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@ MGS , Pat Condell eh? A youtube favourite of mine.. some of his stuff makes me laugh my ass off.. He is a little odd though it must be said.

@ Shuma, we contribute more than any other ally the US has, and were the only nation to take part in the initial surges into both Afghanistan and Iraq. Also, i know your just kidding around, but i find the whole royal "we" a bit childish. Sure the American military is contributing, but what have you personally done other than pay a little tax? I did 4 tours of Iraq and Afghanistan, and recieved an official commendation and an American flag that was flown in the face of the enemy above Camp Phoenix in Kabul as a thankyou for "services rendered" from the Oklahama National Guard.

How many times did you go hotshot?

MeanGreenStompa wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

e have not 'taken the gloves off' for a long time. If the West was not 'liberating' or 'intervening' but actually all out craved a war, was so wounded and entrenched that it fully lashed out, that is what I'm referring to.

Considering we have more personnel stationed overseas than you have active personnel period I think you blokes across the sea could serve to pick up the pace a bit. Or at least stop reducing your contributions .

And how do our contributions shape up against our GNP and population sizes...

Still not favorably. We Have ~35 times your number in iraq and three times (moving up to seven times) your number in afghanistan. We have roughly seven times your active duty personnel, so the contributions in afghanistan even out (post coming surge). However we're still heavily engaged in Iraq as well which is proving to be quite the strain considering the nature of the conflict.

@ Shuma, we contribute more than any other ally the US has, and were the only nation to take part in the initial surges into both Afghanistan and Iraq. Also, i know your just kidding around, but i find the whole royal "we" a bit childish. Sure the American military is contributing, but what have you personally done other than pay a little tax? I did 4 tours of Iraq and Afghanistan, and recieved an official commendation and an American flag that was flown in the face of the enemy above Camp Phoenix in Kabul as a thankyou for "services rendered" from the Oklahama National Guard.

Oh come now, I don't feel like writing down U.S. armed forces engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan every time I reference them. Thats a lot of letters. It's certainly true though, you were the biggest ally we had, which given the "multinational" title is a bit sad. Europe's contribution was pretty miniscule given it's actual capability (though hoping for a unified european military effort is pretty silly), though it's done a good bit better in Afghanistan.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Albatross wrote:@Shuma - Pick up the pace?

ShumaGorath, meet....


FRANCE!

You know they spend the third highest amount on their military per year on the planet? I have no idea where it goes.

@Shuma - I heard that it was us, with them 4th - but meh.

@Matty - Don't take it personally, mate. Shuma just enjoys the occasional spot of 'brit-bashing' - I think a british guy must have stolen his girlfriend or something....

http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending

Your right Shuma, were kinda tied for third though!

Also, lets be honest, the French are a bunch of sweet smelling nancy boys, so they would need to be spending 10 times what we do to hold a candle to us.

I didnt know we spent more than Russia these days, i recall talking about this with you guys a while back though, and lets be honest, you could shave a few billion off the top to pay for some healthcare reforms and still have the worlds biggest military budget eh?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Yeah i know mate, im starting to rather like Shuma's craic.

Oh..and you have to have lost your virginity to have a girlfriend to steal..

ShumaGorath wrote:

Albatross wrote:@Shuma - Pick up the pace?

ShumaGorath, meet....


FRANCE!

You know they spend the third highest amount on their military per year on the planet? I have no idea where it goes.

I believe they have a nuke/volcano fetish...

Don't take it personally, mate. Shuma just enjoys the occasional spot of 'brit-bashing' - I think a british guy must have stolen his girlfriend or something....

Pointing out numbers of deployed personnel when we have 7 times the military size and something like 14 times the number deployed when compared to the next biggest contributer seems like a perfectly reasonable response when someone starts talking about the "sleeping western giant resisting muslim oppression" in a thread about a rally in the UK. We're stretching ourselves thin, maybe the rest of the west should throw in too .

Also, lets be honest, the French are a bunch of sweet smelling nancy boys, so they would need to be spending 10 times what we do to hold a candle to us.

It's true. Brit soldiers are crazy, you could give them a knife and some paint and they'd bring you back some stolen AKs and a victory.

