You’re spot-on, Ink.

Cases in point, both involving “friendly fire” incidents:

the AAC Gazelle that was shot down by a Royal Navy ship at anchor during the Falklands War. Has that actually ever been admitted to? The inquest and the initial report had it “flying into high terrain”. What they left out was that the impact with the terrain was assisted by a ship’s defence projectile up its jacksie (I’m sure Steve can enlighten us as to what it was hit by).

It took until 1997 for the US Army to admit that an ACR soldier took a HEAT round in the sternum during a blue-on-blue in the ’91 Gulf War. I wonder what we’ll be reading about for the first time in 2009 from this campaign and what’s still undiscovered from round one?

Lastly, and try to get ANYBODY to admit to this little gem:

during Operation Provide Comfort after the ’91 Gulf War, not only were the USAF involved in dropping relief supplies and tents to the Kurds in northern Iraq, they also helpfully refuelled Turkish AF Phantoms (confirmed) and F-16s (assumed) that were dropping bombs on the very same people. Nice piece of tactics don’t you think? Concentrate your targets by dropping them something they need to keep them from freezing to death then drop cluster bombs on them.

Why on Earth would any of you believe that things have changed since then? I can certainly see straight through all of the rhetoric and bullsh1t.

If any of the British on this forum think we have more in common with the USA than we do with our European neighbours after witnessing Bush’s address to CENTCOM at MacDill AFB just now I would be astounded. If I had to describe it I think the phrase “xenophobic christian fervour” would be pretty accurate to anybody hailing from outside of “God’s chosen country”.

Somebody please pass me a bucket, I think I’m going to chuck…

Peace, y’all (or does that make me a pussy these days?)

Steve

You really are full of it, Eric.

How brave do you have to be to be sitting behind your PC beating your chest?

And on the subject of whining, what was all that sanctimonius cr@p you were spouting yesterday about the way the POWs from the 507th were being treated? To paraphrase you: “it’s a war: get over it”.

Take your star-spangled bi-focals off and get some objectivity.

Regards

Steve ~ Touchdown-News

Judging by the awful grammar, and piss-poor spelling, I’m not convinced some contributors to this thread will comprehend this article.

It says something about a nation’s collective standard of intellect and education when a lot of the most articulate arguments contributed to this forum are by those for whom English isn’t their first language.

Anyway, I digress.

I thought some of you may find this of interest, there were a couple of points brought up that I’d certainly not been aware of until now.

The real reasons America is invading Iraq

America is seeking to ward off any threat to its economic domination of the world, writes Kenneth Davidson.

George Bush planned “regime change” in Iraq before becoming United States President in January 2001. The events of September 11, 2001, were the pretext for invasion of Iraq, not the reason.

The blueprint for the creation of a “global Pax America”, to which Bush subscribes and which is driving the invasion of Iraq, was drawn up in September 2000 for D1ck Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush (George’s younger brother) and Lewis Libby (Cheney’s chief of staff).

The document, called Rebuilding America’s Defences: strategies, forces and resources for a new century, was written in September 2000 by the neo-conservative think tank Project for the New American Century.

According to the document, written three months before Bush became president, “the US for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.”

The document outlines the global ambitions of the Bush Administration. It sets out a “blueprint for maintaining global US pre-eminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests”.

The question for John Howard must be: to what extent does his Government subscribe to the Bush strategy outlined in the think tank’s document?

Howard says Australia’s participation in this war is in Australia’s national interests. How?

To answer that question we must know why the war is being fought in the first place. For all I know, Bush, Howard and Tony Blair may be absolutely sincere when they claim that getting rid of Saddam is a humanitarian act that will make the Iraqis better off, or that Saddam has the will, the motive and the weapons of mass destruction capable of threatening other countries. But these are not the real reasons for the invasion.

The real reasons can be summed up as deciding who controls Middle East oil and gets access to the water from the Tigris and Euphrates, and what currency will be used to pay for the development of the oil and water resources.

According to the think tank document, the US would have to increase its defence spending to 3.8 per cent of GDP (which it has just achieved) to finance an American military capability “to fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars” and to “perform constabulary duties associated with shaping the security environment in critical regions”.

This is a massive task that can only be achieved if the US can continue to draw on the resources of the whole world, which in turn is only possible if the US can continue to run massive trading deficits with Western Europe, China and Japan. In other words, these regions must remain willing to exchange the product of their industries for American dollars.

It would be fatal to America’s global strategic ambitions if countries in Europe began to ask for euros instead of US dollars for their exports, or if China demanded settlement of their accounts with the US in yuan instead of US dollars. The US would have to redirect domestic demand for imported goods paid for in dollar-denominated IOUs into exports to earn yuan and euros to pay for US imports.

