I don't shoot chutes in IL2. You don't get anything for it and it's annoying for the other players - and it's against the rules in the servers I use. I a real war you do get something for it, you save the lives of real people on your side.

Choice of drink?

It's not about how wealthy a country is, it's about the leaders. Bush, for example, was a fine puppet, put into power by very wealthy industry men, who need their slice. Blair proposed to our MPs that the oil revenues be put in a trust fund for the Iraqi people administered through the UN, and that the UK should get a Security Council Resolution guarantying the use of all oil revenues for the benefit of the Iraqi people. Good idea we'd think, but did that happen? Hell no! Instead the US and UK sponsored a resolution in the Security Council which gave the US and UK control over Iraq's oil revenues. Now the US and UK don't actually take the oil, but they have been trying to force Iraq into agreeing 30 year deals with our oil companies, from which there will kick backs.

Do I believe that Bush would take his country to war solely for money - no. Bush and Blair are somewhat religious warmongers, believing their cause. They took us to war on the premise of eradicating WOMD, but they had no proof that there were any such weapons or the ability to produce them. So what exactly did they take us to war for?

Oh go on, this'll be good - what's his latest reason for sending us to war? (and please don't take that as anti US, I blame my own PM as much as Bush, and as posted earlier the reasons for France and Russia oppossing the war was just as bad IMO).

I don't want to quote the book directly, but here are a few reasons he gives as I recall (make up you own mind about them):

In 1999 and 2000 Saddam's regime had fired 700 times on aircraft patrolling the UN sanctioned "no fly zone".
Saddam had already invaded two of his neighbors.
He had violated 16 UN sanctions.
He paid the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.
He had issued a statement praising the 9/11 attacks.
He protected Abu Nidal in Iraq.
He tried to assassinate a former US president (turns out it was Bush I).
He had tortured his people and dumped tens of thousands into mass graves.
He had used WMD's on both his own people (about 5000 dead Kurds in one incident I remember vividly) and on Iran.
Diplomacy had failed, he was still not working with UN inspectors and even kicked them out.
Saddam had also passed on an offer to go into exile with a boat load of money put up by another Middle East country whom I cannot remember.

Lastly, and most controversial, was WMD's. Nearly every intelligence agency in the world believed Saddam had WMD's. I think what Bush wrote was something along the lines of, "No one was lying, we were all just wrong".

Here is a publicized excerpt from a presidential address:

"The hard fact is that so long as Saddam remains in power, he threatens the well-being of his people, the peace of his region, the security of the world.The best way to end that threat once and for all is with a new Iraqi government -- a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people.

...

Heavy as they are, the costs of action must be weighed against the price of inaction. If Saddam defies the world and we fail to respond, we will face a far greater threat in the future. Saddam will strike again at his neighbors; he will make war on his own people. And mark my words, he will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them, and he will use them."

Oh wait....that was Bill Clinton in December of '98. This speech was made after he gave the order for airstrikes on Iraqi WMD facilities. Yes, the Brits joined in the operation.

But yeah, Bush took us to war for oil :).

Don't take my word for anything, reading the book will allow you to decide for yourself.

Splitter

.....bit too old for fairy stories........but if you like them.........OK by me!

s~ :)

Defense industries make much more by selling there goods to other countries. They can tack on training costs, etc. I have worked for the evil military complex and the reason why so much of the military goods cost so much is simply a supply and demand issue. Because the military is a government run organization, the powers that be cannot just take a toilet seat off the shelf. They must design a complete new one, with special military options and then they order 500. That toilet seat at the store was made in quantities of 10,000 or more and it's a simple cost per unit issue. Happens all the time...no conspiracy here.

We still "buy" Iraqi oil, we should have taken over their oil industry and sent the oil home for free to pay for ther war. We could even give the Europeans a discount:)

Bush was more in line with domestic matters and was probably over his head when 9/11 happened. He did what he thought best and the country was with him up to a point. Obama is the same, he probably has more book smart than Bush (don't really know as Obama is hiding his records) but has no foreign affairs or real leadership credentials....he is the one to be afraid of.

That would be correct if it was so.
The products I'm talking about are standard ones you could buy everywhere.
standard(!) toilet seat, or even a normal ($40!) 500gr hammer.

And yes, I know of those special gov. needs: The Swiss felt need for their F18 to have a Titanium frame for prolonged service use.

I mean, just a thought, the F18 is made for carrier use - but the Swiss still think the cell is too weak?
wtf.

I am pobably wrong, but don't they earmark sections of autobarns/major roads for use as airfields as part of their contingency plans? This would require a fairly robust airframe. I wonder if they use arrestor wires for 'short' strips ?

Also when operating in very mountainous area having dual engines would be an advantage.


One of my friend was working as a fireman foir the RAAF many years ago. One of our F/A-18's wen down in the outback and he was one of the men sent to recover the plane. They needed to separate one of the rudders from the plane which are held by titanium hinges so they got the 'Jaws of life' fromthe back of the firetruck and tried to cut the hinge. Unfortunately the hinge remained intact but the sheers of the jaws of life splayed open, destroying the tool. Titanium is tough stuff!
Cheers

Governments overpay for normal items all the time. This is not a military supplier only issue. Add in union contracts and the prices of items sold and installed by the government run 5 to 10 times the going rate...I know , I deal with this all the time. I don't know how you Euros can get anything done at a fair price:grin:

My whole point is that a President of the USA and his "military establishment buddies" have a whole range of ways to make money without creating a fake war in Iraq and then not keeping the oil for ourselves. If they were smart enough to carry this out and made up the WMD issue don't you think they would realize after we took over the country no weapons would be found. If they were that evil wouldn't they have created some fake storage facility with Iraqi WMD's?:grin:

Let me get this straight>>>>>>>The USA goes through this whole conspiracy to take over oil because of a fake WMD issue and then "forgets" to plant fake WMD's in the country and then "forgets" to get the free oil. All this to give some oil/military suppliers some government contracts????? See how silly this sounds:-P

Didn't know that about the titanium F-18's...good info.

I don't know how the Swiss do it, but a government spec on something as simple as a switch or a desk can take up several pages. And in most instances, a contractor must charge the government less than its' largest commercial clients. When I sell to the government, I am usually making 10% gross profit, about half what I make off of any commercial entity.

Many times when you see these inflated prices the government pays, they were part of a package deal. Example: a contractor is tasked with keeping a machine running. The machine has 1,000 parts. The contractor bids $100,000 for the job. So each part costs $100 on average and that's what the government pays per part. Now, the part may actually cost $3,000 or it might cost $5 individually to the contractor, but the government is billed at the average cost of $100 per item.

The waste in government really comes from the 12 agencies that wrote the spec for each part. In each agency the spec was reviewed by dozens of people. They all have their opinions and they all write in their own little part of the spec. In the end, that little switch that cost the manufacturer $3 to make costs the government $20 to procure in quantity, more if they buy one or two.

I swear that government employees must get paid by the pound of paperwork they generate.

Oh....and once the spec is all but written, then the government does an environmental impact study on the switch lol.

No business could operate the way the government does.

Splitter