Gripen E official; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YDtpEiQL4Q

“We believe in sharing technology to build growth. We believe that humans are explorers.”

/wince

I guess it’s a change from “helping warfighters defend the homeland for freedom”.

Well last I looked, we aren’t running around colonialising places these days, we just have an ongoing dispute with the offspring/victims of Spanish colonialism, who came off second best in the European colonial wars but like playing the victim.

Thanks for confirming for all to see that British sentiment here has nothing to do with the rights of peoples to determine their destiny and everything to do with who wields the power and who does not, i.e. we won and they didn’t. I know from experience that one doesn’t have to dig far beneath the veneer of western civilised hypocrisy to find the ugliness beneath, but still — one hardly expects the salmon to jump on the hook for you like that.

Displaced islanders received $6,000 reparations, equivalent to about $200,000 in today’s money.

The rich and powerful are fond of buying the allegiance, acquiescence, or silence of the powerless. The British were and are well practiced at it, although it is rather more difficult to do when faced with the mass of humanity rather than a single, corruptible leader, which is one of the reasons why the British got along with and continue to get along so well with hierarchical Islamic societies and other assorted despotisms.

In any case, again, we are not talking about events fifty years ago, we are talking about events right now, where the British government still continues to deny the Chagos Islanders any semblance of justice. This is not ancient history, it is not irreversible. It is in fact eminently reversible, and indeed is a very simple matter: the collision of justice with power. And Britain today, as she has so often throughout history, again stands for and with injustice and the tyranny of the powerful over the powerless.

So again, which fine country do you come from, guilty conscience? This is now the third time of asking.

The country in which I was born and reside and of which I am a citizen is listed at the top-right of every one of my posts. I cannot be held responsible for your failure to observe what is readily apparent. Moreover, I wrote in my previous post that I am Australian, something which at least part of your seemingly bifurcated consciousness has apparently realised and acknowledged in that you have responded to it.

And how many other countries would be subject to the same legal enquiries, if everyone got the same treatment? Pretty much every country in Europe, especially Russia and Germany.

Ah yes, the “other people did it too (or worse)” argument — the first resort of scoundrels with no substantive arguments to make or principles to stand upon. Really, Britain must be tremendously grateful to Germany for comprehensively burying centuries of British crimes beneath mournful elegies about the Western Front, Dunkirk, and so much being owed by so many to so few.

Oh wow, descendants of criminals and prison guards, who now continue to occupy the land of the Aborigines. Perhaps you should give it back, you’ve been there for less time than some Falkland islanders and you’ve only officially been a nation for about 1 century.:applause: But of course, as a descendant of British criminal, you’re well placed to shout from your little ivory tower about British wrong-doings. Really, it’s as ironic as Americans complaining about British colonialism.

That you seem to think that being descended from petty thieves, murderers, and other varieties of common criminals who were caught and punished for their crimes is somehow less honourable than being descended from those who profited by and continue to profit from grotesque crimes committed against large swathes of humanity is eminently revealing.

White Australia has much to be ashamed of, both in the past and in the present day, and unlike nationalists such as yourself who ritualistically convulse at the sight of a bit of coloured cloth, I do not hesitate to admit it. But the notion that all the crimes and injustices that attended white settlement in Australia can be cleanly separated from Britain prior to 1901 is simply laughable, and reflects your continued efforts to wash your hands of all the blood that so clearly sticks to them.

Lord Acton put it powerfully and well: “I exhort you never to lower the standard of rectitude, but to try others by the final maxim that governs your own lives, and to suffer no man and no cause to escape the undying penalty that history has the power to inflict on wrong.”

You’re talking about something which happened 50 years ago.

Like I said: very recently. But more to the point the British government is still denying the Chagos Islanders any semblance of justice, under the glorious legal principle of “screw you, it is we who wield the power here.”

And it was the US (who leased the island) that wanted them gone.

Because if there’s anything that gratifies power more than stomping on the powerless, it’s genuflecting to and doing the dirty work of even greater power.

Also, you might note that the only reason the island had inhabitants is because the French put slaves from Seychelles and Mauritius on it as plantation workers and deliberately marooned lepers there. Oh and they were compensated when sent back to their original countries, which France plucked them from, get your facts right. Britain also purchased the island from Mauritius, it didn’t invade, and that’s where the island’s plantation workers were sent. Britain has actually been looking at repopulation of the island recently.

Well then, it sounds like the UK has nothing to fear from an independent legal enquiry of the kind it has worked tirelessly to block for generations. I wonder why?

Again, what country does your little ivory tower exist in?

Unlike you I am devoid of the disease of nationalism that encourages so many to defend the indefensible. The story of Australia too is one long tale of the powerful defecating on the powerless. But then we learned from the best.

The sight of Britishers talking earnestly about the rights of peoples to self-determination is enough to put anyone off their lunch. It’s like listening to Stalin give a lecture on criminal justice reform.

I think if it were that simple, some goat-lover from the Middle East would have done it by now.

Now there’s an idea … how much damage would a fully-fueled A380 do to a carrier?

Super Hornet didn’t make it in India because the Indians had impossible demands. Someone gave into those impossible demands (no need to mention names) and you see the fiasco that is unfolding in India. Its also against US law for an defense manufacturer to sell to a foreign country at a cost that is lower than what the US pays. So Boeing basically hit their limit really early on. I know Boeing people who actually laughed at the demands, and knew it was basically a free trip to India. You can see the insanity that has griped that whole contract.

Check out the revisionist history folks.

Super Hornet never even made it to the stage of analysing costs, offsets, TOT, etc. It was eliminated in the first round, under the performance-oriented evaluation conducted by the IAF. We’ll never have a full accounting of the areas where Super Hornet and the other contenders came up short relative to Rafale and Typhoon, but we know that transonic acceleration was one of them.

Yes because the only important task of a Navy is to transport Tom Cruises’ mates round for them to go off and naval aviate. Rii put this so superbly subtly that I fear it was lost on you old boy. Me and him dont always see eye-to-eye but respect goes where it is due and I find I cant put it any better than he did.

Aww… I wuv you too Jonesy.