Foxy_Dread
Mathematically I wonder if it's better to be a tall soldier or a small soldier. Larger target area is a disadvantage but does the extra height compensate through significant advantages.
hendersonjones
what a disgusting world we live in
gore
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Djpekingman
China reasserting itself? When did it previously assert itself? It's always been more concerned with internal genocide and internecine conflict than empire. It has enough issues of its own trying to keep the lid on it's regional naysayers. Much in the same way the the USSR did with it's regions - move the locals elsewhere and migrate your own (cantonese and mandarin) millions to drown any revolt. As soon as they soften this policy the peasants will revolt and we'll see the same in China as happened/is happening in the caucasus.And the russian elite (read KBG/NKVD) have proven quite capable of raping and pillaging the old soviet union without help from the CIA. Putin is not only trying to reestablish spheres of influence, but re-annex areas with majority russian populations, despite them being within pre soviet independent borders - the only reason they have majority russian populations is through the previous soviet enforced mass migration. Putin is a fossil, a throwback from a previous and failed era, only this time with plenty of money behind him. And a cunt.
Foxy_Dread
i just hope they don't make a Lockerbie style mistake in this investigation, to get it wrong twice would be most unlucky.
gore
There is no difference between Putin and successive US presidents. None. The Soviet Union fell apart for a number of reasons, but primarily because it was an economic basket case. The political upheaval was nowhere near as relevant. Yeltsin and his family were bought lock stock and barrel by investors into make a quick buck and they sure did. we should be grateful, most of that cash has been invested in London property and companies - kept the UK afloat and engineered another bubble just in time for 2015. And yes, he is taking back areas which are seen as part of Russia and broke off to further a bunch of investment opportunities. Just look at the bastions of democracy they all are and not at all being raped by the local dictator and his western advisors - even Blair and Campbell are in ot the gravy train ... and how is it different to how the US behaves with its interests? If he's a fossil, and its exactly the same as the way the US and UK behaves, just closer to home - what doe that make us? China was the wealthiest country in the world upto about 1820 and it 'ran' countries from the Himalayas through to Japan. Their foreign policy since has all been about securing materials to power its economic development. Its by far the biggest investor in Africa, Pakistan - all infrastructure so they can get stuff back to Chian faster. And now they are building a deep water fleet to protect those supply lines and going after countries where it feels it has 'influence'. A clash is inevitiable.
Djpekingman
Looks at map - checks number of countries between the himalayas and Japan. Hmmmmmm - 1. China.Don't disagree with their securing of materials though. But this is a fairly recent thing, say since 1985. Prior to that their economic development was typically communist, ie non-existant. You see their effect on world commodities market from day to day - from tobacco through almonds (yes almonds - chinese demand almost doubled the price over last 2 or 3 years) through copper (£4000 a ton before the construction bubble burst) and oil. Putin is still a throwback though. It's not about securing resources in his case. The Caucasus? Ukraine? If he was doing that he's be marching into Baku. Some of the 'stans fall under his influence as does Belarus, but the most economically advanced, Baltic states, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia and until recently Ukraine have all given him the firm finger. That has wound him up, hence the more recent 'interventions' in states in which he thinks he can get away with it. He may have misjudged with the Ukraine though, as he did with Georgia. He is still trying to subdue Chechnya, but unfortunately has unleashed a steady stream of Jihadi nutters on the rest of the world as well as at home - don't think that was really his intention. Massive misjudgement - he should have learnt from Afghanistan (twice).
Guest
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king_of_the_slums
Sky News coming out well in all of this again I see.
spacecadetdave
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Placid
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Guest
Yes. Below are extracts from a writ of summons from the dutch law firm Van Diepen Van der Kroef Advocaten:[i]Dramatic events were taking place everywhere. Old men were murdered. Children were snatched out of the hands of their mothers and parents committed suicide because their daughters were taken away and raped.[/i][i]At one time, I saw how a young boy of about ten was killed by Serbs in Dutch uniform. This happened in front of my own eyes. The mother sat on the ground and her young son sat beside her. The young boy was placed on his mother’s lap. The young boy was killed. His head was cut off. The body remained on the lap of the mother. The Serbian soldier placed the head of the young boy on his knife and showed it to everyone. There were at that moment Dutch soldiers in the vicinity. They stood by and did nothing. They appeared to be entirely indifferent. The woman was hysterical and began to call out for help. A Dutch soldier who was standing there said only, “No, no, no.” I think that it was a Dutch soldier. The Serbs forced the mother to drink the blood of her child. Chaos broke out among the refugees.[/i][i]I saw how a pregnant woman was slaughtered. There were Serbs who stabbed her in the stomach, cut her open and took two small children out of her stomach and then beat them to death on the ground. I saw this with my own eyes. These Serbian soldiers were followed around by a number of Dutch soldiers. I am convinced that there were Dutch soldiers present. I recognized them. I was not under the impression that they were afraid or forced to be present. I am pretty certain that they were armed. The Dutch soldiers did nothing at all.[/i][i]The Serbs began at a certain point to take girls and young women out of the group of refugees. They were raped. The rapes often took place under the eyes of others and sometimes even under the eyes of the children of the mother. A Dutch soldier stood by and he simply looked around with a walkman on his head. He did not react at all to what was happening. It did not happen just before my eyes, for I saw that personally, but also before the eyes of us all. The Dutch soldiers walked around everywhere. It is impossible that they did not see it.[/i][i]I saw a group of Chetniks hold down a woman of about 65 years old while one of the Chetniks stuck his arm up into the vagina of the woman and tore out her womb. After this happened she was still alive. She survived it. I saw that with my own eyes. Some four or five Dutchbat soldiers were standing in the immediate vicinity. They did nothing.[/i]
Placid
Fukin great, Im off on me hols there this summer.
Loose_Lips
Jesus Christ. I'm beyond words.
Harvest
Good god.
90Piesanhour
Need to read about the rape of Nanking to cheer myself up after that.Are UN Peacekeepers allowed to use force at all, even if they're armed? I'm sure similar atrocities have happened in Africa and the UN soldiers have been unable to do anything. Just wondering.
Djpekingman
Apparently they didn't have the mandate to react. I think that was excuse they used. The UN really is a toothless organisation. Everything needs security council approval. The russians would've vetoed any mandate for force, the chinese would've abstained. None of this excuses the conscience of individuals. I don't think there's many on here that if they were stood there with a full magazine would've stood idly by. There's also the possibility that the dutch were that stoned they just couldn't give a fuck either way.I work with a bunch of dutch, serbs, croats, montenegrans, russians and ukranians. Of all of them I would trust the serbs least. Having said that, these folk represent the decent majority of those countries. It doesn't take many psychos to besmirch the reputation of an entire nation.
gore
800,000 killed in a 100 days in Rwanda.... think that was any different?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/evil/
Djpekingman
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gore
There were Belgians there. And the French. Belgians were UN