trident

exactly..... the ELECTION OF A PARTY not the subservience to a bunch of self regarding experts.
Once you cede power to anyone unelected you are on the road to dictatorship

yeh. wot he sed.

thats a good fair point to be honest mate! but like i said they know better than i do

.

a large proportion of the governing body of the MOD are elected officials?

And it is these elected officials that tend to act on the advice of the non-elected generals and military analysts... It is also these elected officials that have access to the confidential information that issues of national defence can be acted on.

Unelected politicians lack the knowledge on which an opinion can be formed, they also tend to have their own political agenda's... National security should not be manipulated to suit popularity agenda's.

there is no 'governing body of the MoD'. there is the minister of defence and the defence committee of parliament. All the rest work for them.....the elected politicians.
there are no 'elected officials" there are no 'unelected politicians'.
there are elected politicians and unelected officals. thats it.
we elect them to carry out our wishes. At least that's the way it's supposed to work
parties have a manifesto which they publish and are supposed to stick to but for huge matters of public concern we the people have a right to decide what is done in our name.
It is facist in the true sense of the word to beleive that only the elite can make these decisions. We are not stupid children

Secretary of State for Defence
Minister of State Armed Forces
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence and
Minister for Defence Procurement
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence and Minister for Veterans

Are all Labour ministers.

The only senior unelected positions are the chiefs of defence staff (who tend to be generals) and the senior civil servants... The governing body of the MOD are labour.

I think thats what I was saying.
point is we have a right to debate this issue in parliament or else what is it for?

parliment is place for politics... national security is something few politicans have any education or information on.

the BBC's headline today is about Iran and North Korea's nuclear arsenals.

do you acctually beleve any of your own shit ???? not just last week the Al-Q were throwing threats at france the biggest opposers to the war's

and do you really think if the wars were ok by the UN that Al-Q would not still target the west ???

jihad is againt the western non belivers that includes UN officials

you recon??? how ?

this is the most stupidest thing i have heard you say so we just thought one day i know ! we'll start a war and wait to see who comes crawling out the wood work, C'mon your havin a bubble

the target IS THE WEST and it is well documented that we as THE WEST are targets just cos weponds cant reach here from there, dosn't mean that if they had them they wouldn't use them! , you KNOW that if they had the capability to strike the UK and EUROPE they fuckin would so why not stop them before they are capable ? like i said before if you were in a scrap in toon would you wait for the lad to pick up a broken bottle then try and take it off him or would you rather neutrilise the threat beforehand? i know what i would do ?

not 100% true, but the hasty knee-jerk reactions of western powers has inflated tensions and given rise to islamic fundamentalists to preach their views to a wider audience that are now more likely to sympathise. the new wave of terrorists will be from our own doing... many radical clerics were just that, radical. now their views are inspiring more hatred, because to a muslim it must look like the west is against them.

the "war on terror" is a western invention that has been convenient in so many ways whether you believe conspiracy theorists or not. the government has some very useful anti-terror laws that can be used and the pipeline accross afghanistan with oil from iraq is a nice little side effect for the west.

the war in afghanistan was a knee-jerk reaction to 9/11. and while i support the removal of the taliban and al-qaeda training camps, with hindsight the timing and role of the UN should have been considered more carefully. same with iraq, it was war based on lies... saddam was evil and persecuted many of his own people but had no means with which to attack us, as has been proved. if the war was fought as a liberation i would have been more in favour, but that would mean we would have to invade countless other rogue nations. both wars have created a stink and arguably led to an increase in terrorism and anti-western feelings amongst muslims.

firstly the russians were our enemies for decades and they DID have weapons that could reach us yet we never went to war... i have the ability to punch or stab someone yet that is no basis for an arrest just as having weapons is no basis for a war.

if you knew anything about the situation you would realise al-qaeda might not like britain, america etc, but they would have NO interest in attacking us in our own countries. al-qaeda (as bin laden has made clear several times) want the removal of foreign military personel and bases from holy soil, namely the american basis in saudi arabia (bin ladens homeland)... bin laden even offered america a truce if they would take their troops off muslim soil. if tomorrow the americans upped and left then by their own admission al-qaeda would have fulfilled their main goal.

the middle east is much more complex than a punch up in the bigg market and it is precisely why the west has to tread very carefully. i dont agree with certain parts of islamic teachings or certain laws but they dont agree with many of ours, and some of our foreign policies leave a lot to be desired and some are downright wrong. there are bridges to be built and it will take a long time but its worth persevering with peace, not war mongering. i've had enough of wars fought in my name.

Both are unstable nations that could easily witness a regime change, both nations are vociferously opposed to British values and both nations have a legacy of irratic actions.

I'm impressed that you can speak with such authority on how sensibly they'll use their nukes

Didn't the twin towers provoke the war on terror!?!?!?

But with the current global market this is impossible, England have troops in Germany but Germans aren't flying planes into Big Ben.

i'm not casting an opinion on whether bin laden is justified, if pushed i'm far more likely to lean away from his reasoning and certainly his actions. but i can see how he objects to foreign military on holy soil, land that is apparently sacred to a religion, i can get that...

im sure i would be aggreived if there was a presence i objected to on soil which i cherished (toon players at the riverside stadium anyone? ).

seriously though, surely the differences between germany and al-qaeda are massive. for one germany was a beaten western nation which did share many western ideals with britain despite ww2, there is little of the mistrust and hatred of ww2 left and both britain and germany have had very strong links, wars in the west are different to how we conducted ourselves for centuries in the middle east.

al-qaeda is a terrorist organisation that is not tied to one nation, islamic culture is vastly different to western culture and certain muslims object to our interference and/or presence. i dont see how comparisons (barring extremely generalised and vague ones)can be made regarding military bases on german and saudi soil when the two regions and mindsets differ significantly.