The Black Flag rises.

I don't have a big problem with the Foreign Aid Programme other than it is time we stopped sending monies to those countries well able to look after their own and that the monies should be properly targeted so as to avoid corruption etc etc.
My point was that any monies available, after those ring-fenced or of greater need, should go to our own people rather than be frittered away on other countries traitorous absconders. i.e. fully capable, reasonably healthy and often better-off economic migrants. The truth is that those people who are really suffering in those countries wouldn't have either the money or the opportunity to 'jump ship' for 'greener shores'. Whilst that leaves the better-off more capable ones washing up on Europe's shores that means that in the long run Europe will benefit at the grave expense of those countries who will have lost some of their 'future'. We have to be more circumspect - as said - the young who have been orphaned or whose parents haven't been able to care for them I would take on and nurture and hope that they could in the long run be beneficial to all. As for the rest - no way.
Refugees should be left to the UN to administer and allocate to all those countries that could afford the initial fundings etc. People on the 'make' should be vetted and returned - no question. End of -. Not rocket science.

Talk of returning failed asylum seekers back to their countries of origin seems to be just that, talk. The process, especially when identities are difficult to confirm with countries of origin can drag on for years, during which time circumstances change, people settle, get married, have children.

There is talk in Germany of establishing internment camps where asylum seekers coming in via Austria would be held, while identities are established, but again, it is probably just talk.

Most european countries would find it impractical to return any appreciable proportion of migrants once they have arrived. So yes, a popular idea, but unlikely to happen.

The Russian offensive in Syria appears to be continuing sytematically. The Russian attitude, based on their recent history of coping with large, competing, well funded criminal organisations seeking power is perhaps more geared up for the situation in effectively ungoverned areas in Syria/ Iraq. Mr. Putin is probably less troubled by political correctness, feels more overtly threatened by Islamic attack within Russian territories.

Russia may not be entirely comfortable with the recent migration of many Islamic peoples to Sweden, and feel the need to bolster defences in the Baltic.

The calculations leaders of various nations make are usually quite arcane to the outsider, political calculations often being driven by domestic as well as international events.

Whatever calculations the UK government may be making, I hope will be generally based on keeping out of trouble, and ideally, as you mention, looking after the population of the UK rather better.

Opinions, to be of any value, have to be based on information, and information is typically contradictory in this age of info-tech, one minute we are told we are one of the richest countries in the world, the next we told we are lost in a spiral of ever increasing debt.

Most governments work on the short term as most don't expect to survive longer than two terms at most. Ten years is not a long time in politics. Those that aspire to more are usually called dictators. And rightly so. Absolute power and all that. Therefore your assessment of the facts is reasonable.
Russia also -. One has to be careful when Germans start talking of making 'camps' - Ouch.
In global terms we are the 5th richest and are likely to remain so for the near future. We also have the 5th biggest offensive forces to control our shores and airspace etc and as such indispensable to NATO and the USA who always look to us for succour in times of need. All things considered we are still punching considerably above our weight. For me - that is the way we should keep things. I don't trust the rest of the world in any respects.

Apparently, if we disengaged from the wider world, we would become an irrelevant and wind-swept set of islands off the north-west coast of europe. Sounds ideal to me.

Hippy philosophies. Nice but tragically misguided. Do you seriously think the world would leave us alone? Not a chance. Remember that 'country' for 'refugees' they have been talking about! Better still - remember Madagascar and the Jews and Herr Hitler? You can't opt-out. Once a member always a member. Bit like the Mafia really.

Yes I know, but it's a nice thought. A wild and wind swept Britain, a huge forest growing where multi-lane mot rway intersections used to be. Defence of the realm by a thousand spitfires armed with whatever it takes.

Modern fighters are still useless against cruise technology. Too many missiles will get through. However - it won't come to that. Who in their right mind would want Rochdale - clean or dirty!!
Go for it if you want. Better go out in a ice cream dream than a haze of morphine dementias.

Cruise missiles have a very local effect (when conventionally armed). A high value delivery system targeting a high value and difficult to destroy asset. Guerilla fighters don't fit that description - hence barrel bombs from Syria and B52 carpet bombing from the US. Both amount to the same thing really.

Barrel bombs and carpet bombing is a very wasteful, indiscriminating way of waging an offensive war and practically useless as a defensive way of using weapons. The Syrian military are scrapping the 'barrel' (oh dear - never mind) in an effort to stay cohesive and viable. Putin bided his time and knew just when to 'assist'. Bit like Warsaw in 1944. Smacks of opportunism. But when there's a vacuum - the sewer rats are always the first to exploit it.

Def  ce of the realm is a c  plex and cont  dictory concept these days. What is there to defend for a start, a popu  tion? A terr  ry? An idea? A civilis tion? A culture? All these thing   re rather m  e amorphous than they used to be.

As for suitable we  ons, nuclear biological and chemical ones are unusable. What sort of invader could any european c   try be th  king of repelling? People can just w lk in if they really want to. Refugees drift un-noticed into a Cyprus Bri   h military base in small boats, ma s security laughable.

Cyber and economic warfar   re most relevant, but we have that sorted out by selling the UK to China. All ar  ments are of arguable benefit to a  one, bombing people proves pointl  s. Might as well in  st in a thousand spitfires, a  ed with everythi   our engineers and scientists can dream up, the argu  nts for that are as good as for any  ing else. Perhaps it's a matter of style.

It's a good job I am used to dialectical idioms after reading your last post. Stay off the booze in an evening or at least after 9pm.

