I think I’m right in saying that the US has banned its service personnel from posting on youtube and similar sites for a couple of months now. Given the date attached to the posting if the Pentagon follow up Pete’s e-mail (and they probably will) there could be interesting consequences for the person concerned – not least since they stand a high chance of being made an example of for breaking the new regs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DJJ View Post
“So, members of the jury, my client’s case is clear. He was preventing an illegal act of war – and preventing such acts is a perfectly legitimate thing for a citizen to do. It was an unintended and tragic consequence that his successful efforts to uphold international law led to the B-52 falling out of the sky on take off, killing several hundred people….”

This makes it sound like you wouldn’t mind watching several hundred people die so that you could make a point against peace activists….

WTG dude.

Nic

I was tempted not to dignify such an accusation with a reply, but I will.

The word I’m searching for to describe your view bears a close resemblance to the OED definition for ‘neutered male cattle’.

The point, for clarity, is that the line between legitimate direct action and illegitimate direct action in support of peace protest is a fine one. The potentially huge consequences of certain forms of action (i.e. FODding a B-52 with the unintended consequences of large numbers of fatalities on the ground) might in fact serve to delegitimise protest – protest is not a consequence-free ‘game’ where anything goes to make the point, not when the consequences of an action might be utter disaster.

I consider some (but not all) of the peace protesters naive in the extreme, but I equally believe they have the absolute right to make their point. The sole caveat is that they should consider the possible consequences of their action, otherwise they – or their barrister – would be left attempting to defend the indefensible.

The idea that my posting in some way aspires to the loss of several hundred lives to make a point against peace activists is specious and gratutiously offensive. As I respect SOC’s injunction to keep personal invective off the board, I’ll leave this posting here. 😡

In this pair’s case, they attempted to stop take-off by disabling the fuel trucks, the intent being that the nasty, horrid bombers wouldn’t have any petrol, so couldn’t fly; by disabling the bomb-loading kit, the said nasty, horrid bombers wouldn’t have any bombs and wouldn’t need to take off.

Some other activists – recently acquitted – intended to stop a B-52 taking off by putting FOD into the engines. I’d have loved to have seen the defence in the court case that resulted:

“So, members of the jury, my client’s case is clear. He was preventing an illegal act of war – and preventing such acts is a perfectly legitimate thing for a citizen to do. It was an unintended and tragic consequence that his successful efforts to uphold international law led to the B-52 falling out of the sky on take off, killing several hundred people….”

Schorsch, the point I was trying to make wasn’t about how effective it was (or otherwise), but to try to note that suggesting that Blackbuck 1 (at least) doesn’t merit being termed a strategic operation isn’t correct, since the intent behind it was most definitely focused at the strategic and operational levels.

Does the AESA projected for Typhoon (you know, the aeroplane we’re talking about…) have a means of classifying and prioritising PMs, enabling the user to auto-delete the most threatening if their PC has a well-designed MMI?

And could our French readers comment upon whether such a capability on Typhoon for deleting hostile PMs would be better than the one on Rafale?

Hey! Where did that open can with the word ‘worms’ on the label come from?

Back on track – I wish I could recall where I heard it, beyond the fact it was from an air force officer while we were having coffee (recalling which air force officer, and indeed from which air force is the problem), but if my failing grey matter is correct, I think JN may be right about the immaturity of AESA at the time being the source of concern.

The offer was for a fleet carrier. This was revealed at a seminar hosted at the Staff College by the Institute for Contemporary British History five years ago, where Admiral Leach, Admiral Woodward and Sir John Nott mentioned it.

Which carrier wasn’t specified, but given that all three spoke about the need to carrier qualify Phantom and Buccaneer pilots, it seems safe to assume that a fleet carrier was intended. Also, the idea was that it would be provided if either Hermes or Invincible was knocked out.

However, as you’ll see from Harry’s link, it appears that Cap Weinberger was presented off-hand with the idea of loaning a carrier but didn’t take it entirely seriously; Lawrence Freedman’s Official History of the campaign suggests (Vol 2, pp.381-382) that the offer was made at a garden party at the British embassy in Washington, and didn’t come from the top of the US administration.

I suspect, therefore, that someone suggested to the British ambassador, or the Naval Attache, that a carrier could be provided in extremis if Britain was interested. However, this was presumably done as a semi-formal offer (with Weinberger sorting out the details – or trying to – on an ‘if and when’ basis). However, the time needed to train RN personnel on the US propulsion system, carrier qualifying the Phantom and Buccaneer crews amongst other things meant that the offer was politiely turned down – presumably at a level below Weinberger, who probably wouldn’t have been bothered with that detail by his staff, since he didn’t need to know.

I’d put it down to the Americans seeking to demonstrate to Britain how far they’d consider going to help; by the same token I have the impression that as far as the Americans were concerned, they didn’t think the offer would need to be taken up, as indeed it wasn’t.

Sir Lawrence Freedman’s official history of the war credits Cardiff with the Canberra, with a single missile.