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Post by spike on Jul 12, 2009 8:15:31 GMT
top notch post there scooby 8-)there is no doubt agriculture has a high casualty rate but you cant compare it with the armed forces.i remember some politician complaining about the military recruiting from the deprived areas.they seemed to have missed the point that it is the salvation of a lot of youngsters.on a personal note my niece has just joined the navy she used to work in the cafeteria of morrisons but wanted more out of life.if i say so myself i couldnt be prouder.
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Post by pretender on Jul 12, 2009 8:26:55 GMT
Spike you have confused me now, do you mean me sign up? I am 53 and I think that is too old. I did try when I was younger, but I got rejected for health reasons. Apparently the military are a bit put off by someone throwing a fit in one of their tanks apologies for the confusing the perils of reading quotes, i meant pretender should join up as clearly sitting in a tractor cab is much the same as fighting on the front line in afghanistan. nobody is forced to sign up. The Ministry of Defence has not been used for defence since The Falklands, and the Argentinians, weren't exactly sailing up the Thames were they? All of the service men/women know exactly that they will be serving their country and sometimes (most of the time) that will mean carrying out the whims of a politician. They also know that they, in all probability will get shot at. They ARE proffessional soldiers, not 20 year old lads that have joined up to keep the Nazis out of Europe. When they get hurt, they should be taken care of, but it is an occupational hazard I am afraid.
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Post by franmar on Jul 12, 2009 9:49:28 GMT
If this country ever comes to an all out war i am very pleased that Pretender is in a reserved occupation as if our forces have his outlook we will not last two days, and to compare our service men and women with somebody sitting in a tractor all day is not on.
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Post by scooby on Jul 12, 2009 10:31:09 GMT
nobody is forced to sign up. The Ministry of Defence has not been used for defence since The Falklands, There are those who say that getting the Taliban out of Afghanistan is a way of lessening the terrorism threat to the U.K. and the Argentinians, weren't exactly sailing up the Thames were they? That's a flippant remark.All of the service men/women know exactly that they will be serving their country and sometimes (most of the time) that will mean carrying out the whims of a politician. They also know that they, in all probability will get shot at. They ARE proffessional soldiers, Not when they join up they're not. They become professional soldiers after they have been trained. not 20 year old lads that have joined up to keep the Nazis out of Europe. When they get hurt, they should be taken care of, Yes, and that's was another scandal if you remember until public outcry decreed that they should be looked after properly. but it is an occupational hazard I am afraid. Of course it is, and so were the deaths of the four firefighters that died in a food packing warehouse at Atherstone-on-Stour in 2007 and if you had seen the funeral services of those brave men you would realise that this sort of "occupational hazard" is viewed by the majority of right-minded people as entirely different from dying in a commercial vehicle in an RTA.
We rightly honour our coastguards, lifeboat men and women, ambulance staff, firefighters, police, etc. when they get seriously hurt and killed and it's no different with our armed forces.
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Post by franmar on Jul 12, 2009 10:42:13 GMT
I started this thread to honuor the town and people of Wootton Basset who stand and line the steets to honour our dead service personel on thier return to this country not honour the service men and women themselves having served and seen my friends and shipmates be blown to pieces I am very offended by some of the comments that have been posted therefoe I shal no longer post or read any replies on this subject.
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Post by tj on Jul 12, 2009 12:30:07 GMT
And one more thing. Quote:Most of those guys on the front line in Helmland seem to be white males is bunk. A lot of the coloured youngsters from underprivileged backgrounds are on front line duty and in many cases because they couldn't see any future in civilian U.K.
I think you took that the wrong way scooby. 'Most' means just that. Of course there are people from all ethnic groups on the front lines, I never said there were'nt, but most seem to be young white males (I guess combat rules exclude women), because they reflect the general UK population from where they are drawn. That is not 'Bunk' its simple fact.
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Post by pretender on Jul 12, 2009 12:54:25 GMT
we are drifting off topic, but going into another country, that ALWAYS beats invaders is not going to beat terrorism, it will make it worse. At some point the allies will pull out and Afghanistan will revert to how it has always been.
Whether or not we are spliting hairs about the exact moment service personnel become proffessional, they are still proffessional soldiers and still know what they are signing up for.
If The Pretender the civilian gets hurt at work it is an industrial accident. If Private The Pretender gets hurt at work out come the bugles. When a civilian takes a job, you don't expect to get killed, but a serviceman can expect to get killed, which is why I think the lorry driver that gets killed at work is far sadder. Who is going to look after his family?
My cousins husband flies a fighter jet, a dangerous job and he knows it.
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Post by scooby on Jul 12, 2009 13:18:38 GMT
And one more thing. Quote:Most of those guys on the front line in Helmland seem to be white males is bunk. A lot of the coloured youngsters from underprivileged backgrounds are on front line duty and in many cases because they couldn't see any future in civilian U.K. I think you took that the wrong way scooby. 'Most' means just that. Of course there are people from all ethnic groups on the front lines, I never said there were'nt, but most seem to be young white males (I guess combat rules exclude women), because they reflect the general UK population from where they are drawn. That is not 'Bunk' its simple fact. Yes, but you went on to write : But I felt this was bringing a race issue into the topic.
