Afghan disgrace

Spitfire Pilot, the tax problem is two fold;

Firstly every time a plumber/electrician/mechanic asks for cash in hand do you think the money goes through his books and he pays tax on it? About a year ago I heard on the radio a report of how many billions of self assesment tax was being written off as uncollectable – us PAYE people end up having to pick up this tax shortfall either through higher total taxation (VAT, inheritence etc) or through degraded services.

Also with globalisation huge amounts of tax that foriegn companies should pay in this country is whisked out of the UK in ‘management charges,’ before the inland revenue get a look in (I dare say UK companies do this overseas too), this is an increasing problem.

So tax revenues fall, as more people and more companies are ‘Tax Efficient,’ of course us little guys on PAYE have no options for ‘Tax Efficiency.’

Then there’s the question of what government does with the money they do get, but don’t get me started………………

Steve

I feel so cheated 😡 😡 😡 Mark 🙁

Mind you, I should be used to it 😀 😀 😀

Spitfire Pilot, the tax problem is two fold;

Firstly every time a plumber/electrician/mechanic asks for cash in hand do you think the money goes through his books and he pays tax on it? About a year ago I heard on the radio a report of how many billions of self assesment tax was being written off as uncollectable – us PAYE people end up having to pick up this tax shortfall either through higher proportion of total taxation (VAT, inheritence etc) or through degraded services.

Also with globalisation huge amounts of tax that foriegn companies should pay in this country is whisked out of the UK in ‘management charges,’ before the inland revenue get a look in (I dare say UK companies do this overseas too), this is an increasing problem.

So tax revenues fall, as more people and more companies are ‘Tax Efficient,’ of course us little guys on PAYE have no options for ‘Tax Efficiency.’

Then there’s the question of what government does with the money they do get, but don’t get me started………………

Steve

Sounds good but some REMF back in headquarters somewhere would probably use the money to buy office furnature, rebuild a new wing to the O’Club, or buy something nice to have for Horseguards. :dev2:

That’s true 🙁 🙁 🙁

I wonder where all our taxes go to????????

For instance, tax is deducted from my wages before I even get them, then the bank wants to charge me tax on the money in my account. Then you go out to a shop and buy something which means yet more tax included in the price so in the end I swear that you end up giving the government most of your wages and still the armed forces are not receiving the manpower and equipment they need and what about the NHS, the education system and the emergency services………..they’re also underfunded.

I got a letter from my bank once saying that they wanted me to pay VAT on the money in my account (I think). That’s 17.5% before I even take any money out. If I buy something from the shop again another 17.5% so I’m loosing over a third of my wages on just VAT, that’s without National Insurance, Council Tax, Rent, Electric, Water etc etc etc………

Where on Earth does all that go????????????

I wonder what would happen if everyone in the UK gave just £1. Not £1 a week or even just £1 a month………..just £1.

How many million people live in the UK????????

I bet the money raised from that would help the Armed Forces out for a while. Mind you, I’d happily give them £5, £10, £20 even!!!!!!!!!

I was just wondering 🙂

Sounds good but some REMF back in headquarters somewhere would probably use the money to buy office furnature, rebuild a new wing to the O’Club, or buy something nice to have for Horseguards. :dev2:

I wonder what would happen if everyone in the UK gave just £1. Not £1 a week or even just £1 a month………..just £1.

How many million people live in the UK????????

I bet the money raised from that would help the Armed Forces out for a while. Mind you, I’d happily give them £5, £10, £20 even!!!!!!!!!

I was just wondering 🙂

Yes it would certainly improve their wages for a while. However I don’t think it will do much to help beat the Taliban. According to a General Rusian Aushev, the Nato forces will flee from there. The USSR coudn’t beat the Taliban so there’s not much hope for the coalition forces. Truth hurts dosn’t it.
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Well unfortunately being a small country, we don’t have the financial resources to increase the firepower in Afghanistan.

I wonder what would happen if everyone in the UK gave just £1. Not £1 a week or even just £1 a month………..just £1.

How many million people live in the UK????????

I bet the money raised from that would help the Armed Forces out for a while. Mind you, I’d happily give them £5, £10, £20 even!!!!!!!!!

I was just wondering 🙂

Turbina; It’s called politics; and I’d expect that in a number of those countries, one of the reasons they won’t make Afghan deployments is that they can’t afford to give their troops enough ‘world class,’ equipment in order to afford their soldiers the high level of protection they deserve. Unlike the UK where our government seem to hold our troop’s lives in cheap regard.

There will of course be a myriad of other reasons; such as it would not be acceptable to the countries electorate, unaffordability and lack of suitable troops. The last two of which are both both starting to effect the UK armed forces.

Steve.

That’s fair enough, but in that case why did NATO leaders agree to the Afghan mission? If the leaders of these countries had refused to support or take part in Afghan ops I’d respect that as it is their free choice to take that position, but the fact is they didn’t do that and many countries committed to the operation and then either didn’t meet their promised troop deployments or only did so under ROE so limiting as to make their contribution totally pointless. Decide, either in or out, but stop this trash of supporting it and then making sure nothing comes of that support, despite promises to the contrary.