It is difficult to see how the US could develop new, internationally competitive industries and run a military machine on the scale envisaged by the think tank without a massive increase in taxation and redistribution of wealth to the productive elements in the economy without precipitating a global recession.

In 2000, Saddam’s regime had the temerity to demand payment in euros for the trickle of Iraqi oil the US has allowed onto the international market. Iran and Venezuela are following Iraq’s example. This is the real threat to US hegemony.

If the US can control Middle East oil production, it can control the industrial development of Europe, China and Japan (and Australia), to prevent a rival to its hegemony emerging. But to do this it must retain the greenback as the world currency.

It is possible to make a weak case based on realpolitik why Blair is along for the ride with Bush in Iraq (BP and Shell), but it is impossible to see what Australia will get out of this adventure even if it “succeeds”.

Bush personifies the American quest for absolute security. Americans don’t yet understand or care that this status can only be achieved by making everybody else absolutely insecure.

This is why the most lasting thing to come out of the war with Iraq is likely to be the faster development of a unified Western Europe and an economically powerful China to challenge US hegemony.
—

Sleep tight, y’all 😎

Steve ~ Touchdown-News

There were no B-52s up from Fairford yesterday and the most that have been airborne at any one time since they arrived has been two.

No idea what you saw Geforce but there are no other B-52s in Europe at the moment.

Best regards

Steve ~ Touchdown-News

RE: Women!!

>Brian Wilson had it right when he said,
>
>”I wish they all could be California girls. The West coast
>has the sunshine and the girls all get so tan. I dig a
>French Bikini on a wild-eyed doll by a palm tree in the
>sand.”

No way! All the best-looking girls that I chatted-up in So Cal were Swedish nannies and au pairs! I thought every one of ’em was a cute local chick until they started to speak in that really sexy accent.
You an keep the “yah totally gross..like, whatever!” Valley Girls, matey!

My own pref would be Czech and Slovak girls at a push though…mind you the best ever airshow I’ve been to for great-looking girls wearing not-very-much was Laage just outside Rostock in what was the old East Germany.

Some great-looking girls from Brazil too…but check the front of their bikini bottoms before you commit!! 😉

Ciao!

Steve

RE: Increased security at London Heathrow.

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 13-02-03 AT 10:32 AM (GMT)]Scary times, Arthur? I guess it depends where you were born and grew up. I’m sitting less than a mile from a pub that the IRA blew up in the 1970s and travelled to London every day via a railway station and past a restaurant that were also subject to bomb attacks at the time I worked there. We’ve lived with it for years so it’s same cr*p, different day as far as I’m concerned.

To put right a few points raised in other threads above:

the RAF ‘jets’ consist of a 51 Squadron Nimrod R.1 doing ELINT patrols judging by what was released this morning.

Heathrow certainly wasn’t the only UK airport with increased security over the last two days: Stansted, Leeds/Bradford and Manchester were also mentioned on the news last night.

I spent the weekend in Paris and the increased security was also very noticeable at Charles de Gaulle airport: during two out of four very short visits made there the Gendarmerie were performing controlled explosions on cars parked outside one of the terminals. Some of our party met another spotter at Orly who told them they’d done the same to twelve such cars on Saturday whilst he was there!

My message would be: get used to it…it’s here to stay. 🙁

Cheers

Steve ~ Touchdown-News

p.s. latest news this morning is that intelligence sources have said that it is thought “rockets” (assume they mean SAMs/MANPADs) have been smuggled into the UK and the security increase was partly in response to that.

p.p.s. to upate things even more, “armed helicopters” are also apparently involved in patrolling the Heathrow area.

RE: lonely planet

Can you say why secret cameras are used? Are they trying to stir up dirt or something?

Not so much that, Garry, was more in an attempt to get “ordinary” locals to open up a bit more in conversation without them realising they were being filmed. During their week-long stay in North Korea they never managed to lose their official “minders” for long enough to engage any Koreans in conversation though! I’ve still not yet seen part two but did hear from a friend that he commented how Cuba was the most open of the countries they visited.

None of the Iraqis they spoke to seemed that unhappy with their lot and were obviously more concerned with living day-to-day, playing football in every available open space and keeping up with news on Manchester United and David Beckham.

Some might say the latter two interests are reason enough to invade but I couldn’t possibly comment! }> }> }>

Best regards

Steve ~ Touchdown-News

p.s. oh yeah, Garry, I have another taped programme to watch tonight, the irony of which I’m sure you’d appreciate: “Mark Thomas: Weapons Inspector”. He’s attempting to gain access to UK and US facilities connected with WMD to ensure compliance with international law and the nuclear non-proliferation treaty! How do you think he got on!?! (The words “shrift” and “short” come to mind!)

RE: here we go again 🙁 AFM forum

…and again at the moment (11:00 am GMT)

Cheers

Steve