Recruitment for British army soars in Republic of Ireland

smurgen wrote: »

They marched these people for days to the concentration camps.thousands of black south africans died in these camps.it was a land grab operation and men were told to take whatever they wanted

If you want to set up a thread on thousands of people in Africa who allegedly died about 115 / 120 years ago, set up a different thread on that.

smurgen

maryishere wrote: »

The British celebrate what? The prisons they had for a brief while while in S. Africa were nothing like the Nazi extermination camps. Even the many tens of thousands of South Africans who fought with the British in WW2 will tell you that.

Their long military history. In 2003 the British American and allied forces engaged in 'Shock and Awe' in order to invade Iraq. This to me is the very definition of terrorism. 6k people died in the initial bombardment of bagdad. Also the WMD's?the justification for the invasion was never found.This is the action of scumbag organisations which has lead to the entire Middle east being further destabilized.

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

Allow me.

Since the so-called 'War on Terror' began, in Afghanistan UK military casualties numbered 15,459 affected. 134,780 soldiers have been deployed to Afghanistan since 2001 so that's greater than 1-in-10 physically affected, some with awful injuries like double/triple amputations, and that's before we even consider the psychological harm caused by conflict.

Thanks for that.
I kinda thought that it was obvious what I was talking about. IE not a life spent skiing or galloping around on horses have a jolly good jape shooting at savages.

smurgen wrote: »

Their long military history. In 2003 the British American and allied forces engaged in 'Shock and Awe' in order to invade....

Iraq was the country which had invaded Kuwait years before. I am not automatically justifying Gulf War 2, but do you not think Gulf War 1 was justified?
Or would you have let Iraq get away with invading Kuwait and taking all its oil? Would you have then let it invade Saudi? Do you benefit from the relatively cheap oil as a result of the British/ US liberation of Kuwait?

smurgen

maryishere wrote: »

Iraq was the country which had invaded Kuwait years before. I am not automatically justifying Gulf War 2, but do you not think Gulf War 1 was justified?
Or would you have let Iraq get away with invading Kuwait and taking all its oil? Would you have then let it invade Saudi? Do you benefit from the relatively cheap oil as a result of the British/ US liberation of Kuwait?

You seem to only want to discuss recent events so lets focus on the 2003 invasion.do you see that as something the British should be ashamed of?

LordSutch wrote: »

Irish army Vs British army.
https://youtu.be/4ECDT0WU2ZY

lol. The Irish army invades Newry. Not sure about the army size then but wiki has it at "approximately 7,300 active personnel " now. Imagine the claims there would have been, lads not getting home for lunch etc. They might even have heard loud noises. What would the army deafness claims have been like then lol? According to wiki, "The army deafness claims were a series of personal injury claims taken from 1992 to 2002 against the Department of Defence by members of the Irish Defence Forces for noise-induced hearing loss resulting from exposure to loud noise during military operations and training. The claims stated that the government had failed to provide adequate ear protectors during firing exercises, as was required under regulations dating back to the 1950s. About 16,500 claims were made, resulting in payouts totalling about €300m."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Army_deafness_claims

smurgen wrote: »

You seem to only want to discuss recent events so lets focus on the 2003 invasion.do you see that as something the British should be ashamed of?

I'll talk any event but you want to derail this thread. I am no fan of Blair and I believe the 2003 invasion of Iraq probably played a part in the rise of the Islamic State militant group. If Thatcher was still in power, she would have grasped the situation better / made sure the research was correct and then probably not invaded. A much better politician.

smurgen

maryishere wrote: »

lol. The Irish army invades Newry. Not sure about the army size then but wiki has it at "approximately 7,300 active personnel " now. Imagine the claims there would have been, lads not getting home for lunch etc. They might even have heard loud noises. What would the army deafness claims have been like then lol? According to wiki, "The army deafness claims were a series of personal injury claims taken from 1992 to 2002 against the Department of Defence by members of the Irish Defence Forces for noise-induced hearing loss resulting from exposure to loud noise during military operations and training. The claims stated that the government had failed to provide adequate ear protectors during firing exercises, as was required under regulations dating back to the 1950s. About 16,500 claims were made, resulting in payouts totalling about €300m."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Army_deafness_claims

God can you imagine the counter attacks by the British on the republic?hundreds of civilians killed in 'not so precise' precision attacks lol https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/26/iraq.georgewright?CMP=share_btn_link

Junkyard Tom

maryishere wrote: »

lol.

You're so full of spite for your own defence forces it's got to be unhealthy. Btw the Irish Army forced the British Army to withdraw from blowing up a Bridge in 1971.

An Irish Army officer pointed a machine gun at a British Officer and demanded that he hand over a quantity of explosives which he claimed the British had brought into the Irish Republic to blow up a bridge ... After a 90 minute parely the British withdrew leaving the bridge intact.

news.google.com/newspapers

Does it annoy you that your Army was stood down by the Irish Army you so despise?

smurgen wrote: »

God can you imagine the counter attacks by the British on the republic?

