorniers several buzz bombs and a V2 to SPECIFICALLY F@@@ him and his fellow boffins over.

I'm 64 and I have NO idea what that is like all I know is LARGE bits of CARDIFF where I grew up were the spitting image of Aleppo and Mariopol FIFTEEN YEARS after the bombs stopped because no fucker had the money to rebuild. Or they rebuilt industry and dock facilities round the carnage that had been and just left it where the area wasn't wanted. When they built Cardiff bay the first thing they had to do was send in the unexploded bomb squad.

My father was my grand daughters age when it was being done.

I've no fucking clue how he felt. But he did tell me he rather enjoyed his time looking after the bloodhounds protecting our air force in Cyprus during Suez. But he, like grandad, and like me in my turn in the 80s, we never had to actually DO any fighting. Grandad sat in a "radio factory" as Cummerbatch described it in The Imitation Game" but it wasn't THAT radio factory, dad sat on several airbases and I did pretty much the same. And the only time anyone shot at me, it was a yank doing so accidentally.

I say that to emphasise how I cannot myself start to understand what it must be like to have some bastard seeking to put rounds in you for real, but in reality I also know that coming under "friendly fire" is something I have in common with too many of our own who died in a war zone....  I'm my case it was at the edge of Salisbury Plain, not some foreign shithole.

[srb7677]

They are as guilty as Jimmy Saville, i.e. not guilty.

Trying to suggest that they are as innocent as Jimmy Saville is not the most persuasive argument I have ever heard from you,

[srb7677]

All of which were dissmissed in court due to other things lack of evidence . Alledged isnt fact

Kenyan "Mau Mau" claim dismissed: Fair trial not possible because of half century delay - UK Human Rights Blog

Many historical truths were never tested in a court of law for the simple reason that most in the know who spilled the beans are now dead.

The evidence of abuse is nevertheless overwhelming.

The UK government no less itself acknowledged that the abuses too place - after all Africans claiming to have been castrated can point to the fact that they have no dicks as evidence - and the government promised compensation.

Mau Mau torture victims to receive compensation - Hague - BBC News

[srb7677]

And off we go with the Nazi analogies and fascist accusations. This is the reason I stopped bothering with you, because its the same tedious shite, time after time

But I will say this for the record. I've "justified" nothing. I've made the argument that the Argentine warship the General Belgrano was a legitimate military target, something its very own captain at the time has agreed with, thats all. I haven't mentioned or referred any of the rest of the stuff (evidenced by a raft of left wing media publications I've just looked and seen) you are harping on about, let alone replied to your posts, so don't drag me into your Godwin arguments.

You've read a few history books about wars. Good for you. It doesn't make you judge and jury of peoples motives or give you the right to go throwing around nazi analogies yet again.

I will respond in whatever manner I wish to whomever I wish, as long as it is within forum rules. If you decide that you don't wish to "bother" with me by responding that's your call and no skin off my nose.

But the barbarities perpetrated in Kenya in the 1950s by us are a matter of record. Some of my links included actual admissions from some of the perpetrators. And frankly I don't care if you don't like it. We hung and vilified Nazis for similar crimes, and that's just a fact.

As far as the Belgrano goes, I did not respond to your points precisely because on that issue you made a good case and have a point so I wasn't going to argue with you about it.

[DeppityDawg]

Burning people alive, castrating them, beating them to death, flogging them to death did not meat the moral standards of our people at trhe time they were happening which is why it wass hushed up. And this was occurring a decade after we tried Germans for similar barbarities.

This is not something that happened centuries ago but within living memory.

It is truly sickening how so many will justify just about anything. It is such attitudes that the Nazis took advantage of in Germany.

And off we go with the Nazi analogies and fascist accusations. This is the reason I stopped bothering with you, because its the same tedious shite, time after time

But I will say this for the record. I've "justified" nothing. I've made the argument that the Argentine warship the General Belgrano was a legitimate military target, something its very own captain at the time has agreed with, thats all. I haven't mentioned or referred any of the rest of the stuff (evidenced by a raft of left wing media publications  I've just looked and seen) you are harping on about, let alone replied to your posts, so don't drag me into your Godwin arguments.

You've read a few history books about wars. Good for you. It doesn't make you judge and jury of peoples motives or give you the right to go throwing around nazi analogies yet again.

[cromwell]

Well, it would be, if they were, but they are clearly not. A criminal is a person who has been convicted of a criminal offence. None of the above have been convicted of a crime, and Cromwell is the first to say that people are innocent until proven guilty.
All the above are innocent men.
They are as guilty as Jimmy Saville, i.e. not guilty.

Very true but it doesn't alter my opinion of him Bush or Rasputin,the thing I find so despicable is we have him his erstwhile chancellor and another failed pm all advocating the court in the Hague whilst ignoring their own glaring criminal actions or their complicit actions.

[Sheepy]

Sometimes something takes you by surprise and does so in a good way
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2jX59BKHO0

Anyway, as usual you were told here first while the usual suspects were running around like headless chickens.

[Streetwalker]

British government 'hushed up' torture of Mau Mau rebels - BelfastTelegraph.co.uk

Cabinet 'hushed up' torture of Mau Mau rebels | The Independent | The Independent

Kenya torture settlement: the UK owes victims of imperial crimes far more than compensation | Ceasefire Magazine

Sins of colonialists lay concealed for decades in secret archive | National Archives | The Guardian

10 Evil Crimes Of The British Empire - Listverse

British Mau Mau abuse papers revealed - BBC News

All of which were dissmissed in court due to other things lack of evidence . Alledged isnt fact 

Kenyan "Mau Mau" claim dismissed: Fair trial not possible because of half century delay - UK Human Rights Blog

[Barry]

Well that's something Blair and Putin have in common, along with George W Bush

Well, it would be, if they were, but they are clearly not. A criminal is a person who has been convicted of a criminal offence. None of the above have been convicted of a crime, and Cromwell is the first to say that people are innocent until proven guilty.
All the above are innocent men.
They are as guilty as Jimmy Saville, i.e. not guilty.