Probably the same in my case to be honest. Glad I won't have to.
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The Falklands
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Probably the same in my case to be honest. Glad I won't have to.
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The trouble with that is the legals get complex as the side who "declares war" becomes the aggressor in international law, at which point the UN resolution could have been in danger.
MidnightFlyer
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... And now Morrissey is getting in on the act too (I disliked him well before this anyway):
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...d-wear-We-Hate-William-And-Kate-T-shirts.html
He told a Buenos Aries crowd that 'We all know the Mavinas are Argentina's', before joining in with a bunch of men wearing T-shirts saying 'We hate William and Kate'.
What a grade A berk that man is.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...d-wear-We-Hate-William-And-Kate-T-shirts.html
He told a Buenos Aries crowd that 'We all know the Mavinas are Argentina's', before joining in with a bunch of men wearing T-shirts saying 'We hate William and Kate'.
What a grade A berk that man is.
Butts
Veteran Member
Perhaps they should let him stay in Argentina :roll:
I'm not sure it does! The charter allows for actions to be taken under those provisos, but that doesn't have any bearing on the legal position. If you're first to declare, then under international law you are the aggressor.
I'm not sure that, as an aggressor nation, it would have been possible to obtain UNSCR 502.
Schnellzug
Established Member
From the man who said, after the IRA tried to blow up mrs. T, "I wish they'd succeeded", it doesn't surprise me in the slightest.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
So if someone attacks you, and you declare War on them, that would make you the agressor?!
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Yep, if you are first to declare war, then in international law, you are the agressor regardless of who took action first.
There's a scene where its discussed in the TV film called 'The Falklands Play'.
Edit: that's not my source for the legals!
Schnellzug
Established Member
Then is it any wonder so many people regard international law as a bit of an arse?
I think it comes from how things would have been done centuries ago. Where a country wouldn't dream of sending its cavalry off to war without actually declaring war. The set up just seems to have stuck!
kylemore
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International Law
Isn't it wonderful how only the losers are 'evil' and also how only the losers have ever carried out 'war crimes'?
How nice of God to arrange things so neatly!
Isn't it wonderful how only the losers are 'evil' and also how only the losers have ever carried out 'war crimes'?
How nice of God to arrange things so neatly!
Schnellzug
Established Member
International Law
Isn't it wonderful how only the losers are 'evil' and also how only the losers have ever carried out 'war crimes'?
How nice of God to arrange things so neatly!
Spot the difference: The Nuremberg Trials and Stalin's Show Trials.
The winner writes the history books. (besides I can think of several "war crimes" perpetrated by "winners" - it's just they tend to have the power to duck prosecution).International Law
Isn't it wonderful how only the losers are 'evil' and also how only the losers have ever carried out 'war crimes'?
How nice of God to arrange things so neatly!
The bombing campaign over Germany by the Allies being one of them. Most certainly not our finest hour (not that I'm doubting the courage and skill of the aviators that were at the sharp end) and if somehow Germany had turned it around and won the war after that then I'm sure we would have seen the likes of Churchill and Arthur Harris being charged with war crimes for the destruction of cities like Hamburg and Dresden.
Trog
Established Member
Guernica, Rotterdam, Coventry, London....
Hosea 8:7 They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.
You can add Hull to that list as well which after London was the most heavily bombed town/city in the UK.
However, my point was simply that if the outcome of the war were reversed then the same would have happened to our commanders they would have been charged with war crimes, there are no two ways about it. But we won and so this never came to pass. I'm not commenting at all on the validity or not of the bombing raids (my comment that it was not our finest hour simply meaning that a lot of civilians were killed, justified or not that's never a good thing).
Well I have my Falkland's pin badge kindly provided by the Falkland's government at a conference last year which I shall be wearing at another conference this weekend.
I think it should be up to the people of the Falkland Islands to decided who should govern them.
Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk
I think it should be up to the people of the Falkland Islands to decided who should govern them.
Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk
Schnellzug
Established Member
"They started it"? Rotterdam was actually an error: the recall had already been sent; Coventry was surely a legitimate industrial target; and while London was a political target, I hardly think Britain can take the Moral high ground there, since that was what the british bombing campaign was entirely about.