So where have you been then? Or are you having a bad time of things recently? Or was it simply a computer glitch?
Anyway.
Defence of the realm.  These days it is more economic and internal with a touch of cybernetics all of which can make things difficult and occasionally dangerous to one's health and well-being  Our reliance on fossil fuels makes it necessary to wage punitive actions to preserve our overseas interests which will hopefully become less of a problem as time goes by. Hmm. We shall see.
I suspect that future conflicts will arise over populations and resources and our share of the same. But it is unlikely that large scale wars will be fought on the scale of the 20th century conflicts - more at arms length and on a proxy basis if technology goes the way one would expect.

I'm ok thanks, Atlas. I don't go into Rochdale town anymore, so haven't much to say about it that's relevant.


The forum really should be more about the Rochdale perspective on things.

I couldn't agree more. But how does one achieve that with so little interest in the site?

I don't live there - so it's no good asking me. I can only give a 'distant' view based upon historical knowledge.

My interest in this site was to keep abreast of the goings on and to show some interest and sympathy, or the opposite where I thought it warranted. Sometimes people who live  a 'distance' from the problem can have valuable input as those too 'close' may not always 'see' the problem in the best light.
However - glad to know your still in one piece and not under the influence. Let me know if you find anything interesting from Rochdale when you have a moment.

Meanwhile, back at the battlefront, we are told Islamic State plans to attack Rome and the Vatican.

With I.S. massing thousands of fighters near the coast of Libya, opposite Italy, what happens next, and when?

IS is a spent force. They are under attack at the base of their operations i.e. the money tree. Ergo they have moved operations to Libya to try and grow another pair of balls. It doesn't matter where they sneak off to if we keep hacking away at the roots - again the money sources. Meanwhile any worthwhile attack against the Vatican or Rome (other than the usual pin-pricks) is bound to failure. Oil and Saudi Arabia -both are becoming inaccessible. Especially as the oil prices are unlikely to recover for quite some time. They will never 'go away'. Like the IRA and others before them they will fester in some nondescript hole like a nuisance boil. Next century may see the end of all this type of nonsense. Hopefully.

Probably true that an attack on Rome in the foreseeable would fail, but problems coming from north africa, Libya etc. may well come into the picture for europe.

Hopefully the powers that be will allow them to congregate, lull them into a false sense of security then kick the shit out of them. Our help to Tripoli to keep the buggers confined would be a good first step. Saudi-Arabia are known for wishing to remove IS but want to retain Al Queda. The UAE are supplying troops and equipment to Al Queda so how that lot will spin out in the future is anyone's guess. It's a can of worms we are better staying out of other than supplying the friendlies with the wherewithal to crush ANY terrorist organisations. We shall have to wait and see. Meanwhile we root out all un-friendlies within our own borders and shoot them all - especially if they are home grown.

As for the domestic rounding up and shooting of potential terrorists within our own borders, shooting is something of a last resort, but the principle of the UK taking responsibility for it's own safety and security is a sound one.

It's time it was made quite plain to UK citizens that 'treachery', like the killing of policemen etc, is absolutely infra-dig and will be met with the most severe draconian measures. As I am against capital punishment then a sentence of not less than 50 years (25 inside without parole) should be handed down as a lesson to be learned by 'idiots' and 'malcontents'. We need to proceed with absolutes not prevarications. And the time spent should be productive - in other words - hard labour not TV in 23 hour lock-ups.

The prison system is overflowing, and if we stop putting so many in prison, that will just add to the housing crisis. The prison system is due for a re-think. What sort of hard labour did you have in mind?

All new prisons should be built on the principle of factory prisons where inmates are made to produce goods or services or research tech etc etc. In the long run it would cost no more than at present and the inmates would be given something to do, learn and use later. The present system of 'banging them up' is archaic and useless if not downright non-reproductive.

That's all well and good, but how do you cope with the inevitable complaints from manufacturers about unfair competition from prisons using cheap (captive?) labour?

On a darker note, how do you prevent unscrupulous employers exploiting captive labour a la Nazi Germany?

I wasn't thinking of producing 'goods'. More along the lines of skills and learning. Many of these people have hidden genius which has been structured the wrong way. Find out what makes them tick - - - and use it. Sitting in a cell with a tele doesn't do it for me.

There are problems with moving towards factory/prisons, as johnb mentions. Some sort of prison system reform is needed though, preferably with more creative, interesting or useful things available for prisoners to do.

Nothing is simple, our society is complicated, prisoners and criminals vary. Prison reform is usually written about by people with little experience of the realities. Atlas says, finding out what makes people 'tick' is the starting point.

Crime, like environmental pollution, seems generally accepted as part of a sucessful economy, we accept many politicians and so on are involved in crime and corruption to an extent. To what extent is the question, when things get out of balance and go too far, problems erupt.

Many problematic things would need to be properly and realistically considered, corruption, drugs, violence, intimidation, mental health, immigration, extremism, delay and proportionality of the law, and much more, before anyone could come up with an achievable, positive and comprehensive agenda for UK prison reform, but if it was right, it would be a very useful thing to do.

Perhaps someone who loves the poorly educated might be able to get something done? Would a society with an intelligent prison system eventually need less prisons? We seem to be moving towards overflowing at the moment.

"Those who think there are quick and easy answers only show that they do not understand the true nature of the situation."

Give that lady a lollipop and send her to the top of the class.

Prevention. That's should be the aim of all civilised societies - and I don't mean shooting them all beforehand.

Take the miscreant. Find what makes him tick. Find the box that fits - and 'mould' until securely channelled. Yes' Expensive. But when put alongside housing 90,000 prisoners yearly and rising and re-housing and building more prisons and more prisons - it's cheap at the price.

There will be 'failures'. Some may not be re-channelled. Some will be impossible. But in the main the vast majority are just as malleable as you or I.

But that takes 'brains' and 'skill' and we don't have such qualities in many of our politicians.