the American empire

[WriterDom]

It's probably not a fact that's widely known in the US. But during "Desert Storm", American forces killed more British soldiers/airmen etc than the Iraqi's did.

But would they have fared better wearing blue helmets? Did the Iraqis kill anyone one with anything other than scuds? Has there ever been a war without friendly fire causalities?



Would you have rather the UK sent 540,000 troops and the US sent 43,000?

 

[p_p_man]

I've used this quote before...

...but shamelessly I'll use it again.

If Winston S Churchill had been alive during the days of Desert Storm he may well have come out with the quote he used during Suez (you know when America wouldn't support thier British and French allies?).

"I do not know whether I would have been such a bloody fool to have started it in the first place, but I know I would not have been even a bigger bloody fool to stop it half way through".

 

[WriterDom]

Re: I've used this quote before...

...but shamelessly I'll use it again.

If Winston S Churchill had been alive during the days of Desert Storm he may well have come out with the quote he used during Suez (you know when America wouldn't support thier British and French allies?).

"I do not know whether I would have been such a bloody fool to have started it in the first place, but I know I would not have been even a bigger bloody fool to stop it half way through".

So there is one case where p p man would tell the UN to go fuck themselves. That's so unglobal of you.

 

[p_p_man]

Re: Re: I've used this quote before...

So there is one case where p p man would tell the UN to go fuck themselves. That's so unglobal of you.

I didn't say that. Did I say that?

 

[Closet Desire]

Jumping back...

...a bit (gotta sleep sometime).

My comment about "technically" was a bit tongue in cheek. Technically the Falklands belongs to the British as well. I said "technically" because sometimes just because something "is" doesn't mean it's as important as it used to be. Not meant in mean spirits either.

Funny thing about "empires" is that one day they wake up and they are legends in their own mind. The can do no wrong. Their shit doesn't stink and the sun shines out their ass. Suddenly they don't understand why the rest of the world doesn't see that they are clearly superior in all things. The US isn't the first empire...nor will it be the last. Maybe the "apes" will be next (you know...Bonzo and his relatives). I go ahead and accept what is inevitable because once you're caught up in it you're not likely to change. "You will be assimiliated. Resistance is futile."

What's the latest sunshine? The US turning its back on a germ warfare treaty after being one of the leading nations to proclaim what a risk it is. Sigh. I'm too weary to even comment.

 

[p_p_man]

Re: Jumping back...

...a bit (gotta sleep sometime).

My comment about "technically" was a bit tongue in cheek. Technically the Falklands belongs to the British as well. I said "technically" because sometimes just because something "is" doesn't mean it's as important as it used to be. Not meant in mean spirits either.

Funny thing about "empires" is that one day they wake up and they are legends in their own mind

Nothing can be "technically" when it is firmly a member of something. The Queen is Grenada's Head of State - end of "technically".

One other point is that the UK didn't actually wake up one morning and find itself empireless. The various colonies were given a choice, over a period of time, of transferring from colony status to commonwealth status and thus help form the Commonwealth of Nations. In some cases they had to fight physically (mainly in Africa and SE Asia) against intrangisent beliefs held mainly by the ruling right wing Conservative Party of the time. In others independence was given freely by Britain who after the Second World War had no real stomach, resources or money for governing half the world.

The final acceptance of the end of the Empire tag came from the Conservative Prime Minister of the time, Harold MacMillan, when he made a famous speech (well famous in the UK anyway) where he said there "was a wind of change blowing through Africa". Forever known as the "Wind of Change Speech", would you know.

The UK as a whole had become well used to not having an empire by then.

copied from Yahoo search

Macmillan's tradition as a social reformer was reflected in his "wind of change" speech at Cape Town in 1960 where he acknowledged the inevitability of African independence

 

[p_p_man]

Great place Yahoo...

Just to clear up what is a member of what I've found this on Yahoo...

Commonwealth Foundation Structure
Commonwealth Member Checklist

Antigua & Barbuda
Australia
Bahamas
Bangladesh
Barbados
Belize
Botswana
Brunei Darussalam
Cameroon
Canada
Cyprus
Dominica
Fiji Islands
The Gambia
Ghana
Grenada
Guyana
India
Jamaica
Kenya
Kiribati
Lesotho
Malawi
Malaysia
Maldives
Malta
Mauritius Mozambique
Namibia
Nauru
New Zealand
Nigeria
Pakistan
Papua New Guinea
St Kitts & Nevis
St Lucia
St Vincent & the Grenadines
Samoa
Seychelles
Sierra Leone
Singapore
Solomon Islands
South Africa
Sri Lanka
Swaziland
Tanzania
Tonga
Trinidad & Tobago
Tuvalu
Uganda
United Kingdom
Vanuatu
Zambia
Zimbabwe

The Commonwealth Heads of State meet on regular basis and discuss issues pertinent to the organisation. It hasn't any teeth nowadays but can still swing a mean left hook if need be by withdrawing aid, imposing sanctions, expulsion from the Commonwealth etc if need be.