I didnt know we spent more than Russia these days, i recall talking about this with you guys a while back though, and lets be honest, you could shave a few billion off the top to pay for some healthcare reforms and still have the worlds biggest military budget eh?

I don't really get the whole fear of the russian military these days. It's outdated and under-equipped. Chalk it up to the cold war I guess.

Yeah i know mate, im starting to rather like Shuma's craic.

Whats craic?

Oh..and you have to have lost your virginity to have a girlfriend to steal..

Harsh .

@Shuma - 'Craic' (prounounced 'crack') in this context means 'banter' or 'jokes'. It's a north-eastern appropriation of an irish gaelic word.

I think the whole 'sleeping giant' thing referred to 'the west' as a whole, rather than just the UK. Although it is true that we have committed a fraction of our troops/resources to military action in the middle-east. The UK gov't is not really on a war footing.

Your crack or craic is just the way people are in general.. er..you know..

here read that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craic


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I guess the best way to explain it is that your crack is taking the piss out of people a bit, and i find it amusing, you can say that someone is a "good crack" or that their quirky behavioral attributes are just "their crack"

Hard to explain that one..

ShumaGorath wrote:

You know they spend the third highest amount on their military per year on the planet? I have no idea where it goes.

manicures.

Albatross wrote:@Shuma - 'Craic' (prounounced 'crack') in this context means 'banter' or 'jokes'. It's a north-eastern appropriation of an irish gaelic word.

I think the whole 'sleeping giant' thing referred to 'the west' as a whole, rather than just the UK. Although it is true that we have committed a fraction of our troops/resources to military action in the middle-east. The UK gov't is not really on a war footing.

We should really just try and convince china to help. They have twice Europe's population and well over that number in active military numbers. Becoming active in international police actions would be good for them. They're military is far too cloistered, and lends to the semi isolationist views many have of china. It would also help them create a more cohesive military force, they have serious administration issues. Chinas intervention would be like a divine intervention in most modern conflicts. As the single most powerful non western military in history they could rebuff the concept of a christian war on islam and western imperialism quite well.

@Shuma - That's interesting - but do we really want the chinese to become more militarily confident, and in turn, more interventionist? I'm not sure that would be good for the world.

Albatross wrote:@Shuma - That's interesting - but do we really want the chinese to become more militarily confident, and in turn, more interventionist? I'm not sure that would be good for the world.

Depends on what you think the value is of the current and future conflicts. A militarily confidant china as an ally to a militarily confidant U.S. could do a lot of good on the world stage. The biggest problem being Chinas own human rights record (and ongoing human rights abuses) and attitude towards the extreme respect for all forms of national sovereignty they have (so long as it's not a country that they want).

It's a bit of a pipe dream considering the latter fact. They simply don't intervene unless it directly benefits them, and at the moment muslim religious extremism isn't a huge issue for them (they have plenty of other things to worry about).

ShumaGorath wrote:

Albatross wrote:@Shuma - 'Craic' (prounounced 'crack') in this context means 'banter' or 'jokes'. It's a north-eastern appropriation of an irish gaelic word.

I think the whole 'sleeping giant' thing referred to 'the west' as a whole, rather than just the UK. Although it is true that we have committed a fraction of our troops/resources to military action in the middle-east. The UK gov't is not really on a war footing.

We should really just try and convince china to help. They have twice Europe's population and well over that number in active military numbers. Becoming active in international police actions would be good for them. They're military is far too cloistered, and lends to the semi isolationist views many have of china. It would also help them create a more cohesive military force, they have serious administration issues. Chinas intervention would be like a divine intervention in most modern conflicts. As the single most powerful non western military in history they could rebuff the concept of a christian war on islam and western imperialism quite well.

Not sure where I heard this, but someone told me China has like a 6th of the entire world population. Now if that's true, I can see how their military could be very helpful. I gotta agree with you Shuma, having a non-western, non-quote unquote "zionist" country on our side would really take the whole west vs east deal out of the picture. The U.S. is pretty deep in China's debt already though, a few trillion or so.