Naw, our glorious air force jets would have beaten them off. Oops, forgot we had not any then. Them RAF lads would not have volunteered to rescue our offshore fishermen in distress again for a long time.

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

You're so full of spite for your own defence forces it's got to be unhealthy.

lol. Any I know are sound lads, good sense of humour too, like.

Zebra3

maryishere wrote: »

So allied soldiers who risked their lives,( and some who paid the ultimate price so their mates - and you - could live) to liberate Europe from the Nazis was tragically pointless, according to you.

Spare us the propaganda nonsense.

Imperial Britain declared war on Germany to protect the vast tracts of lands it was occupying around the world.

getzls

Zebra3 wrote: »

maryishere wrote: »

So allied soldiers who risked their lives,( and some who paid the ultimate price so their mates - and you - could live) to liberate Europe from the Nazis was tragically pointless, according to you.

Spare us the propaganda nonsense.

Imperial Britain declared war on Germany to protect the vast tracts of lands it was occupying around the world.

Germany was no threat to British overseas countries.

Zebra3

Britain's longstanding policy was to ensure no one nation dominated the European mainland.

If any did, it would be a threat to Britain's empire and all the lands it occupied.

So Britain declared war on Germany for invading Poland while fought with the USSR who also invaded Poland.

FrancieBrady wrote: »

Eh neither did you and neither did you present the other side of the experience, the one that started this particular bit of the conversation. Dying.

Context indeed.

* and the 'shinner' attempt to troll again. Well done, we know what point we are at when that gets fired in to the debate.

I wasn't using stats, I was using anecdotes which are context independent for obvious reasons......you decided to throw the 8000 figure around and neglected to put it in context. And yes, stats without context is something of a facet of Shinnernomics.

Similar to your recycling of the anthrax bombs story - only telling half the story, because the other half doesn't suit your narrative.

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

Allow me.

Since the so-called 'War on Terror' began, in Afghanistan UK military casualties numbered 15,459 affected. 134,780 soldiers have been deployed to Afghanistan since 2001 so that's greater than 1-in-10 physically affected, some with awful injuries like double/triple amputations, and that's before we even consider the psychological harm caused by conflict.

Well there you go, you see it is possible to quote stats in context.

And yes, that would definitely put me off enlisting, but as I explained - repeatedly - earlier in the thread, young men (especially young men) process risk differently to older people.

Those stats are sobering, but young lads signing up don't see it as a 1-in-10 chance they'll be killed, maimed or injured if they go on a combat tour, they see it as a 90% chance they won't, that it'll be some other person in their platoon.

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

You're so full of spite for your own defence forces it's got to be unhealthy. Btw the Irish Army forced the British Army to withdraw from blowing up a Bridge in 1971.

An Irish Army officer pointed a machine gun at a British Officer and demanded that he hand over a quantity of explosives which he claimed the British had brought into the Irish Republic to blow up a bridge ... After a 90 minute parely the British withdrew leaving the bridge intact.

news.google.com/newspapers

Does it annoy you that your Army was stood down by the Irish Army you so despise?

Is that the best you can come up with? If you were a Shinner I'd say it's good to see Shinners offering some support for our Defence Forces.......

......anyway, a much better example would've been the Flagstaff Hill incident, when unarmed Gardaí arrested, with the assistance of the Defence Forces, an entire SAS Sabre Team, who were subsequently transferred to Dublin and charged with firearms offences

Snickers Man

maryishere wrote: »

Germany lost 18,594 dead in North Africa, 3,400 missing, and 130,000 captured.

In two years!!

Using these figures you are saying that the Germans lost fewer men killed in a two year campaign across a vast area spanning at least three countries (Egypt, Libya, Tunisia) than The British Army lost IN A SINGLE DAY on the Somme in 1916!!!!!

I say it was a side show for the Germans, they were not the main players on the Axis side there and you seem to be backing my argument up.

maryishere wrote: »

Sure the Italians lost more, but you cannot say it was'nt a German fight, as Rommel was the Axis General

Sure the Italians lost more. Now there's an understatement. It was THEIR war. THEY launched it from THEIR possessions in Libya, against Britain's protectorate of Egypy (We'll leave out the sideshow of a sideshow that was the East African campaign between various desultory Italian and British possessions in Abyssinia, Eritrea and Somaliland for the time being) and Germany only got involved to bolster the faltering Italian effort.

Rommel was not THE Axis General; he was ONE Axis General. Specifically, he was a Corps commander (the clue is in the name Afrika Korps) and he was always, officially at least, subservient to superior ranked Italian generals and Marshalls.