 

[p_p_man]

And to wrapt it all up...

These are the British Dependencies. States that are governed directly from London. The last colony we had was Hong Kong which we gave back to the Chinese in 1997 at the end of the 100 year lease we were holding on the territory.


British Dependencies

Anguilla
Ascension Island
Bermuda
British Indian Ocean Territory
British Virgin Islands
Cayman Island
Channel Islands
Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas)
Gibralter
Isle of Man
Montserrat
Pitcairn Islands
St Helenas Island
Turks and Caicos Islands

 

[Weird Harold]

Re: Great place Yahoo...

The Commonwealth Heads of State meet on regular basis and discuss issues pertinent to the organisation. It hasn't any teeth nowadays but can still swing a mean left hook if need be by withdrawing aid, imposing sanctions, expulsion from the Commonwealth etc if need be.

Isn't that a pretty small meeting with the Queen just talking to herself? She is the "Head of State" for all of the commonwealth members, right?

 

[Closet Desire]

My tongue-in-cheek...

...comment wasn't meant to ruffle feathers, but it was taking into account an English tradition regarding property which is basically "use it or lose it".

The house we sold a couple of years ago included a small patch of property that belonged to BP. However, BP had never used the property (2 inches by 30 feet) and as you're all too aware, this issue over ownership makes property transactions ridiculously complex. We got around it by proving that BP had not done anything with the property in over thirty years and that we and others had been using it instead. We applied the proper claims and presto...it was ours legally.

My reference to technically was the UK neither rushed to the aid of Grenada to fend off the invasion nor was it contacted as the "rightful" sovreign prior to the invasion. It certainly wasn't very polite of the US.

I do wonder though...Mallorca has a lovely 10,000 foot runway...you 'spose it's about to become a Soviet satellite? Maybe the King of Spain should have a closer look.

 

[Markov Cain]

You really fought over 2" X 30'?

I have a pasture and some land next to my home that I maintain. If I were in England, I could claim that?

Whatta country!

 

[rambling man]

To go way way back to something CD said about interfering with the govt of another country...

Around 1979 there was a communist revolution that installed Maurice Bishop in power. We did not do anything overt, no invasion, no CIA operation, nothing. We were suspicious, but Bishop proved to just be a nationalist, not an aspirant to become a part of the Soviet system. He nationalized a few things and left people well enough alone, except for jailing a few members of the old regime and driving the rest out.

Just before the US invasion, a group with pro-Soviet leanings and pro-Soviet support murdered Bishop and his government and installed a reign of terror over the island, both over members of the former Communist regime and the right wing regime that preceded Bishop. The Soviet Embassy had bloated its staff considerably in the days before Bishop's murder. It was the Soviet Union that interfered in a small nation's government.

Who else was going to remove a murderous and illegitimate regime?

The United States intervened and gave the island democracy for the first time pretty much since the 60s. And of course if we invade a nation to remove a government, we will install peopel friendly to capitalism and democracy. Since then, Grenada has been a free nation whose inhabitants, even the old Bishopites, can conduct their politics without fear.

We blundered militarily, and our pretense for invasion was transparent, but our goal and our object was just. And this was a clear cut success story when it was all said and done.

 

[Closet Desire]

Us...

...vs them.

I'm always intriqued by how the indigenous people seldom are seen as people driving their own destiny. They seem to disappear into the mist that is the ideal of the rescuing country. When you're trying to accomplish something it is often wise to enlist the help and support of whoever will come to your aid...USSR or US or China or whoever. There is no shortage of "benevalent" nations of all pursuasions who have stepped in to "help" guide a nation. More often than not the hand that feeds gets bitten. I'm not making the US out to be the bad guy because everyone has done it.

Vietnam (or Korea if you prefer) was, contrary to popular opinion, a civil war in which both the US and the USSR(China) became involved, each professing the surperiority of its own system. When that happened who was really at war? Who paid the ultimate price for national idealogy?

"We gave them democracy?" You don't give people democracy when you march in, overwhelm them, and support a replacement government. That's called a coup, even when the US does it.

If you truly believe in freedom and self-destiny then you stand back with maturity and wisdom and let nations get on with it. Not everyone will come up with the system you want or hope for, but it is their destiny. What they come up with will nearly always be based on their own cultural history and beliefs.

Standing back like that is the greatest test of a nation's ideals.

As for fighting over a 2 inch wide strip of land...only the English can truly appreciate what a mess property transactions are. A two inch wide strip of land can scupper a deal with thousands of pounds in losses.

Even today there are thousands of miles of trails criss-crossing over "private property" which are public footpaths. In order to remain "public" there has to be documentation that someone has walked on that path. There is a national group of "ramblers" (is that right PP?) who walk these trails each year to ensure that they remain public. That's what you get when you live in a country that still has Roman roads and bridges as well as the remains of Roman villas beneath the tennis courts at military bases. That's history and history still dictates what people do today.

