>> ^Kerotan:
What can you say, the british armed services are good at what they do obviously.

best in the world *sniff *wipetear

shame that what they do is so counterproductive sometimes. maybe they should do it LESS well.

>> ^phelixian:
Everytime I try to do that in Battlefield 2 I end up julienne-ing my troops. Kudos to that pilot.


Yeah actually, that's a great point. I was being sarcastic but even in battlefield that would be insanely hard to do.

^ I think that's also under selling the potential here. Soldiers would kill for camo that good -- something that only made their eyes visible, especially if you could at will decide to go blind in exchange for being completely invisible for a time (like when a patrol is coming by, or a helicopter is flying past, etc.)

Then think bigger, what if a tank could be completely invisible, except for a 4" x 4" pane of glass over a camera? What about a fighter jet, or an aircraft carrier?

If it's all spectra of light, even infrared and radar couldn't see the invisible part.

Have fun spotting that little piece of glass flying through the air at twice the speed of sound...

@Drachen_Jager, far be it for me to defend the Pentagon's intelligence, but you're selling the F-22 and F-35 programs short -- they're both supposed to be platforms we use for at least 50 years. They may seem like expensive overkill now, but in 2045, they'll barely seem worth the metal-ceramic composite they're made of. The F-35 program in particular is mostly an exercise in cost-savings. It's a single fighter meant to replace essentially every other fighter in the Air Force's inventory, except the F-22. It's even being designed to try to replace a portion of the RAF's fighters as well.

As for submarines, yeah, I'd have a hard time justifying any budget for a new submarine program post-Cold War. Maybe a refresh on the old designs, but an all-new terrorist-fighting submarine is definitely defense pork.

and i would like to add, that unjust wars discredit the perpetrator, so that if a real war is necessary in future, you're fucked and you can't do your brave valiant democracy defending even if you are in the right next time.

The communists invaded many countries during their reign of terror, because capitalism was "unjust" and "exploited the worker." 100 million dead later, thankfully one of the two major communist countries is no more.

I'm sure every convicted killer on death row feels that the State putting him to death is an "unjust" act. No matter what the USA does, someone ain't gonna like it. What's done is done, and some will condemn it and others approve.

Before 9-11, the USA foolishly neglected its duty to protect itself. After 9-11, the hands-off approach wasn't going to fly. For the record, I'm not tying 9-11 directly to Iraq but to the increase in danger of the world's political climate.

so why not prosecute the war in iraq justly if justice is your cause?

By doing what, exactly? Saddam had 12 years to comply with inspections. What did all those UN Resolutions do to thwart him? Nothing.

Have you noticed the UN is worthless?

Militarily they're a toothless lot of blue-helmeted security guards.

On the political front, it's elected a host of 3rd-world savages and despots who conveniently blame "the West" for their own despotism.

You're confusing the garbage UN of now with a fictional enlightened future world-body.

Would it be reasonable to say that you can't have a world community with yahoos like Saddam running around threatening neighboring countries and firing rifles into the air?

SO perhaps we can agree that there is such thing as a justifiable war, but this is not it, and this has fucked things up bigtime.

Before 9-11, I'd agree with you that invading Iraq would be too costly, especially with unclear goals. Not that we ever should've taken the islamofacist threat lightly, after 9-11 we weren't going to wait around for another attack. And so we've erased a pesky dictator and helped a Middle East nation take its first baby steps toward a government that serves its people, and it's to the USA's disadvantage that we're helping build a republic and not another monarchy. The Iraqis' problems now are the problems of freedom.

I served in the RAF cadets by the way. Hardly pacifist. But i didn't join the regulars because I was nervous about politicians sending me to my grave in a fucking corrupt oil war, pretending i am defending liberty while cynically profiting from my death.

That's your personal choice based on your life experience. Fair enough.

In reply to this comment by MINK:
and i would like to add, that unjust wars discredit the perpetrator, so that if a real war is necessary in future, you're fucked and you can't do your brave valiant democracy defending even if you are in the right next time...

the best way to cook bacon is the RAF way.

1. Show bacon some heat for a bit
2. Put bacon in 3 inches of tepid fat with 2953 other pieces of bacon
3. Wait more than one hour
4. Remove from grease lake and place under hotlamp for a random amount of time
5. Serve with watery tomatoes and deep fried low quality bread. And sausages with pigs arseholes in them

>> ^waxxx:
Inflation in Germany was one of the prime factors of the fall of the national socialism party. Hitler had many pipe dreams, spoke a lot empty phrases and often held gatherings that were tailored to be energized by packing small venues. I often wonder why he didn't attack other English countries such as Britain?


Um, dude, you wanna, I dunno, study history a bit?