Turbina, NATO was set up as a defensive pact, where if one country was attacked it would be considered an attack on all. The US invoked this after 9/11, which I believe this is the only time this has been invoked.

Now remember the key word is ‘defensive,’ many if not most NATO countries do not consider the operations in Afghanistan to be defensive, and so do not consider that they are under any obligation to provide troops. I for one and a great many other people agree with this view.

Indeed you could argue that since the end of the Cold War, America and especially the current administration, has sought to convert NATO into a form of modern day Dellian league; a pool of extra military forces which can be called on to ‘subsidise’ and support the American military. It is this feeling that we are becoming little more than American client states that is leading to the growing Anti-Americanism both in the UK and mainland Europe.

Moving on, the fact is that if a cause is just you will have no problems raising armies to right injustices (witness the liberation of Kuwait). Huge numbers of us, consider America’s current military adventures to be at best ill advised and at worst criminal, so is it any wonder that anti-American sentiement is growing? and troops not forthcoming?

To suggest that people just ‘put a lid,’ on such sentiments ie. should just shut up, shows on your part a disdain for other people’s opinions and the concept of freedom of speech. This is a discussion forum and discussion involves listening to other people and if what they say is valid modifying you own opinions.

Nuff said, Steve.

I think we should put a lid on anti-American views, it is not America who is not pulling their weight in Afghanistan, they’ve done a lot more over there than any other country and are still the bedrock of the force deployed in that country. US troops have given huge support to both British and other deployments, including logistics, close air support, lift and fire support.

About NATO, countries have failed to honour committments and still don’t want to send troops out there. Other countries have sent troops but with rules of engagement so restrictive they’re militarily pretty worthless (and that is not an attack on the troops themselves, but the politicians who are tying their hands) or have sent token detachments with zero value purely to allow their leaders to claim they’re doing their bit. The recent NATO involvement in South Lebanon has made things a lot harder but these problems in getting NATO to committ properly go back long before the Lebanon operation (and even then most NATO members have hardly been falling over themselves to offer troops for Lebanon, look at France’s initial offer) and there are NATO members who maintain large force structures who seem reluctant to pull their weight.

Beginning of the end.

Seems ELP has made some very good points, far better than I could have. I like the bit about airport security, smacks of political correctness. We will have same problem in Britain, bowing to the minorities, so as not to offend them. This country is a big joke, I don’t feel safe here any more. As regards Afghanistan that’s a joke as well, and it’s a case of ‘ can’t see the wood for the trees’ scenario.
We are no longer in control of our destiny, this is the beginning of the end for the free world.
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SIMPLE, I EXPECT THE UK FORCES TO HOLD THE GROUND (WHICH THE YANKS DIDN’T), KILL THE ENEMY AND WIN !!!!

Sounds cute. Cue: “Rule Britannia!” also to go along with that. Pretty hard for the troops to deliver though when the hacks in the MOD and politicians give more aid and comfort to the enemy than they do to the troops by cutting a fine military…. that didn’t need to be cut. The world didn’t become much safer with the end of the cold war, just a different threat matrix, no longer kept down with the old bipolar red vs. west setup.
Add to that, you aren’t going to defeat a fourth generation threat ( stateless terrorism ) with a second generation traditional military. Note the big “no win” in the latest Lebanon unpleasantness where the countries infastructure was ruined but the threat didn’t go away.The only thing that stopped that was a cease fire. A second generation military didn’t do it. ( Where Israel used to have third generation thinking/leadership in their military ). They are in regression. Where using airpower the way it was used there, didn’t help acheive any goals. Dumb.
Iraq. We are winning plenty of battles there. However we can’t gauge a victory based on the times when the enemy is dumb enough to engage us on a force on force level. Iraq is still unsecure all this time, and a second generation solution as what we are doing there now, isn’t making the place “winable”. Where there you would have to define victory. Ask 3 different politicos and you can get 3 different answers. Yeah, we won’t “lose” as long as we are there. But there isn’t a way to define a victory there. Saying victory is a secure Iraq sounds nice. Making that happen is another. As a minimum experts have said you would need 500,000 boots on the ground to contain that mess. Doesn’t help when we went in there with NO useable occupation plan.
Contractors for logistical services and security at the insane level this war is outsourced do well at declaring victory though, everytime a new DOD contract is signed. Victory for the war profiteers happens all the time. God help them if the war stops.
I don’t see us “losing” Afganistan in a conventional sense. Problem is, a conventional sense of victory can’t exist. Going to sign a peace treaty ending hostility? With whom? Tribal cultures like this never pay much attention to a conventional government in the traditional sense anyway. Parts of Vietnam were like this too. Tribal cultures there didn’t like the south or the north. However when you go into a village and start killing enough people, eventually that villiage will comply.
Afghanistan: Keeping the hillbillys from getting too much of an edge is easy. Hillbillys get together for a meeting. Precision muntion drops on hillbilly gathering = Dead hillbillys. Maybe even a clever leader goes down in the strike. Rinse and repeat. On the flipside, there aren’t enough, ( there never will be ) troops there to occupy every location. So as long as we are there, the puppet government we have installed ( mayor of Kabul by any other name ), will always be safe, and a few other locales, but thats about it.
Troop movement. If the hillbillys declare a movement order, all they have to do is gather the AKs some ammo, RPGs etc and move on down the trail using a pickup, motorcycle, animal, foot, whatever. Now look at what it takes for us to move a battalion of men 250 miles or so. A big difference. Now with Pakistan caving in with a peace treaty with one location of hostile Pakistan. Enemy troops will be able to move freely within 20 miles or less of our troops along the border. Pakistan won’t be there to help in the places where we really, ( desperately… as they have done some good work )…. need them. Great.
The mission there is useless dirt. There isn’t one thing there worth using our blood and treasure on. It isn’t making the U.S. any safer either. The reason for this dumb campaign was 911.
911 happened because of:
-Poor control of foreigners on our soil
-Poor visa control
-Garbage airline security. ( I feel a whole lot safer now when I see the moron TSA under the Department of Homeboy Security, using focused search methods on an 80 year old grandma. Last time I checked, peoples of Middle East origin did the job. So not any more secure in that department.
-Having U.S. troops on a variety of foreign soil they have no business being on.

