Afghanistan.

[jshell]

Ayahuasca said:

jshell said:

Ayahuasca said:

B Oeuf said:

jshell said:

Ayahuasca said:

jshell said:

thatone1967 said:

A bit off topic I know, but I hate the fact this government "does the right thing " (in their opinions) when it suits..

What have we done about Zimbabwe exactly....

It's not a 'bit' off-topic! When did Zimbabwe despatch or train international terrorists to blow up ships, embassies, railway terminus', tube trains or tall buildings??

And when did the Taliban, exactly?

Eh? I've already said that Afghanistan was the 'Centre of Excellence' for training of world-wide operating terrorists.

Well, that's what Brown would have us believe anyway.

Centre of Excellence? A few Saudis sitting in a cave?

Afghanistan is about imposed cultural change, any textbook on management says this is next to impossible even in a small business, so why on earth the fkwits thought it would work on an entire country is a bit of a question.

Don't be ridiculous! Bin Laden had been using Afghanistan as a centre for training terrorists for a long time. He'd set-up 'shop' ever since he offered, and was prevented from helping remove the Iraqis from Kuwait which IIRC was when he started his crusade against the West. Latterly, since the bombing of 2 US embassies by these terrorists there were failed sanctions against Afghanistan to try to get them to hand over BL. When BL managed to hi-jack those planes and attack US heartland the Yanks had enough and decided it was time for direct action.

Afghanistan was in the sights since BL started using it as his training/comms/mobilisation base.

So take out the training/comms/mobilisation base then.

Oh wait. We did.

We are not fighting AQ in Afganistan anymore, apart from anything else they are mostly in pakistan.

We are fighting 100's of years of Afghan culture.

In your view, what does 'sucess in Afghanistan' look like, anyway??

Let me refer you to my 1st post on the subject, perhaps you'll see where I'm coming from:

jshell said:

It was a just cause, badly mis-managed (surprise, eh?) and now falling about out ears.

[jshell]

neilr said:

jshell said:

Thatcher using the lives of UK and Argentinian soldiers to get re-elected being one example.

Regardless of your opinion of the Falklands war, you'd do well to remember that the Falklands were invaded by the Arentinians, are British soil and consisted of British citizns who wished to remain British. A gulf of difference when compared to 'waging aggessive war' against Iraq et al (as defined by international law).

Thatcher wasn't conducting an illegal war or turning herself into a war criminal who should stand trial like Bliar has.

Back then the British Government were:

1. Removing many of the British Citizenship rights of the Falkland Islanders. Did you know that???? Have a look through: http://www.uniset.ca/naty/BNA1981revd.htm
2. Removing the RN protection vessel

The Argies saw it as an Invitation to Invade, did so, and Thatcher made a big deal of her crusade to save the Falklands. After re-election she re-instated full Citizenship rights for the Falkland Islanders.

Cynical, moi? Of course not!

Edited by jshell on Saturday 7th November 13:59

[Mojocvh]

Ayahuasca said:

jshell said:

Ayahuasca said:

B Oeuf said:

jshell said:

Ayahuasca said:

jshell said:

thatone1967 said:

A bit off topic I know, but I hate the fact this government "does the right thing " (in their opinions) when it suits..

What have we done about Zimbabwe exactly....

It's not a 'bit' off-topic! When did Zimbabwe despatch or train international terrorists to blow up ships, embassies, railway terminus', tube trains or tall buildings??

And when did the Taliban, exactly?

Eh? I've already said that Afghanistan was the 'Centre of Excellence' for training of world-wide operating terrorists.

Well, that's what Brown would have us believe anyway.

Centre of Excellence? A few Saudis sitting in a cave?

Afghanistan is about imposed cultural change, any textbook on management says this is next to impossible even in a small business, so why on earth the fkwits thought it would work on an entire country is a bit of a question.

Don't be ridiculous! Bin Laden had been using Afghanistan as a centre for training terrorists for a long time. He'd set-up 'shop' ever since he offered, and was prevented from helping remove the Iraqis from Kuwait which IIRC was when he started his crusade against the West. Latterly, since the bombing of 2 US embassies by these terrorists there were failed sanctions against Afghanistan to try to get them to hand over BL. When BL managed to hi-jack those planes and attack US heartland the Yanks had enough and decided it was time for direct action.

Afghanistan was in the sights since BL started using it as his training/comms/mobilisation base.

So take out the training/comms/mobilisation base then.

Oh wait. We did.

We are not fighting AQ in Afganistan anymore, apart from anything else they are mostly in pakistan.

We are fighting 100's of years of Afghan culture.

In your view, what does 'sucess in Afghanistan' look like, anyway??

http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/do...

[ninja-lewis]

jshell said:

neilr said:

jshell said:

Thatcher using the lives of UK and Argentinian soldiers to get re-elected being one example.

Regardless of your opinion of the Falklands war, you'd do well to remember that the Falklands were invaded by the Arentinians, are British soil and consisted of British citizns who wished to remain British. A gulf of difference when compared to 'waging aggessive war' against Iraq et al (as defined by international law).

Thatcher wasn't conducting an illegal war or turning herself into a war criminal who should stand trial like Bliar has.

Back then the British Government were:

1. Removing many of the British Citizenship rights of the Falkland Islanders. Did you know that???? Have a look through: http://www.uniset.ca/naty/BNA1981revd.htm
2. Removing the RN protection vessel

The Argies saw it as an Invitation to Invade, did so, and Thatcher made a big deal of her crusade to save the Falklands. After re-election she re-instated full Citizenship rights for the Falkland Islanders.

Cynical, moi? Of course not!

Edited by jshell on Saturday 7th November 13:59

1. The Citizenship rights were removed to prevent everybody in Hong Kong jumping ship before the handback. For fairness, all of the overseas territories had their rights removed - so it wasn't something directed at the Falklands. I've never seen any mention in Argentine histories that this was one of the factors. Besides Argentina wanted the islands regardless of whether we cared for them or not.

2. The RN protection ship was HMS Endurance. Her only weapons was taking a group of Marines from the Falklands, her helicopters (which may not have been armed at the time) and her icebreaker bow. She was at the end of her final cruise when the Argentines invaded. She made little to no impact: at the time she was hundreds of miles away taking Marines to remove the Argentine garrison on South Georgia (which although they gave the Argentines a bloody nose didn't stop them taking the island). When she returned to the Falklands the invasion was well under way - the Argentines simply ignored her presence. Her captain even seriously considered using her strengthened bow to ram some of the Argentine ships, which shows what little he could to interrupt the invasion.

However, the reason Argentina invaded then and not months later as per the original plan is that they thought we cared; they thought nuclear submarines were already on their way (because of South Georgia) and so raced to invade before they arrived (takes 2 weeks to get down there). The truth is the military junta had got fed up of us dragging our heels in negotiations (because we said the Islanders were paramount) and decided to resort to military means to get what they wanted.

As for Thatcher making political gains out of it - that all came after the war. The war was not something engineered by Thatcher to win an election because you would be bloody stupid to start a war that might not win. At the time of the invasion, almost everyone except the First Sea Lord said there was nothing we could do - the government was resigned to defeat. 1SL told Thatcher the Navy could do it and got the go ahead. The actual war was a very close run affair - a few more days, a few more bombs going off, had the amphibious shipping been targetted instead of the escorts, we might have lost.

[jshell]

ninja-lewis said:

jshell said:

neilr said:

jshell said:

Thatcher using the lives of UK and Argentinian soldiers to get re-elected being one example.

Regardless of your opinion of the Falklands war, you'd do well to remember that the Falklands were invaded by the Arentinians, are British soil and consisted of British citizns who wished to remain British. A gulf of difference when compared to 'waging aggessive war' against Iraq et al (as defined by international law).

Thatcher wasn't conducting an illegal war or turning herself into a war criminal who should stand trial like Bliar has.

Back then the British Government were:

1. Removing many of the British Citizenship rights of the Falkland Islanders. Did you know that???? Have a look through: http://www.uniset.ca/naty/BNA1981revd.htm
2. Removing the RN protection vessel

The Argies saw it as an Invitation to Invade, did so, and Thatcher made a big deal of her crusade to save the Falklands. After re-election she re-instated full Citizenship rights for the Falkland Islanders.

Cynical, moi? Of course not!

Edited by jshell on Saturday 7th November 13:59

1. The Citizenship rights were removed to prevent everybody in Hong Kong jumping ship before the handback. For fairness, all of the overseas territories had their rights removed - so it wasn't something directed at the Falklands. I've never seen any mention in Argentine histories that this was one of the factors. Besides Argentina wanted the islands regardless of whether we cared for them or not.