But the British (and Australians and New Zealanders) can't bring themselves to admit that it was mainly the Italians, about whom they made jokes about tanks with more reverse than forward gears, who were knocking them about in North Africa for most of the time there.

The Australians love to say, for example, that it was the Aussie Desert Rats at Tobruk that inflicted the first defeat on Germany on land in the Second World War. You might just as easily say that it was the Indians defeating the Italians in that battle. Three quarters of casualties on the Axis side were Italian and many of the defenders were from the Indian Army.

Inconvenient truths, perhaps.

Cabaal

Plebbit wrote: »

It's not WW1 anymore. Casualties from war are very low in the modern era (for the British anyway. ISIS may have different experiences!)

Indeed, your chances of dieing are low.

However life long problems due to injury remain, as good as modern health care is they still haven't the best solution to loosing your arm or leg.

So you may not die but a IED can really mess up your plans to start running when you get back home.

FrancieBrady wrote: »

Since WW2 8000 BA personnel have died in combat .

But you still have not answered how any British servicemen have gone through the books in the same period. Ten million? You do not know, do you, so your figure is not in context.

For all we know the chances of dying in the British military are less than a member of the Gardai being shot by Republicans, whose actions you defended / praised before. As someone else pointed out, at least 23 serving Gardaí have been murdered by individuals or groups associated with the IRA/dissident republican paramilitary and terrorist groups, this being the most common cause of death apart from accidents.

Jawgap wrote: »

I wasn't using stats, I was using anecdotes which are context independent for obvious reasons......you decided to throw the 8000 figure around and neglected to put it in context. And yes, stats without context is something of a facet of Shinnernomics.

Similar to your recycling of the anthrax bombs story - only telling half the story, because the other half doesn't suit your narrative.

Why couldn't mine be similarly 'anecdotal'?

Where you not incisive enough to work it out?

Re: Anthrax. We were discussing Churchill, I was NOT comparing him to anyone else, THE POINT was NOT that he was worse or better than anyone else.

Any incisive mind I would normally deal with would be able to work out in a heartbeat that 'He ordered in...' meant that the 'bombs' came from somewhere else and if they were anxious to know where they came from then they could either ask, as it was irrelevant (WHERE they came from)to the conversation, or go to google.

*As predicted, the argument has gone to semantics and rants about Shinners. We know why.

Snickers Man wrote: »

I say it was a side show for the Germans, they were not the main players on the Axis side there and you seem to be backing my argument up.

I did not say the Germans were the main players on the Axis side, I supplied you with the figures and showed you that the germans made up approx 40% of the Axis side.

During the entire North African campaign, the Axis side ( Italians and Germans, who by all accounts were better soldiers than the Italians ) suffered 620,000 casualties, while the British Commonwealth lost 220,000 men. As someone else said, the Allied victory in North Africa destroyed or neutralized nearly 900,000 Italian and German troops, opened a second front against the Axis, permitted the invasion of Sicily and the Italian mainland in the summer of 1943, and removed the Axis threat to the oilfields of the Middle East and to British supply lines to Asia and Africa. It was critically important to the course of World War II. Yet you say it was "a side show for the Germans". Do you think the Allied forces could have landed in southern Italy and worked their way up if they had not some control of N. Africa / the med first?

Jawgap wrote: »

Well there you go, you see it is possible to quote stats in context.

And yes, that would definitely put me off enlisting, but as I explained - repeatedly - earlier in the thread, young men (especially young men) process risk differently to older people.

Those stats are sobering, but young lads signing up don't see it as a 1-in-10 chance they'll be killed, maimed or injured if they go on a combat tour, they see it as a 90% chance they won't, that it'll be some other person in their platoon.

And the point made, before the distractions, was that efforts to get 'the young' to join are almost predatory.
When someone has a 1-10 chance of dying from a product or activity you usually get health warnings and in some cases, ads are banned altogether.
You would never see ads for 'joyriding' would you, although 'young people' do that using the exact same rationale..'it will never happen to me'?
Should be same for ads selling a glamourous life in the army in my opinion.

FrancieBrady wrote: »

Why couldn't mine be similarly 'anecdotal'?

Where you not incisive enough to work it out?

We were discussing Churchill, I was NOT comparing him to anyone else, THE POINT was NOT that he was worse or better than anyone else.

Any incisive mind I would normally deal with would be able to work out in a heartbeat that 'He ordered in...' meant that the 'bombs' came from somewhere else and if they were anxious to know where they came from then they could either ask, as it was irrelevant (WHERE they came from)to the conversation, or go to google.

*As predicted, the argument has gone to semantics and rants about Shinners. We know why.

Ah yeah, I'd understand because I've studied it and get paid modest amounts to write about it.

I'm just saying there's a theme running through your posts as regards posting/not posting the whole story........

......but it's AH so who really cares

Jawgap wrote: »

Ah yeah, I'd understand because I've studied it and get paid modest amounts to write about it.