Norwulf wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

Albatross wrote:@Shuma - 'Craic' (prounounced 'crack') in this context means 'banter' or 'jokes'. It's a north-eastern appropriation of an irish gaelic word.

I think the whole 'sleeping giant' thing referred to 'the west' as a whole, rather than just the UK. Although it is true that we have committed a fraction of our troops/resources to military action in the middle-east. The UK gov't is not really on a war footing.

We should really just try and convince china to help. They have twice Europe's population and well over that number in active military numbers. Becoming active in international police actions would be good for them. They're military is far too cloistered, and lends to the semi isolationist views many have of china. It would also help them create a more cohesive military force, they have serious administration issues. Chinas intervention would be like a divine intervention in most modern conflicts. As the single most powerful non western military in history they could rebuff the concept of a christian war on islam and western imperialism quite well.

Not sure where I heard this, but someone told me China has like a 6th of the entire world population. Now if that's true, I can see how their military could be very helpful. I gotta agree with you Shuma, having a non-western, non-quote unquote "zionist" country on our side would really take the whole west vs east deal out of the picture. The U.S. is pretty deep in China's debt already though, a few trillion or so.

China has a population of 1,325,639,982 as of 2008, the world has a population of 6,692,030,277 as of 2008. Almost one in five.

ShumaGorath wrote:You know they spend the third highest amount on their military per year on the planet? I have no idea where it goes.

Frances military buget mostly goes on keeping the suburbs of Paris under control .
the problem with Islam4uk, is that they don't want to intergrate, if i moved to a foreign country, i would learn the language, follow the law, pay my taxes, and support the national team. their actions are above all else rude and egotistical. As the statistics prove the majority of muslims that die in the war zones are killed by other afgan and iraqi nationals (the reason why city centre bombing didn't happen under saddam hussain is because he liked to kill cultural groups he didn't like.) this group would be better protesting outside the pakistani embassy for allowing terrorist and militai groups from hiding within their borders.

As the statistics prove the majority of muslims that die in the war zones are killed by other afgan and iraqi nationals (the reason why city centre bombing didn't happen under saddam hussain is because he liked to kill cultural groups he didn't like.)

Just felt I should pop in. The reason you didn't see much of it was because the Baath party was largely secular, the country was largely peaceful, and there was no power vacuum for sectarian power struggles and religious extremism to erupt in. They were one of the most modern countries in the mideast, now that we've destroyed their infrastructure and left them with an utterly ineffectual and corrupt government (vs an effective but corrupt one) it's no wonder people with guns and tribal loyalties have moved in to try and take the seat.

BluntmanDC wrote: this group would be better protesting outside the pakistani embassy for allowing terrorist and militai groups from hiding within their borders.

You misunderstand their motivation. The Pakistani government is a Western pawn to be overthrown, not negotiated with. Islam has a long tradition of internal struggle. Indeed, the absence of a formal authority essentially renders any institutional hierarchy into an alien concept.

An interesting Topic. (A bit sad it went OT though. Bloody French..)

I'm not sure where this qoute comes from, but I've heard it used often.

"I don't like what you have to say, but I will die for your right to say it."

Or something like that.
I draw the line of Free Speech when someone openly advocates the use civil violence/bloodshed and promotes anarchy. I think I would also want to shut up those who promote rascism, but then it gets touchy.

Remember, free speech applies to that which comes out of a mouth, not what goes into it.

...

Emperors Faithful wrote:An interesting Topic. (A bit sad it went OT though. Bloody French..)

I'm not sure where this qoute comes from, but I've heard it used often.

"I don't like what you have to say, but I will die for your right to say it."

Or something like that.
I draw the line of Free Speech when someone openly advocates the use civil violence/bloodshed and promotes anarchy. I think I would also want to shut up those who promote rascism, but then it gets touchy.

That was Voltaire I believe, coulda been Sam Adams though I cant remember. To be fair though I think If I have the right to speak out against racism, genocide, abortion etc. insert your topic/issue. Then everybody else has the right to promote racism, etc. It's gotta go both ways or its hypocritical. I don't like what this muslim group is doing or saying but I think they have a right to say it.

Emperors Faithful wrote:...

