Well you deserved it.

You are right to never trust them, it's always a matter of when not if.

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

Respect.

Sometimes the Americans are criticised for not helping us enough but they did a lot behind the scenes.

My oldest friend from school was a demolition expert in the navy. Like you he missed the Soton send off.

When his team was called up they were put on a normal commercial flight to Washington DC, their kit and weapons were in the hold. I asked him what happened from there and he wouldn't say but I got the impression they caught another flight to a friendly SA country probably Chile and from their took a boat.

He ended up on the Island of South Georgia ( I've seen the photos).

Anyway the point was that hundreds if not thousands of our troops were flown out via the US with their people turning a blind eye to what we were up to.

One more point

Yep, this is another gripe with the ruling elite.

I'll leave aside whether someone agrees on the background to this war and so on....all that argumentation is on this thread.

However, for two years they pushed propaganda onto normies in the form of....no doubt security/intelligence connected talking heads on media and writing articles telling us how Russia was about to run out of ammo, their economy was about to go bust....How Russia's troops were too low on morale and deserting. How Russia Putin health is about to fail.

You name it they pushed it on mainstream channels. Everything to justify funding this disaster for Ukraine.

Treating the public like children has been going on for....well I first noticed it with Syria and Libya and of course covid.

I don't like it.....I want the British governmental agencies to be above lying to their public and either not say anything or be straight down the line.

Personally I say stop putting talking heads onto media stations that end up sowing mistrust in our defence and intelligence departments. Anybody with a memory longer than five minutes sees the gap between what they say and what happens. When that becomes so dramatically obvious it's corrosive.

Edited by Stirlingsays (12 Dec 2023 4.01am)

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

Every life lost in any war is a waste. It would be so much better if every dispute could reach the ultimate outcome decided by war by negotiation and mediation at the beginning. Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that, especially when dealing with people like Putin.

I am no expert at all and, unlike some, don’t pretend to be, but I suspect the military strategists would have considered the present scenario as a probability at the outset, but felt they had no other way of reaching it other than by this war. You need both sides to negotiate and Putin was initially aiming directly for Kyiv despite the claims of only wanting to “protect” Russian speakers. Without resistance they would have taken control of the whole of Ukraine and turned it back into a Russian satellite, their army intact and now at the door of other weak looking countries. At least now the Russians have been weakened and won’t be able to take all of Ukraine or be able to nullify resistance.

Those who look at what the likely negotiated settlement will be and assume that could have been agreed at the outset are in denial of the reality that Putin cannot be trusted.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

Just a few typos I fixed it for you.

I seen the crook Zelensky is in the US and begging western leaders to send all their money to Ukraine.