More EU integration?

[BrilloPad]

Rolling back the EU threatens return to 'war and trenches' says José Manuel Barroso - Telegraph

Maybe they could start with having a common European Language?

Anyway the main thing threatening war is the Northern European economic war on the South which has push them into poverty, unemployment and depression.

[Troll]

Maybe they could start with having a common European Language?

It would seem a fair swap English as the language of Europe in return for us switching to driving on the right

[Mich the Tester]

It would seem a fair swap English as the language of Europe in return for us switching to driving on the right

It's a big challenge to do that in one go; I suggest a phased approach, starting with cars one weekend, then moving to caravans the next, then moving to trucks on the third weekend.

It worked in Nigeria.

[Dominic Connor]

The flaw

The big flaw in the European argument is that integration prevents war.

That might be said to be true about the iron and steel industry integration after WWII which was specifically designed to make it hard for France and Germany to have their 5th war in 200 years.

That led to the EEC thence to the EU.

The problem is that the nastiest wars are civil ones.

The US civil war killed more Americans than every other war it has ever fought put together and from a population a fraction of its current size.

The first European integration under Rome was brought down far more by civil conflicts amongst its generals than attacks from outside, that only happened once infighting left the empire indefensible.

The Wars of the Roses weren't anything like as pretty as their name and the English civil war was actually something like the dozenth such war, each of which was ghastly in scale and because they weren't just about winning, but betrayal prisoners and survivors had a bad time. The WotR was between groups that were identical in faith and ethnicity as was the English, Spanish, Russian, Irish and most pre WWII civil wars which have been at least as common as wars between states.

The 1930s Spanish civil war may have been a theme park for the Nazis but Spaniards were still being murdered as part of the struggle into the 1960s.

Iraq was conquered in a few weeks, comparatively few died, the civil war it unleashed is so bad we don't really know how many have died, hundreds of thousands certainly. Afghanistan is more complex but not much different or better. Chechnya doesn't affect Jews or Christians, so doesn't get covered in the UK, but the civil war there has been bloody.

The mess of former Yugoslavia shows this is not a "long ago and far away" thing for Europeans.

In Northern Ireland type A Christians murder and torture type B Christians, always have, always will. When they got bored of that they started attacking Romanians for no reason even the madder end of the sublife my branch of a NI family evolved from, but they found it too hard and went back to murdering each other. In NI, like Iraq more Catholics were killed by the IRA than by the Army and in response they elected Jerry Adams whose job was torturing children and used his political power to cover up for his child rapist brother. The protestant police oversaw ethnic cleansing and routinely murdered people. That's in the UK and isn't over yet.

Spain has less than a 50/50 chance of remaining intact over the next decade, maybe that will be peaceful, but given that the centre has the army that's not certain.

The "good" thing about wars between countries is that they end. You may not like the result, but usually one side gives up and stops. Civil wars and terrorism don't always have clear cut victories, or more importantly defeats.

[DodgyAgent]

Rolling back the EU threatens return to 'war and trenches' says José Manuel Barroso - Telegraph

Maybe they could start with having a common European Language?

.

Quite, it would make it easier for them to surrender

[petergriffin]

Maybe they could start with having a common European Language?

HTML5?

[bless 'em all]

The big flaw in the European argument is that integration prevents war.

That might be said to be true about the iron and steel industry integration after WWII which was specifically designed to make it hard for France and Germany to have their 5th war in 200 years.

That led to the EEC thence to the EU.

The problem is that the nastiest wars are civil ones.

The US civil war killed more Americans than every other war it has ever fought put together and from a population a fraction of its current size.

The first European integration under Rome was brought down far more by civil conflicts amongst its generals than attacks from outside, that only happened once infighting left the empire indefensible.

The Wars of the Roses weren't anything like as pretty as their name and the English civil war was actually something like the dozenth such war, each of which was ghastly in scale and because they weren't just about winning, but betrayal prisoners and survivors had a bad time. The WotR was between groups that were identical in faith and ethnicity as was the English, Spanish, Russian, Irish and most pre WWII civil wars which have been at least as common as wars between states.

The 1930s Spanish civil war may have been a theme park for the Nazis but Spaniards were still being murdered as part of the struggle into the 1960s.

Iraq was conquered in a few weeks, comparatively few died, the civil war it unleashed is so bad we don't really know how many have died, hundreds of thousands certainly. Afghanistan is more complex but not much different or better. Chechnya doesn't affect Jews or Christians, so doesn't get covered in the UK, but the civil war there has been bloody.

The mess of former Yugoslavia shows this is not a "long ago and far away" thing for Europeans.

In Northern Ireland type A Christians murder and torture type B Christians, always have, always will. When they got bored of that they started attacking Romanians for no reason even the madder end of the sublife my branch of a NI family evolved from, but they found it too hard and went back to murdering each other. In NI, like Iraq more Catholics were killed by the IRA than by the Army and in response they elected Jerry Adams whose job was torturing children and used his political power to cover up for his child rapist brother. The protestant police oversaw ethnic cleansing and routinely murdered people. That's in the UK and isn't over yet.

Spain has less than a 50/50 chance of remaining intact over the next decade, maybe that will be peaceful, but given that the centre has the army that's not certain.

The "good" thing about wars between countries is that they end. You may not like the result, but usually one side gives up and stops. Civil wars and terrorism don't always have clear cut victories, or more importantly defeats.

WHS

Still, our little problem will be nothing compared to the disintegration of the U.S.A

[Doggy Styles]

WHS

Still, our little problem will be nothing compared to the disintegration of the U.S.A

What makes you think the USA will disintegrate?

[BrilloPad]

What makes you think the USA will disintegrate?

I was hoping it would get bigger - by adding the UK.