snowychap Posted November 20, 2018 Share Posted November 20, 2018 23 minutes ago, peterms said: Machiavelli would have approved. Arguable, no? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted November 20, 2018 Share Posted November 20, 2018 5 minutes ago, snowychap said: Arguable, no? Do you know the essay by Conor Cruise O'Brien, "The Block and the Bloody Knife"? It's a discussion of a similar incident, and Machiavelli's views on it. Worth a read. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted November 20, 2018 Share Posted November 20, 2018 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted November 20, 2018 Share Posted November 20, 2018 2 minutes ago, peterms said: Do you know the essay by Conor Cruise O'Brien, "The Block and the Bloody Knife"? It's a discussion of a similar incident, and Machiavelli's views on it. Worth a read. No. The name of the chap rings a bell, though. I'll have a look. I think the problem is with the 'levels of moral depravity'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted November 20, 2018 Share Posted November 20, 2018 1 minute ago, snowychap said: I'll have a look. @peterms any kind of a link? Had a look and struggling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted November 20, 2018 Share Posted November 20, 2018 1 minute ago, snowychap said: @peterms any kind of a link? Had a look and struggling. It's a very old essay, ie pre-internet, and I don't see a link. Basically, Machiavelli wrote approvingly of a local warlord who oppressed the people, became aware opposition was increasing, and decided to kill the captain whi had been in charge of the oppression. People came out of their houses in the morning to find the decapitated corpse of the captain, hence the title. The ruler got to keep the gains made through vicious repression, and also got the moral credit for disposing of the person who had been labelled as the perpertrator, though he was only ever the agent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted November 20, 2018 Share Posted November 20, 2018 4 minutes ago, peterms said: It's a very old essay, ie pre-internet, and I don't see a link. Basically, Machiavelli wrote approvingly of a local warlord who oppressed the people, became aware opposition was increasing, and decided to kill the captain whi had been in charge of the oppression. People came out of their houses in the morning to find the decapitated corpse of the captain, hence the title. The ruler got to keep the gains made through vicious repression, and also got the moral credit for disposing of the person who had been labelled as the perpertrator, though he was only ever the agent. Ah, no probs. Obviously get the parallels though it's not easy to accept an interpretation when you can't read it or what led to make it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted November 20, 2018 Share Posted November 20, 2018 2 minutes ago, snowychap said: Ah, no probs. Obviously get the parallels though it's not easy to accept an interpretation when you can't read it or what led to make it. Yes. If you ever happen to come across it, it's worth the few minutes it takes to read it. But you'd probably have to be consciously looking for it... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villakram Posted November 20, 2018 Share Posted November 20, 2018 Well Trump has just come out and said that the oil price would go to shit if the US did anything against SA. Say what you will, but there's something refreshing about blunt force truth from a politico! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted November 20, 2018 Share Posted November 20, 2018 11 minutes ago, villakram said: Well Trump has just come out and said that the oil price would go to shit if the US did anything against SA. Say what you will, but there's something refreshing about blunt force truth from a politico! No there isn't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted November 20, 2018 Share Posted November 20, 2018 Still: Yemen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutByEaster? Posted November 20, 2018 Moderator Share Posted November 20, 2018 Trump laying out that the decision on whether you're the good guys or whether you're the bad guys is not, and maybe never has been dependent on your actions, only on your contribution to corporate America. Liberty, democracy, morality be damned - it's a nation of dollars. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sne Posted November 21, 2018 Share Posted November 21, 2018 19 hours ago, snowychap said: Still: Yemen. Yemen peace summit to be held in Sweden according to US Defense Minister Jim Mattis. Ooooh! I got a warm, tingling feeling that Mohammad Bin Salman is being groomed for a Nobel Peace Price Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villakram Posted November 22, 2018 Share Posted November 22, 2018 On 21/11/2018 at 12:46, sne said: Yemen peace summit to be held in Sweden according to US Defense Minister Jim Mattis. Ooooh! I got a warm, tingling feeling that Mohammad Bin Salman is being groomed for a Nobel Peace Price That has you lot marked for some terrorist fun and games... Al Qaeda, ISIS or whatever it is the CIA calls them nowadays. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted November 22, 2018 Share Posted November 22, 2018 9 minutes ago, villakram said: That has you lot marked for some terrorist fun and games... Al Qaeda, ISIS or whatever it is the CIA calls them nowadays. Depends where they are. If in Syria, they are called "rebels", though "agents of US policy hailing from many countries and recipients of plentiful US arms and supplies" would be a more honest description. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted November 30, 2018 Share Posted November 30, 2018 This is beyond pathetic. It's humilating. Our PM, having retreated from a position of global influence into a wound-licking crouch in a quiet backwater, purports to wield the influence of days gone by. Really, encouraging the obvious and only suspect for the murder to co-operate with the investigation, failing to call him out or take any effective action, seeking positive headlines without doing anything that might get in the way of arms dealers making money, is entirely the kind of thing that creates cynicism with politicians. It is evident to everyone that she has no sway in this matter, doesn't want to do anything to jeopardise arms sales, but want brownie points for supposedly defending human rights, so she comes out with this pathetic form of words, while all the time signalling to Mr Bone Saw that it's just a gesture. Pass the sick bucket. Quote Theresa May declined to discuss trade with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, when the pair met face-to-face at the G20 summit, raising instead the conflict in Yemen and the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. May’s spokesman said that she stressed the need for Saudi Arabia to “take action to build confidence that such a deplorable incident could not happen again” when speaking about the murder of the journalist at the Saudi embassy in Turkey. May had to navigate a diplomatic minefield at their first meeting since the growing toll of the war in Yemen and the murder of the Washington Post columnist in Istanbul led to a deterioration in UK-Saudi relations. It was Downing Street’s intention for the meeting to focus entirely on these issues, rather than trade, a senior UK official said. That was a mark of how seriously May was treating the issues of the Yemen war and the Khashoggi killing, given how the British government has been prioritising a post-Brexit trade offensive. May has publicly expressed no opinion on the crown prince’s prior knowledge of Khashoggi’s killing and a UK government official suggested she would not directly confront that aspect of his death, though she impressed upon the crown prince the need to identify the individuals responsible for all stages leading up to the killing. “She encouraged the crown prince to ensure that Saudi Arabia cooperated fully with the Turkish authorities and worked to bring both [the Turkish and Saudi] investigations to an acceptable close,” said her spokesman. “To ensure full accountability, there needed to be full transparency about exactly what had happened and who was responsible.” Ahead of her meeting with the crown prince in Buenos Aires on Friday, May described Khashoggi’s murder as “terrible” and said the international community would scrutinise the Saudi investigation to ensure it was credible and transparent. “I am going to speak to the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, but it is the relationship we have with Saudi Arabia that enables me to sit down with him and be robust on our views,” May told reporters. Trade was “not the focus today,” a UK government official said, though the pair touched on regional security and Iran. UK officials defended May’s decision to engage with Bin Salman at the G20 summit. During the photo session for world leaders at the summit’s opening, various western leaders appeared to pointedly avoid the crown prince. In contrast, Bin Salman clasped hands with Russia’s Vladmir Putin as the two leaders greeted each other with beaming smiles. “It is important we engage and we can deliver these messages in person,” the UK official said, citing security as a specific pillar of the relationship. “It’s important we are able to set out expectations in abiding by human rights rules and also transparency and accountability. I would not want to link the issues, but the relationship we have with Saudi Arabia is something that provides for security in the UK.” May will meet Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, for a separate bilateral meeting at the G20 on Saturday, and Downing Street officials said they expected them to discuss the progress of the Turkish investigation. Turkey has let UK intelligence hear the tape of Khashoggi’s killing and has repeatedly pressed the Saudis to cooperate by telling it where Khashoggi’s remains are. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, told Bin Salman on Friday that Europe would insist on international experts being part of the investigation into the murder. On Saturday, May was also due to meet the leaders of Australia, Japan, Chile and Canada, but not Putin nor the US president, Donald Trump. The danger for May, already at odds with the US over the Iran nuclear deal, would be that she could find herself without Washington’s support in confronting not only the crown prince over the Khashoggi killing, but also on how to end the war in Yemen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted November 30, 2018 Share Posted November 30, 2018 Would you have preferred her to have gone with high fives ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted November 30, 2018 Share Posted November 30, 2018 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brumstopdogs Posted December 1, 2018 Share Posted December 1, 2018 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted December 1, 2018 Share Posted December 1, 2018 That's horrifying 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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