If not for British kickass fighting in the air, a full sea/land invasion would've occured.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Britain
"Had it been successful, the planned amphibious and airborne landings in Britain of Operation Sealion would have followed. The Battle of Britain was the first major campaign to be fought entirely by air forces. It was the largest and most sustained bombing campaign attempted up until that date. The failure of Nazi Germany to destroy Britain's air defence or to break British morale is considered its first major defeat.[7]

Neither Hitler nor the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) believed it possible to carry out a successful amphibious assault on the British Isles until the RAF had been neutralised. Secondary objectives were to destroy aircraft production and ground infrastructure, to attack areas of political significance, and to terrorise the British people into seeking an armistice or surrender. Some historians, such as Derek Robinson, have argued an invasion could not have succeeded; the massive superiority of the Royal Navy over the Kriegsmarine would have made Sealion a disaster and the Luftwaffe would have been unable to prevent decisive intervention by British cruisers and destroyers, even with air superiority"

RAF got BALLS.

*british *art *wtf *geek

yah. wouldn't happen in the RAF

ok ok it's understandable that gunrock would feel affronted.

my own experience of the military is as a cadet in the RAF, and I was always surprised how ... erm... professional they were. The british stiff upper lip was well preserved. Sure, they joked around, but if they were driving past some random cars in Iraq, I would expect them to quit goofing off.

So from gunrock, all i wanted was some kind of reason why they might be expected to be relaxed at that point, are they in a "safe" area? is it that they drive past so many cars that don't explode they dropped their guard? I just was struck by how casual they were. Are they always this casual? Is it the only way to deal with the pressure?

and yes, i know joking around is a good way to relieve the enormous physical and emotional strain of being in someone else's country risking your life... it's just, well, this seemed so casual. "hi guys! salam a fuckin laikum, woohoo" BANG.

yeah, i am pretty sure war crimes go unpunished all the time, how are you supposed to put dead people in the witness box? yay twiddles...

@Arsenault185 re:
"BTW mink in regards to you last post, that very specifically talks about country governments, whereas Al-Q is not a government, there fore we cannot declare "war" on them."

EXACTLY. So what this is is not a war, it is a pillage. The word "Al-Quaeda" was made popular as a way to try to define these disparate terrorists as a coherent group, in order to make it more legitimate to prance around the world killing them in other people's countries. (or shooting innocent brazilians in the head, whichever)

I don't think the writers of the constitution, geneva conventions, or nuremburg judgements would class this invasion as a "legitimate war" ... that's why they are relevant here. Think spirit of the law, not letter. I am not suggesting they all have a clause saying "No invading sovereign nations for their natural resources".

again you felt the need to attack watada... this time he's called a "douchebag". The dude is obviously not just tryin to slack off here, i think it takes just as much courage to stand up to the entire united states military and argue points of law as it does to fight poor people who's oil you stole.

If he wins, and in future there is less illegal, disgraceful, blatant pillage during which innocent people and honest servicemen die... well.. he did us all a favour.

Law is an argument, it is in a state of constant flux. If you oppose the opposition, you're basically in line with Hitler and Stalin, telling everyone to STFU. That's not constitutional.

And BTW i served as a cadet in the RAF, a fact which makes me almost 12% more qualified to talk about this than a civvy. I would have enlisted, but my eyes are bad so they wouldn't let me fly the sexy planes, and i realised just in time that i would be asked to do immoral things by whatever government came along and decided to have a war...
unlike Watada I realised this before signing.

welcome arsenault185

wow, bill maher throws out some truthies, one million votes.
RAF in afghanistan, 10 votes, needs a save.
says it all really.

btw, the RAF really do talk like that. I never heard anyone say "HELL YEAH!!!! THAT ONE'S FROM THE QUEEN, MOTHERFUCKER!!!!"

despite what you say rembar, there are other worrying bits in this story that you did not address, particularly the procurement and long term contracts and the thing about the wrong gunpowder.

i remember one guy training me in the RAF saying "THIS IS THE MAGAZINE FOR THE GP CADET RIFLE AND SA80. IT WAS DESIGNED TO BE DISPOSABLE BUT THE GOVERNMENT ARE TOO CHEAP SO WE USE THEM AGAIN AND AGAIN. LOOK AT IT. IT IS A PIECE OF SHIT LIKE A TOY. BE CAREFUL WITH IT OR YOUR GUN WILL JAM. THIS IS THE DUST COVER. USE IT OR YOUR GUN WILL JAM. ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE SENT TO FIGHT IN A DESERT. THIS WEAPON WAS DESIGNED TO KILL RUSSIANS IN EUROPE. BE CAREFUL WITH IT OR IT WILL JAM."

that always fascinated me. man was he bitter about it. i guess something bad happened to one of his buddies.

i honestly thought there was a NO CAPS rule somewhere that i missed... this place is really strict like that, i wouldn't be surprised...

but strict is good! i was in the RAF dontchaknow.

i think you should invent SiftML, an extension of XML, so somehow we can invent our own *invocations and make crazy javascript clowns punch things, or whatever.

woo! former RAF cadet wants to join airpr0n collective, invite please?