And that’s only the European command… add another 118 countries in the Americas, some 236 countries in Africa and 1429 countries in Asia under US control, it sure becomes obvious why they are now trying to gain control of that remaining one…

😀

Seahawk,

Although the media likes to call each and every missile a ‘Scud’, those two things which landed in Northern Kuwait weren’t. They probably weren’t even Al Samoud’s (which were in the process of being dismantled, but i reckon the Iraqis have stopped doing that) which only reach marginally further than the 150 km as Iraq is allowed to have.

It’s finally begun, hope it ends soon and i hope the eventual outcome will (ambiguity mode) provide the world with a more stable future (/ambiguity mode). And of course i hope that the cost of human life will be low, especially amongst those who didn’t choose to make a career out of killing for their country.

I do think we, as people who are above average informed about the technical and operational details of (especially) air combat, have a task too. The upcoming days we will be bombarded by false, flawed, biased and propagandistic news reports from both sides. I hope an informed internet community like this one can help to burst bubbles, and separate the propaganda from facts. It won’t be easy and only hindsight will tell how well we’ve done, but i think it’s a good thing to do.

Gee. That’s a new one, haven’t seen that one before :rolleyes:

Sean,

You forgot to mention that South Korea is a democracy since around 1990… it took them a while to take that liberation serious.

Garry is right, Vortex. If France would have been the country to veto the war-resolution, i think the Axis of Chickenhawks would have pushed the resolution anyway. The French veto could then be used indefinately to accuse the French of blowing the whole thing – and no matter what your stance in this, rightfully so because it would indeed have been an action of only France blocking the internationally wanted justification for war. Now it seems that France is just an easy scapegoat to hide the total lack of diplomatic skills within the Bush administration.

The reason why the resolution wasn’t even brought up, was that it could not even get the 9/15 majority vote in the UNSC. This would mean that France didn’t have to use it’s veto right, because the resolution wouldn’t have made it anyway. And this would then not only imply that the world is generally against this war (which it appears to be, also considering the public opinion of a number of the pro-war countries), but also that Amero-British diplomacy has failed in gathering a broad coalition.

The way I see it, Bush (and Blair even more so) did make an effort to get large international support for their cause. I happen to think that it’s mostly due to the total lack of diplomatic skills amongst the Bush administration that this has failed. You can blame it all on the French if you like, but that doesn’t do away with the fact that Germany, Russia, China, the non-permanent members of the UNSC and quite a number of other countries are not behind this war.

It still proves that buying friends isn’t nearly as effective as making friends.

Though i’m going to put my friendship and political opinion on ebay though. Anybody interested?

…and the US will now offer it’s own troops for Saddam to unleash his WMD upon (unfortunately, i can’t find a smiley with a terribly sardonic, cynical smile). Truely a means of last resort to remove the WMD from the region…

I have to agree – even though i like taking a picture every now and then (with borrowed cameras nowadays, my own cameras all had a very short service life) i want to experience the Mk1 Eyeball-experience first.

Also, being a military spotter for most of the time, getting that number is my priority rather then getting that beautiful shot. Back in the days of the Russian withdrawal from East Germany, lots of people went there for their final chance to take pictures of MiG-27s and the lot. I always like to think that at least some people took the effort of putting their heads in the wheelbays…