Ric Posted August 22, 2021 Share Posted August 22, 2021 The good thing about Trump not being in power is, that, Trump is not in power. The capricious orange c**t can whine all he wants, the biggest problem are the fucking idiots who swallow his nonsense. -1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NotThePars Posted August 22, 2021 Share Posted August 22, 2021 2 hours ago, Zetterlund said: I don't think it's a case of them not sussing it out, they're more than aware of the blowback risks from these adventures and only need to try and keep the collateral damage to acceptable levels while carrying out their corporate masters' mission. I may be overly optimistic, but it feels like more and more people are waking up to the fact that war is a racket and these large-scale invasion & occupation type interventions may be a thing of the past, for the foreseeable future at least. It's not the geopolitically unipolar world of 20 years ago anymore and the US and its followers are finding it more difficult to get everything their own way. Nah mate. War has changed. It's no longer about nations, ideologies, or ethnicity. It's an endless series of proxy battles, fought by mercenaries and machines. War--and it's consumption of life--has become a well-oiled machine. War has changed. ID-tagged soldiers carry ID-tagged weapons, use ID-tagged gear. Nanomachines inside their bodies enhance and regulate their abilities. Genetic control, information control, emotion control, battlefield control…everything is monitored and kept under control. War…has changed. The age of deterrence has become the age of control, all in the name of averting catastrophe from weapons of mass destruction, and he who controls the battlefield, controls history. War…has changed. When the battlefield is under total control, war becomes routine. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enigma Posted August 23, 2021 Share Posted August 23, 2021 13 hours ago, welshbairn said: Much of the Nagasaki footage was actually filmed in Greenock. You joke but they have a crane built in Motherwell in the harbour there which is very much evocative of Greenock… 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottsdad Posted August 23, 2021 Share Posted August 23, 2021 19 hours ago, Ric said: The good thing about Trump not being in power is, that, Trump is not in power. The capricious orange c**t can whine all he wants, the biggest problem are the fucking idiots who swallow his nonsense. I realised at some point during the Dubya administration that whoever the US president is, has no effect on me or the UK generally. We're a fly hitching a ride on the back of an elephant. All you can hope for is a bit of comedy value. Bush had it and Trump had it. Trump is still delivering... Obama - most certainly important in the US, I found a bit dull. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ric Posted August 23, 2021 Share Posted August 23, 2021 7 minutes ago, scottsdad said: ...whoever the US president is, has no effect on me or the UK generally. While I take your broader point, I have to say I don't agree with that. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WhiteRoseKillie Posted August 23, 2021 Share Posted August 23, 2021 22 hours ago, Detournement said: I think it's more down to a lot of right wingers having to suddenly accept that we lost the war in Afghanistan. The mythos of 'Our Boys' no longer stands up to any scrutiny and no one really believes the kind of crap you used to hear near daily about being the best armed forces in the world. So you have the organic anguished reaction from BritNats and a manufactured one from the MIC types like Tugendhat who are concerned with long term wealth and power. We are now a country where the expectation is that the army will drive supermarket lorries and build flood defences not invade Jonny Foreigner. Forty years ago, when Argentina gave Maggie the chancde to divert attention from her disastrous Domestic policy, it should have been obvious to anyone that we were a diminished force - having to commandeer civilian vessels for transport, supply and medical support, and the fact that the biggest headline-grabbing missions (Black Buck) were only possible by modifying aircraft and pushing them well beyond their original design limits. As a side note, this was also an occasion when the "Special Relationship" PR was shown up for the absolute bollox it always has been. Still, we fúcked the Argies, so let's wrap ourselves in red white and blue and vote that bitch back in, shall we? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Left Back Posted August 23, 2021 Share Posted August 23, 2021 5 minutes ago, WhiteRoseKillie said: Forty years ago, when Argentina gave Maggie the chancde to divert attention from her disastrous Domestic policy, it should have been obvious to anyone that we were a diminished force - having to commandeer civilian vessels for transport, supply and medical support, and the fact that the biggest headline-grabbing missions (Black Buck) were only possible by modifying aircraft and pushing them well beyond their original design limits. As a side note, this was also an occasion when the "Special Relationship" PR was shown up for the absolute bollox it always has been. Still, we fúcked the Argies, so let's wrap ourselves in red white and blue and vote that bitch back in, shall we? Not getting into a debate about whether the special relationship may or may not be bollocks but the US came down on our side in the Falklands despite their initial neutral stance. They supplied us satellite imagery, intelligence, missiles, fuel and other armaments. Supposedly they also agreed to supply a replacement if one of our carriers was sunk. Files were released about all this a few years back. Short of actually landing troops with us what more do you think they could have done? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WhiteRoseKillie Posted August 23, 2021 Share Posted August 23, 2021 47 minutes ago, Left Back said: Not getting into a debate about whether the special relationship may or may not be bollocks but the US came down on our side in the Falklands despite their initial neutral stance. They supplied us satellite imagery, intelligence, missiles, fuel and other armaments. Supposedly they also agreed to supply a replacement if one of our carriers was sunk. Files were released about all this a few years back. Short of actually landing troops with us what more do you think they could have done? Absolutely they did- when it became clear which way the wind was blowing. And not, obviously, for free. They just added onto the bill we were still paying them from WWII - which was eventually cleared in 2006. Special Relationship my arse. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ad Lib Posted August 23, 2021 Share Posted August 23, 2021 1 hour ago, scottsdad said: I realised at some point during the Dubya administration that whoever the US president is, has no effect on me or the UK generally. We're a fly hitching a ride on the back of an elephant. All you can hope for is a bit of comedy value. Bush had it and Trump had it. Trump is still delivering... Obama - most certainly important in the US, I found a bit dull. It's much much much better to have dull presidents. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ric Posted August 23, 2021 Share Posted August 23, 2021 9 minutes ago, WhiteRoseKillie said: Special Relationship my arse. Oh, it's "special" alright, maybe not in the way some would like you to believe though. -1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fullerene Posted August 23, 2021 Share Posted August 23, 2021 1 hour ago, Left Back said: Not getting into a debate about whether the special relationship may or may not be bollocks but the US came down on our side in the Falklands despite their initial neutral stance. They supplied us satellite imagery, intelligence, missiles, fuel and other armaments. Supposedly they also agreed to supply a replacement if one of our carriers was sunk. Files were released about all this a few years back. Short of actually landing troops with us what more do you think they could have done? The Falklands War was closer than many people understood. Without help from the USA and Chile it could have been very different. A better example of challenging the "special relationship" was when the USA invaded a commonwealth country (Grenada) the following year and didn't even bother to tell Maggie that they were about to do so. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lofarl Posted August 23, 2021 Share Posted August 23, 2021 Anyway when’s the film out starring Chris Hemsworth and directed by Michael Bay about evacuating the “asset” from Kabul. You know some shite like that will be coming in a few years. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Left Back Posted August 23, 2021 Share Posted August 23, 2021 1 minute ago, Fullerene said: The Falklands War was closer than many people understood. Without help from the USA and Chile it could have been very different. A better example of challenging the "special relationship" was when the USA invaded a commonwealth country (Grenada) the following year and didn't even bother to tell Maggie that they were about to do so. It certainly was. WRK implying that because the Americans asked us to pay for the materiel they supplied they weren’t on our side or only got involved once they saw the way the wind was blowing is bull. America supplying us with these things caused it issues of their own. They had a proxy conflict on the go in Central America at the time against Nicaragua. Siding with Britain caused several latin American countries to stop helping the US in that conflict. Agree about Grenada. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NotThePars Posted August 23, 2021 Share Posted August 23, 2021 4 minutes ago, Lofarl said: Anyway when’s the film out starring Chris Hemsworth and directed by Michael Bay about evacuating the “asset” from Kabul. You know some shite like that will be coming in a few years. Chris Hemsworth already did his shite Afghanistan movie. Arguably the worst use of Michael Shannon in a movie I've ever seen. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Waldo Posted August 23, 2021 Share Posted August 23, 2021 1 hour ago, WhiteRoseKillie said: Forty years ago, when Argentina gave Maggie the chancde to divert attention from her disastrous Domestic policy, it should have been obvious to anyone that we were a diminished force - having to commandeer civilian vessels for transport, supply and medical support, and the fact that the biggest headline-grabbing missions (Black Buck) were only possible by modifying aircraft and pushing them well beyond their original design limits. As a side note, this was also an occasion when the "Special Relationship" PR was shown up for the absolute bollox it always has been. Still, we fúcked the Argies, so let's wrap ourselves in red white and blue and vote that bitch back in, shall we? How many other countries could have carried it out? Two? Standard practice. The USA is doing it just now with aircraft. Standard practise. H&S is relaxed in war. Great ingenuity I say. We used missiles that were not originally cleared as well. Apart from the intelligence and weapons. If ever there was a recent Special Relationship, it was when Maggie and Ronald were in power. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WhiteRoseKillie Posted August 23, 2021 Share Posted August 23, 2021 48 minutes ago, Fullerene said: The Falklands War was closer than many people understood. (1)Without help from the USA and Chile it could have been very different. A better example of challenging the "special relationship" was when the USA invaded a commonwealth country (Grenada) the following year and didn't even bother to tell Maggie that they were about to do so.(2) 1. Thanks for backing up my initial point about "us" being a diminished force on the global stage. Needing (eventual) support to overcome Argentina is some fall from running India and large chunks of Africa. 2. "Ignoring" would be a better word than "challenging". 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WhiteRoseKillie Posted August 23, 2021 Share Posted August 23, 2021 25 minutes ago, Mr Waldo said: How many other countries could have carried it out? Two? (1) Standard practice. The USA is doing it just now with aircraft. (2) Standard practise. H&S is relaxed in war. Great ingenuity I say. We used missiles that were not originally cleared as well. (3) Apart from the intelligence and weapons. If ever there was a recent Special Relationship, it was when Maggie and Ronald were in power. (4) 1. More perinently, how many would have carried it out? How many other Nations' leaders had a husband who was involved with companies having mineral rights in those waters? 2. My point, as obviously grasped by you, is that we are diminished. Formerly the greatest naval power on the planet to hiring cruise ships. 3. H&S was more than relaxed - if those Vulcans hadn't made the extremelynarrow refuelling window, they wouldn't have been coming back. 4. So, no Special Relationship, then. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fullerene Posted August 23, 2021 Share Posted August 23, 2021 2 minutes ago, WhiteRoseKillie said: 1. Thanks for backing up my initial point about "us" being a diminished force on the global stage. Needing (eventual) support to overcome Argentina is some fall from running India and large chunks of Africa. 2. "Ignoring" would be a better word than "challenging". IIRC, When Britain ruled India, the natives outnumbered the British contingent by 2,000 to 1. (140 million versus 70,000) This could never have happened without assistance from local rulers in India who found the arrangement mutually beneficial. I suspect the stories from Africa were probably similar. All about manipulation as opposed to military power. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WhiteRoseKillie Posted August 23, 2021 Share Posted August 23, 2021 8 minutes ago, Fullerene said: IIRC, When Britain ruled India, the natives outnumbered the British contingent by 2,000 to 1. (140 million versus 70,000) This could never have happened without assistance from local rulers in India who found the arrangement mutually beneficial. I suspect the stories from Africa were probably similar. All about manipulation as opposed to military power. Oh yes, there was a numerical imbalance. There were also, as you say,friendly locals (with their own forces), and native soldiers in the EIC forces. All with equipment far superior to anything available locally. That was a big ol' subcontinent, mind, with plenty of autonomous regions and rulers. Divide and Conquer worked a treat, as many of them hated each other more than they did the invaders. Be it economic,political*, or military, Britain/England/UK spent centuries as arguably the greatest power on earth, and could justifiably claim a place at the top table coming into the 20th century. The last century has seen the country diminished spectacularly, clinging desperately to legacy status through the UNSC. One of the most common justifications I hear for retention of Nuclear Weapons is that possessing them assures of a higher status internationally. *And International Politics used to be a strength of this country. Now we have Dominic Raaaaab as our International face. Preceded by Hunt, who followed Johnson. Pathetic. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lofarl Posted August 23, 2021 Share Posted August 23, 2021 Even when Britain had the biggest naval force in the world we still pressed civilian cruise liners as troop transports and hospital ships. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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