Would it not be possible to allow them the freedom of speech but restrict when they do it, surely if they say "sorry, towns fully booked that day, would you care to reschedule" it allows them to hve their freedom and not piss people off

Emperors Faithful wrote:An interesting Topic. (A bit sad it went OT though. Bloody French..)

I'm not sure where this qoute comes from, but I've heard it used often.

"I don't like what you have to say, but I will die for your right to say it."

Or something like that.
I draw the line of Free Speech when someone openly advocates the use civil violence/bloodshed and promotes anarchy. I think I would also want to shut up those who promote rascism, but then it gets touchy.

" I may disagree with what you say,but I will deffend to the death your right to say it." IIRC..

While I certainly see your point concerning wishing to "shut up" racist,this is were deffending "unpopular speech" comes in to play,deffending "free speech" includes deffending speech you yourself find distasteful.

ShumaGorath wrote:

As the statistics prove the majority of muslims that die in the war zones are killed by other afgan and iraqi nationals (the reason why city centre bombing didn't happen under saddam hussain is because he liked to kill cultural groups he didn't like.)

Just felt I should pop in. The reason you didn't see much of it was because the Baath party was largely secular, the country was largely peaceful, and there was no power vacuum for sectarian power struggles and religious extremism to erupt in. They were one of the most modern countries in the mideast, now that we've destroyed their infrastructure and left them with an utterly ineffectual and corrupt government (vs an effective but corrupt one) it's no wonder people with guns and tribal loyalties have moved in to try and take the seat.

i was talking about this 'Specific charges included the murder of 148 people, torture of women and children and the illegal arrest of 399 others' yer you are write the Baath party were nice (just so we are clear, that was sarcasm)

@dogma: Ah. I see.

Kyley wrote:Would it not be possible to allow them the freedom of speech but restrict when they do it, surely if they say "sorry, towns fully booked that day, would you care to reschedule" it allows them to hve their freedom and not piss people off

It's what they do in denmark, and it does piss people off.

Kyley wrote:Would it not be possible to allow them the freedom of speech but restrict when they do it, surely if they say "sorry, towns fully booked that day, would you care to reschedule" it allows them to hve their freedom and not piss people off

I've heard about people doing that here when the neo-nazis wanna have a rally or whatever. It doesn't seem to work though. Neo nazis hire an ACLU lawyer and end up getting their way. I think it's just easier to ignore them and not play their little game.

BluntmanDC wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

As the statistics prove the majority of muslims that die in the war zones are killed by other afgan and iraqi nationals (the reason why city centre bombing didn't happen under saddam hussain is because he liked to kill cultural groups he didn't like.)

Just felt I should pop in. The reason you didn't see much of it was because the Baath party was largely secular, the country was largely peaceful, and there was no power vacuum for sectarian power struggles and religious extremism to erupt in. They were one of the most modern countries in the mideast, now that we've destroyed their infrastructure and left them with an utterly ineffectual and corrupt government (vs an effective but corrupt one) it's no wonder people with guns and tribal loyalties have moved in to try and take the seat.

i was talking about this 'Specific charges included the murder of 148 people, torture of women and children and the illegal arrest of 399 others' yer you are write the Baath party were nice (just so we are clear, that was sarcasm)

As opposed to the several hundred thousand that have died in Iraq since? Anarchy is always worse than draconian order.

FITZZ wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:An interesting Topic. (A bit sad it went OT though. Bloody French..)

I'm not sure where this qoute comes from, but I've heard it used often.

"I don't like what you have to say, but I will die for your right to say it."

Or something like that.
I draw the line of Free Speech when someone openly advocates the use civil violence/bloodshed and promotes anarchy. I think I would also want to shut up those who promote rascism, but then it gets touchy.

" I may disagree with what you say,but I will deffend to the death your right to say it." IIRC..

While I certainly see your point concerning wishing to "shut up" racist,this is were deffending "unpopular speech" comes in to play,deffending "free speech" includes deffending speech you yourself find distasteful.

I know. Which is why I said this is where it gets touchy. Simply promoting racism itself and bagging others is fair enough, but I believe that when one demands violent racist acts then it stops there.