I doubt very much whether there is a real me any more. HMRC have sucked everything else out of me over the years; I assume they own my id and my soul as well.
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The word is pretty meaningless and contradictory, it has to be said. Many 'liberals' are profoundly socially illiberal, while some conservatives are for social freedom. Market liberalism, social liberalism, neo-liberalism, it's all rather confusing.
Perhaps the only real conservative here is redg imo. Proper old-school family values and all that.
I was actually talking about the jihadis than the Sauds, but anyway, we'll see about the Clown Prince Mohammad bin Salman's reforms. Maybe the night of the long knives is just a mass-pruning exercise while grabbing their wealth to pay the state bills accrued from the low oil price. 300 arrests so far.
Meanwhile he effectively kidnapped the Lebanese PM Hariri, which has managed to unite Hariri's own party with the Hezbies, rather than forcing them against Hezbollah, and even the Yanks are saying that there should be no conflict in Lebanon (not that I believe them). As with his move against Qatar, it has so far had the opposite effect than intended. His attack on Yemen has bogged down, and his attempts to use ISIS and AQ to defeat the Syrian goverment and install a Sunni State between Iran and Israel has failed. Everywhere Iran has increased its influence.
And this bloke could be about to be king for the next 50 years. :hehe:
:-|
I;d bang it
a, you persistently underestimate the capabilities of what is - whether you like it or not - the greatest war machine this planet has ever seen.
If you seriously think Iranian air defences are a match for US military capability, you’re sadly mistaken. The only limiting factor on American military might is America itself.
be cool Berni, bueno here, hi ;-)
nic
e evening etc...
im not a williams , honestQ!
I'm not saying they are a match. They might make enough difference though for that contradiction you refer to to come into play. It won't be as easy as Iraq. And consider that under a Republican leadership, especially this bloke, opposition gets to express itself in a way that doesn't happen under Democrat presidents, who get a free pass in war from what passes for the 'left' in US and European politics.
I am genuinely intrigued as to which country Iran would be invaded from though. Afghanistan? Watch yer back, guys. Iraq? they are Iran's ally now, thanks to 2003. Pakistan? yeah, right. Turkey? Can't see it. Azerbaijan perhaps.
I was a boy living in Berlin, I met a soldier who described to me and a friend how he and his oppo were caught by a sniper in Belfast. He painted a terrifying picture of seeing the whole of his partner's shoulder explode like JFK's head in the Zapruder movie.
They were effectively pinned down with his partner crying and asking for his mother, and were both afraid of the very real prospect of being sniffed out and finished off by the sniper's people.
They were quickly rescued by an armoured vehicle and so lived to tell the tale. And the tale, by the way, was told not with any sense of derring-do or bombast, but with humility. The fella was impressing on us that combat was a deeply unpleasant business and he had been through three minutes of bleak, mortal terror before escaping .