 

[rambling man]

so I imagine that you feel that we should have left Vichy France alone to just get on with it....

You have a point, that nations should take care of their own affairs. More often than not recently, we have been interfereing, us and Europe, in situations and making them worse. Macedonia is an example. If we had simply alowed them to take care of their criminal element in their own way, there would be no civil war now.

Grenada was a country subverted by Soviet influence and subjected to a Stalinist type terror. The Soviet Union took away the Grenadan government that they chose and supported. They substituted death and terror for an easy going socialism. They did that because Maurice Bishop told them no, you cannot use our island. We didn't restore the old legitimate government, partly because it was pro-Cuban, partly because its leading figures were executed in an old colonial fort by the usurpers.

This was not us knocking over a peaceful socialist government (although admittedly we did our share of that and much of it was not defensible) In this situation, we responded to a Soviet inspired reign of terror in our own neighborhood.

It also exposed the rift between Castro and Moscow. Castro never forgave the Soviets for undermining Bishop

 

[p_p_man]

Re: Us...

[B.There is a national group of "ramblers" (is that right PP?) who walk these trails each year to ensure that they remain public. [/B]

Yes and the Ramblers Association can be a very militant group (in the nicest possible way) if need be, in order to keep the public right of ways open.

I always give them a silent cheer when I see them in their aggressive mood.

There's something quite endearing and "english" about a hundred or so middle-aged to the more mature members of the Ramblers Association helping each other to choose the best spot when staging a sit-down along a public right of way when it's under threat of closure by some property magnate who is trying to get development plans through the courts.

It's quite surrealistic as well when you see a sit-in demo with the participants munching their sandwiches, drinking from thermos flasks and chatting to each other whilst sitting on carefully laid out blankets or even on portable folding chairs. No-one is really sure why the police turn up at these sit-ins apart from the fact it may be for the food and drink they're inevitablely offered and a pleasant day out in the country.

But, on the serious side, the defence of these rights are strongly fought over not only by direct action but by targeted lobbying, letters to newspapers and media useage. And not only by the Association but people like me, who are non-ramblers, but who believe that we should be able to walk the paths of our own country.

In fact most of the population.

 

[rambling man]

I have read about these public trails in England and hope that one day when I go over there, they are still around.

Are they similar to American public trails like the Appalachian Trail, if you are familiar with that one? I wonder if there is any way to get them declared some sort of national resource so no one can develop them.

Are they remnants of the old feudal "commons?"

Just curious.

 

[Markov Cain]

What a hoot!
I'll not be thinking of Rambler as a car anymore.

 

[p_p_man]

I have read about these public trails in England and hope that one day when I go over there, they are still around.

Are they similar to American public trails like the Appalachian Trail, if you are familiar with that one? I wonder if there is any way to get them declared some sort of national resource so no one can develop them.

Public rights of way do not only go through the countryside although I used that in my example. They are paths or routes which over hundreds of years have, by default, become public property. Nobody else has claimed them and so they are protected by "common law". They can in fact be a path behind buildings in an urban area which are used as short-cuts or cut-throughs from point A to point B. Very useful if you're late catching your train and you know a quick cut throught to the station!

In the UK we have many "common laws" like this which most of the public are only dimly aware of and I confess to not knowing to much about, except the ones that are high profile.

That's why Closet Desire was quite right to have the ownership of the piece of land he has, checked out. If it turned out to be a right of way he would have no recourse to people using it as a footpath, although I admit 3" wide is a bit narrow, but you just might get a clever so-in-so trying his luck.

When purchasing a property a search must be made through the Land Registry (a semi-government organisation) to check if you are entitled to all the land you're purchasing.

Our moors and forests are common land, as are our "commons" (small areas of open land found near towns) and the New Forest in the South of England is home to herds of wild ponies which, in themselves, are also common property. Once a year for a few weeks people are allowed to capture these ponies for their own use.

Trouble is you have to catch them first, just with a rope and your own two legs - nothing else, and damned are they crafty little sods!

 

[rambling man]

England is so cool.

 

[Closet Desire]

Believe it or not...

...the three inch patch was for an oil line leading to a communal oil tank that was planned in the 30's but never built!

 

[Dixon Carter Lee]

You have wild ponies in England? Isn't the whole island like a mile square? How the hell do you have room for wild ponies?

And why just ponies? Are they killed before they become horses? Is it because you'll run out of room?

 

[p_p_man]

You have wild ponies in England? Isn't the whole island like a mile square? How the hell do you have room for wild ponies?

They're very, very small...

 

[Markov Cain]

If you piss on your neighbor's property everyday for 10 years, can you claim it and do you need a witness?

 

[p_p_man]

If you piss on your neighbor's property everyday for 10 years, can you claim it and do you need a witness?

We're talking here about a piece of land which is worth something not a piece of piss which isn't!

 

[Markov Cain]

Okay then, well if I piss on my neighbor every day for ten years...