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Post by scooby on Jul 12, 2009 13:33:23 GMT
we are drifting off topic, but going into another country, that ALWAYS beats invaders is not going to beat terrorism, it will make it worse. At some point the allies will pull out and Afghanistan will revert to how it has always been. I wasn't advocating whether we should go have gone into Afghanistan or not, I said that there ARE those who thought that getting the Taliban out of the country would be a way of lessening terrorism in the U.K. I don't know enough about the subject to have an informed opinion about this.Whether or not we are spliting hairs about the exact moment service personnel become proffessional, they are still proffessional soldiers and still know what they are signing up for. If The Pretender the civilian gets hurt at work it is an industrial accident. If Private The Pretender gets hurt at work out come the bugles. When a civilian takes a job, you don't expect to get killed, but a serviceman can expect to get killed, which is why I think the lorry driver that gets killed at work is far sadder. Who is going to look after his family? I know I keep harking back to firefighters but they are civilians and there is a similar mourning and so there should be. Where is the difference ?My cousins husband flies a fighter jet, a dangerous job and he knows it. Undoubtedly. And Heaven forbid but if he is ever brought down by enemy means I expect his fellow countrymen to show their respects.
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Post by tj on Jul 12, 2009 13:48:50 GMT
And one more thing. Quote:Most of those guys on the front line in Helmland seem to be white males is bunk. A lot of the coloured youngsters from underprivileged backgrounds are on front line duty and in many cases because they couldn't see any future in civilian U.K. I think you took that the wrong way scooby. 'Most' means just that. Of course there are people from all ethnic groups on the front lines, I never said there were'nt, but most seem to be young white males (I guess combat rules exclude women), because they reflect the general UK population from where they are drawn. That is not 'Bunk' its simple fact. Yes, but you went on to write : But I felt this was bringing a race issue into the topic.I am sorry if you took it that way, it was certainly not my intention to do so. I was really getting at the Government's positive discrimination laws which disadvantage white males, not appropriate for this thread I know, but there you go. Going back to this thread I fully support the residents of Wooton Basset.
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Post by scooby on Jul 12, 2009 16:03:58 GMT
Going back to this thread I fully support the residents of Wooton Basset. And without a shadow of doubt so do I.
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Post by phil on Jul 13, 2009 20:23:31 GMT
No, I don't think that the folk in WOOTTON BASSET should get some sort of award....if the truth be known they probably don't want one!
They are simply doing what a lot of good honest respectful people in this country would do...if coffins containing brave men & women of our armed forces passed through their town!!
The argument as to whether or not this country should have gone to war in Iraq or should be fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan is not the issue!! They are their serving queen & country in the hope they can make the world a safer place for us all to live in! Just like the Firefighters Scooby refers to, The Police officers that put their own life on the line to protect others from violence & the paramedics that often risk personal injury treating someone in a burning building...or in the middle of a riot! They all deserve the utmost respect from us all!!
Anyone that thinks they can legitimately counter this argument with the "ah, yes, but...that's what they're paid for" argument? needs to take a step back & really think about what they are saying!
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Post by scooby on Jul 13, 2009 21:57:52 GMT
I absolutely agree with everything Phil. has written above.
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Post by tellarian on Jul 14, 2009 11:16:19 GMT
Half the problem with Afghanistan is the nature of the country, severe continental climate - hot as hell in the summer, cold in the winter. The people wallow in suffering and make a virtue of it.
There were plans in the 1930's to have hydro electric shcemes to funadamenatally alter the economy and the climate, however WWII and the pressure from the US, as a condition of lendlease, to disband the empire, put paid to that.
The Shah also had pland - central Iran suffers the same climate; however there is an abundance of water that falls on the coastal mountains, that is 99.9% wasted - called the SW Monsson.
The Shah's grand schene was to knock the tops off the mountains to create fertile plains and allow the heavy rain clouds to cross into the hinterland. Sounds grandoise but put a few D11's on the job and it would soon be done.
We are only scratching the surface - regarding infrastructure. The whole of the Shia world, who live there, have to recognise their lot but also recognise that they can improve it.
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Post by mayo on Jul 14, 2009 13:55:07 GMT
The only real resource in the area is opium. The Taliban need this because they need the money to continue their operations- support for them will be disjointed and irregular, any foreign power seen supporting them would be castrated with sanctions or hit by equally nutty terrorists who dispise the Taliban.
Hence the Taliban are stubborn and need to remain in the area at all costs, so they can terrorise or garnder the support of locals and get the opium.
I personally advocate a policy of total war on al-qaeda. I think the sky above Afghanistan should be black with hellfire equipped reaper drones, we should kill them with IEDs, we should equip the Afghans and give them the means to put the whole damned lot of them down. To hell with the cost. I have seen footage of these extremists and how they treat their own countrymen who they think have joined the western cause. All countries whether arabic, western or asian should join the fight and eliminate these people before they can organise and plan more terror attacks.
Many more young men will lose their lives and be injured, but it will be a relative handful compared to the dozens of civilians who might otherwise be blown up or shot by terrorists committing atrocities.
Destroy the opium crops, give the afghans an alternative and richer way of life, starve the extremists of the money they need. There is no place for these savages in the modern world.
Kill them all.
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