Our concept of what it takes to make us more secure against a terroist attack is a joke. We are letting a 4th generation warfare invasion by any other name go on along our south border. Port security is a joke too. Enough examples?

Afghanistan was ( for those with short memory out there ) sold to us as a response to 911 and to make the U.S. safer. Sorry. Ain’t seeing it. Show me.

All the locals in Afghanistan have to do is wait for the foreigners on their soil to get tired of the effort and eventually leave. Like all those before them. The British,… the Soviets. Most of them have no concept of punching a clock or using a day planner to check progress of a project. They just have to wait. And eventually this fools errand to send Class A second generation warfare militarys into a location on that map that is nothing but useless dirt, will end.

Exactly, very well put. The USA, Australia, Canada and the Netherlands are doing their bit with the British, where is the rest of NATO?

NATO is pulling their weight. However there just is only so much you can do when you add up all the other worldwide U.N. taskings, exercises etc etc.

If the YANK forces couldnt do any good whilst they were there with all their resorces WHAT THE HELL DOES ANYONE EXPECT THE UK FORCES COULD DO ??? (WHY DID THE YANKS PULL OUT ANYWAY !!! WAS IT TOO HARD FOR THEM)

SIMPLE, I EXPECT THE UK FORCES TO HOLD THE GROUND (WHICH THE YANKS DIDN’T), KILL THE ENEMY AND WIN !!!!

If the YANK forces couldnt do any good whilst they were there with all their resorces WHAT THE HELL DOES ANYONE EXPECT THE UK FORCES COULD DO ??? (WHY DID THE YANKS PULL OUT ANYWAY !!! WAS IT TOO HARD FOR THEM)

Pandering to scared and naive voters, who wish they could hide under their beds in the hope that the big-bad world outside their front doors will leave them alone. Oh, and they don’t give a rats **** about anyone other than themselves. :p

Be fair, some countries think sending a platoon to sit in a guarded compound in Kabul airport or offering the use of a KC135 is doing their bit and pulling their weight 😡 A lot of NATO countries have sent troops, just so long as they aren’t allowed to go anywhere near any fighting or be exposed to danger, that’s really a great help, they’d be more of a help if they were honest and just said they want no part of any of it.

Errr…the US have a lot more troops and aircraft in Afghanistan than we do. And according to this weeks news British troops would rather have USAF than RAF close air support.

Right I stand corrected on that one. I don’t watch TV so don’t follow the news broadcasts. So I guess because the Taliban don’t wear combat uniform it’s hard to identify them, and they fight to the death, which makes it hard to wipe them out. Looks like we have a problem.
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where is the rest of NATO?

Pandering to scared and naive voters, who wish they could hide under their beds in the hope that the big-bad world outside their front doors will leave them alone. Oh, and they don’t give a rats **** about anyone other than themselves. :p

Well we don’t have the resouces to send more troops there at the moment, but then again we shouldn’t have to. It’s other NATO members that are dragging their feet.

But we certainly can afford to spend more on defence as a whole, though that wouldn’t help the situation in Afghanistan at the moment.

Exactly, very well put. The USA, Australia, Canada and the Netherlands are doing their bit with the British, where is the rest of NATO?

Well unfortunately being a small country, we don’t have the financial resources to increase the firepower in Afghanistan.

Well we don’t have the resouces to send more troops there at the moment, but then again we shouldn’t have to. It’s other NATO members that are dragging their feet.

But we certainly can afford to spend more on defence as a whole, though that wouldn’t help the situation in Afghanistan at the moment.