2. The RN protection ship was HMS Endurance. Her only weapons was taking a group of Marines from the Falklands, her helicopters (which may not have been armed at the time) and her icebreaker bow. She was at the end of her final cruise when the Argentines invaded. She made little to no impact: at the time she was hundreds of miles away taking Marines to remove the Argentine garrison on South Georgia (which although they gave the Argentines a bloody nose didn't stop them taking the island). When she returned to the Falklands the invasion was well under way - the Argentines simply ignored her presence. Her captain even seriously considered using her strengthened bow to ram some of the Argentine ships, which shows what little he could to interrupt the invasion.

However, the reason Argentina invaded then and not months later as per the original plan is that they thought we cared; they thought nuclear submarines were already on their way (because of South Georgia) and so raced to invade before they arrived (takes 2 weeks to get down there). The truth is the military junta had got fed up of us dragging our heels in negotiations (because we said the Islanders were paramount) and decided to resort to military means to get what they wanted.

As for Thatcher making political gains out of it - that all came after the war. The war was not something engineered by Thatcher to win an election because you would be bloody stupid to start a war that might not win. At the time of the invasion, almost everyone except the First Sea Lord said there was nothing we could do - the government was resigned to defeat. 1SL told Thatcher the Navy could do it and got the go ahead. The actual war was a very close run affair - a few more days, a few more bombs going off, had the amphibious shipping been targetted instead of the escorts, we might have lost.

This has the makings of a long and protracted argument. so we'll need to agree to disagree as I'm off home from the office.

However, I'd like to quote your line: "you would be bloody stupid to start a war that might not win." and see it in current context of Iraq and Afghanistan...!!!

[Halb]

jshell said:

neilr said:

jshell said:

Thatcher using the lives of UK and Argentinian soldiers to get re-elected being one example.

Regardless of your opinion of the Falklands war, you'd do well to remember that the Falklands were invaded by the Arentinians, are British soil and consisted of British citizns who wished to remain British. A gulf of difference when compared to 'waging aggessive war' against Iraq et al (as defined by international law).

Thatcher wasn't conducting an illegal war or turning herself into a war criminal who should stand trial like Bliar has.

Back then the British Government were:

1. Removing many of the British Citizenship rights of the Falkland Islanders. Did you know that???? Have a look through: http://www.uniset.ca/naty/BNA1981revd.htm
2. Removing the RN protection vessel

The Argies saw it as an Invitation to Invade, did so, and Thatcher made a big deal of her crusade to save the Falklands. After re-election she re-instated full Citizenship rights for the Falkland Islanders.

Cynical, moi? Of course not!

Edited by jshell on Saturday 7th November 13:59

People say this is the same thing that Gilespie did with Hussein back in 1990.

jshell said:

It was a just cause, badly mis-managed (surprise, eh?) and now falling about out ears.

It was perhaps a just cause that was tacked on to the old 'great game'. OBL started with is campaign when the USA occupied Soudi Arabia, there would have bene other ways to stop him, cut off his money in Saudi for one, but the Saudis even though they are the money men in the terrorist world are too close to the USA. There was a plan I recall to inavde Afghanistan before 9/11...but from what I think I remember the business types still thought there could be a deal over energy supply....It's all very convoluted but the USA/UK coalition didn't just go in there with 'just cause' in their minds.

Edited by Halb on Saturday 7th November 17:20

[dcb]

Maxymillion said:

I dont suppose anyone knows the amount of money and resources the Soviet Union were throwing into their military efforts when they were in Afghanistan compared to what must surely be pathetic amounts committed by our government?? Am I way off?

According to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan%27s_Sovie...

the Soviets had between 80,000 and 100,000 troops in Afghanistan
for about 9 1/2 years.

According to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2...

The USA currently has about 68,000 troops,
the UK is second about 9,500 troops and Germany
is third with about 4,200 troops.

Combined Allied ISAF forces currently appear to number about
100,000 troops.

More data in

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world...

including the fact that the median age is under 18 years, life expectancy
is under 45 years, literacy rate for the whole population is a
mere 28% and the GDP per capita is estimated at only USD 700,
making it the 212'th richest country in the world.

Purley it isn't.