I'm just saying there's a theme running through your posts as regards posting/not posting the whole story........

......but it's AH so who really cares

Read this slowly...WHERE THE BOMBS came from was NOT relevant to the the discussion.
IF I was COMPARING (definition here: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/comparing) Churchill's activity to somebody else's THEN your point is relevant.

I would go further, 'It's the internet', a certain level of incisive thought is required to use it.

FrancieBrady wrote: »

When someone has a 1-10 chance of dying from a product or activity you usually get health warnings and in some cases, ads are banned altogether.

but it was not a 1-10 chance of dying : it was a 1 in ten chance of dying or getting some sort of injury. Typical how you add legs to something.

Last year no British servicemen died on active service. Some might have broken bones while parachuting or skiing, or cut their finger. It was a good year. In some other years some unfortunate soldiers lost their lives or were badly injured...I seem to remember you condoning attacks on British soldiers in the past.

FrancieBrady wrote: »

Read this slowly...WHERE THE BOMBS came from was NOT relevant to the the discussion.
IF I was COMPARING (definition here: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/comparing) Churchill's activity to somebody else's THEN your point is relevant.

I would go further, 'It's the internet', a certain level of incisive thought is required to use it.

Of course it is because the subtext to your uninformed posting was that they'd have come from the then extensive British arms manufacturing establishment......

......not from the US.

A crude attempt to corrupt and already discredited and debunked story to further your whole narrative as the Brits as wholly bad guys.

(I'm not saying they were good guys. I'm just taking a stand against propaganda bring promulgated as historical fact.)

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

You're so full of spite for your own defence forces it's got to be unhealthy. Btw the Irish Army forced the British Army to withdraw from blowing up a Bridge in 1971.

An Irish Army officer pointed a machine gun at a British Officer and demanded that he hand over a quantity of explosives which he claimed the British had brought into the Irish Republic to blow up a bridge ... After a 90 minute parely the British withdrew leaving the bridge intact.

news.google.com/newspapers

Does it annoy you that your Army was stood down by the Irish Army you so despise?

I was at several similar events in my time. 'Filling in the roads' was almost a routine Sunday event. It was a great community(severely impacted by such pointless and provocative actions) act of defiance and while the British eventually stopped cars crossing they never stopped foot traffic, although they tried.
They expended many many rounds of rubber bullets there, just for kicks, (as there was no confrontation, generally) from the safety of hills a long distance away. They were lethal things in those days and had killed a few people. http://www.estudiosirlandeses.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/rubber-bullet.jpg

The idea, as a young fella, was to try and get one as they were worth a few quid as mementos.

Fratton Fred

Zebra3 wrote: »

Britain's longstanding policy was to ensure no one nation dominated the European mainland.

If any did, it would be a threat to Britain's empire and all the lands it occupied.

So Britain declared war on Germany for invading Poland while fought with the USSR who also invaded Poland.

So Britian were wrong to declare war on Germany, is that what you're saying?

Snickers Man wrote: »

In two years!!

Using these figures you are saying that the Germans lost fewer men killed in a two year campaign across a vast area spanning at least three countries (Egypt, Libya, Tunisia) as The British Army lost IN A SINGLE DAY on the Somme in 1916!!!!!

I say it was a side show for the Germans, they were not the main players on the Axis side there and you seem to be backing my argument up.

Sure the Italians lost more. Now there's an understatement. It was THEIR war. THEY launched it from THEIR possessions in Libya, against Britain's protectorate of Egypy (We'll leave out the sideshow of a sideshow that was the East African campaign between various desultory Italian and British possessions in Abyssinia, Eritrea and Somaliland for the time being) and Germany only got involved to bolster the faltering Italian effort.

Rommel was not THE Axis General; he was ONE Axis General. Specifically, he was a Corps commander (the clue is in the name Afrika Korps) and he was always, officially at least, subservient to superior ranked Italian generals and Marshalls.

But the British (and Australians and New Zealanders) can't bring themselves to admit that it was mainly the Italians, about whom they made jokes about tanks with more reverse than forward gears, who were knocking them about in North Africa for most of the time there.

The Australians love to say, for example, that it was the Aussie Desert Rats at Tobruk that inflicted the first defeat on Germany on land in the Second World War. You might just as easily say that it was the Indians defeating the Italians in that battle. Three quarters of casualties on the Axis side were Italian and many of the defenders were from the Indian Army.

Inconvenient truths, perhaps.

One of several succesful engagements against Italy, including the raid on Taranto (which the Japanese used as the model for Pearl Harbour) and the BAttle of Cape Matapan, which effectively took Italy out of the war.

The same guys then went and tied up 20,000 German troops in Crete and more importantly, inflicted enough German casualties that Hitler effectively stood down his elite paratroop regiment.

but yeah, insignificant stuff alright:rolleyes: