A Day of Reckoning Looms
By streiff Posted in War — Comments (11) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
A cover-up of military incompetence is underway in the UK and the jury is out on whether or not the people will stand for it.
By any standard, the way the HMS Cornwall, with the flotilla commodore aboard, managed the interception of an Indian registered dhow suspected of smuggling was, in the words of Royal Marine Major General Julian Thompson, "In my view this is a complete cock-up.”
An intercept was carried out near a disputed boundary with a hostile state. A state which had previously taken British sailors captive, a state which had killed Iraqi coastguardsmen, a state which had attempted in September to take US forces hostage. The intercept took place at long range from the HMS Cornwall without either air cover or cover from other RIBs. Somehow Iranian vessels were able to close alongside the intercepted vessel, the boarding party apparently either didn't notice or wasn't concerned by the presence of Iranian vessels in Iraqi waters, and neither did the watch standers on the Cornwall.
This led to the ignominious spectacle of British Marines and sailors making televised confessions, playing chess, yukking it up, and roughhousing with each other on Iranian television.
In the aftermath, the British military establishment has closed ranks.
Richard at EUReferendum has all the details. It has to be read to be believed.
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A Day of Reckoning Looms 11 Comments (0 topical, 11 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
...They were also "neutral" during World War II.
Which, when you think about it, doesn't speak very well for Ireland, does it?...
but wait a minute- England committed Genocide against Ireland for hundreds of years- Cromwell, the Famine, the Blacks and the Tans, etc.
They owed England nothing and are entitled to a complete free pass for sitting out WWII- in fact they'd have been idiots if they did help England after what had been done to them for the past several hundred years.
But all that being said, Ireland today is a bunch of gutless, craven, delusionally morally superior chumps like the rest of Europe- there is no excuse.
...where Western Europe is neutering itself. I think Tony Blair, perhaps John Reid and much of the Tory base is serious about what we face, but I'm starting to wonder whether the broader British culture, both at-large and political, is. The behavior of the British sailors indicate the former and the words of politicans like practically all of the Lib Dems, much of Labour and David Cameron represent thae latter. This is becoming a serious issue.
I think we'll at least have Australia and Israel and Eastern Europe, at least for some time. But I think we have to start developing better relationships with our Asian allies. India is a great example. Those countries, at least their governments, appear to be more serious about the world we live in, and not enamored by the multi-culti mish-mash that continental Europe is serving. I don't think we're going to see an Indian or an Indonesian leader stress anxiously over global warming instead of the War on Terrorism, and I think therein lies the line in the sand. It's those countries that are the future, not the Europeans.
I think the problem is that it was easy to neuter yourself, when you had the US army stationed to protect you from any real threat.
I think it is high time the US pulled out of Western Europe as much as possible. I think it is high time that Western Europe foot the bill for the majority of their defense, and I think it is high time they actually assess the threat and opt to fight it or not.
and needed US massive intervention twice in the Twentieth Century, but the Eurotopians believe that Putin is their good buddy [look at what's happening again in the Ukraine after Putin's poisoners failed to kill the President a couple of years ago. Another coup attempt in the offing.]. The Euros scoff at the US and sneer at our "unsophisticated" take on Foreign Relations----while their sophistication has ignored Kaiser Willy and Hitler until it was too late. Had it not been for the US, Stalin would have swallowed up these surrender-monkeys in the late forties.
The Euro-trash gene is alive and well and supercilious as ever. These people are their own worst enemies---look at how they let the Balkans boil over in the late-90's and guess who came in to pull their chestnuts out of the fire?
What a pathetic collection of delusional losers!
""When taunted by a Liberal in Parliament that he was going to die 'on the gallows or of a vicious social disease,' Disraeli shot back "That depends on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress."
The British are in the process of mothballing their navy. Being an island they have a natural barrier so they don't need much of an army or military tradition. Its all rather anachronistic in this day and age. It would so horribly hurt the feelings of the marines to hold them account for the Iranians beastly behavior.
I mean two wrongs don't make a right after all.
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
better than for England and all our allies to desert the US.
Why does anyone think the American left would want anyone to side with us?
The US. The Chinese (sheer numbers, nukes). The North Korean (sheer numbers & terrain in NK). The Russians (nukes). The combined Euroweenies (nukes, no credible ground, sea or air force).
We built a coalition for Iraq. It consisted of a bunch of countries tossing in generally less than a battalion and the Brits. The Brits ponyed up maybe 30K and couldn't have contributed more if London depended on it.
Bottom line, it doesn't matter much what any of our "allies" do any more. None of them have any credible force, beyond using nukes.
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Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.
Mmmmmm...don't want to think about it.
When England stood alone against Nazism in 1940, at least it knew that the Americans and Russians were there, and could potentially lend support.
If the Brits go down, who does that leave us with? Australia? Everyone else with some heft in the world has either quit or culturally self-neutered themselves.
(Example of "self-neutering": the Irishman who told me in a Kinsale pub last year that Ireland couldn't get involved in the GWOT---because Ireland is a neutral country. Neutral? Against Al Qaeda??!! As he said that, I was reminded of all the NYFD heroes of Irish ancestry who died on 9/11. And then, I realized that he must remember those dead firefighters too... and he still said that! God, I felt alone at that moment.)
Let's hope this wakes the Brits up. Because, there may not be other nations we can turn to as an alternative meaningful ally.
"Who will stand/On either hand/And guard this bridge with me?" (Macaulay)