It was the U.S. bombing campaign, on industry, transport, & particularly on the oil industry, that really crippled Germany.
With a bit of help from the Russians, of course.
CarterUSM
Established Member
Hardly matters now anyway, we won, which was the important thing.
I'd say the biggest problem was actually transport, followed by fuel supply. Transport was at least partly thanks to 617 Squadron with Tallboy and Grand Slam bombs taking out bridges, tunnels and canals. Fuel and fuel production was a joint effort. The real difference though was that bombing put the Luftwaffe on the back foot, with most of their fighters now deployed for defence rather than bomber escorts. Of course, the RAF would say, "the Americans area-bombed precision targets, we precision-bombed area targets."
Also, let me add Clydebank, where the whole town was practically wiped out. My godfather lived there, but had been evacuated to Helensburgh and got to watch one of the raids. After the war he lived in one of the few older houses left standing.
Old Timer
Established Member
I am afraid you are wrong on both scores. I do not have the time to elaborate right now, but the British bombing campaign was about attacks on the means of production - The Ruhr valley for example, known as Happy Valley, for obvious reasons. As housing must inevitably exist near to factories and as precision navigation within the Allies was in its infancy until 1944, it inevitably follows that the general area of any Industrial towm would inevitably suffer.
In any case workers who are engaged in armaments production and other work in support of the progression of military force can in no way be regarded as innocent civilians. They were engaged in work as vital to the German war effort as those in Coventry, which I believe was described on here as a "legitimate target".
The USAAF arrived in 1942, disregarded the advice of the RAF and were effectively rendered inoperable as a fighting force until 1943 by the Luftwaffe (who shot them out of the sky from the wingman in - best described as like a Turkey shoot), and then only took part initially in short range attacks with fighter escort, ultimately this culminating in them only taking off to bomb when they had a couple of fighter wings in support, even up to the end of the war.
The heaviest bomb load carried by a B-17 was 8,000 lb and the farthest it was carried was to Nienburg, Germany. The average B-17 bomb load dropped in World War II was between 4,000 lb and 5,000 lb.
A Lancaster by comparison in a "usual" load took 15,250lb, and could carry up to a 22,400lb bomb load.
With regards to accuracy, US claims of "precision" bombing are so far off the mark as to make one's bladder weak from laughter. The term Carpet Bombing came from the USAAF simply because if they were lucky they could hit the city area they were supposed to be aiming for. Precision bombing was based on the lead bomber dropping its load and then all the others doing it, whereas the RAF practice was individual aiming. Carpet bombing as practised by the USAAF was notoriously inaccurate by comparison.
I would just add that despite all the USAF claims, the only units that were selected by Eisenhower to undertake precision bombing were those of the RAF, notably 617 Squadron, 8 Group (Pathfinders) and 5 Group (57 squadron).
There is a fallacy about oil targets, as the Germans were leading the way with synthetic fuels. These were panacea targets the same as ball-bearing plants and all the others the USAAF went for.
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
A point that is most valid. Many "atrocities" can go unreported in the way of this way of looking at matters from the viewpoint of the winning side.
I remember reading about a discussion between an American war correspondant and the C.O. of a Mosquito squadron from the Light Night Striking Force (part of 8 Group). The correspondant was informed that a Mosquito could carry a 4,000 lb 'Blockbuster' all the way to Berlin. When asked how much a B-17 could carry on the same trip, he was told that the maximum was 3,500 lb, and anyway a Blockbuster would not fit into the bomb bay. The correspondant decided not to inform the American public of this until after the war.
Later B-17s could exceed 4,000 lb to Berlin, but I think the much smaller Mosquito made its point.
As for accuracy, that may have had something to do with the Norden bombsight. While it was supposedly very accurate, that might have had more to do with the sales pitch than actual confirmed figures. 617 used a thing called a Stabalising Automatic Bombsight (SABS) that on one occasion put a 6-ton 'Tallboy' into a railway tunnel in Normandy from 20,000 ft. Unfortunately, they never worked out who dropped it, otherwise the bomb-aimer might have won a D.F.M.
Old Timer
Established Member
The Norden bombsight was yet another fallacy put out by the Company and the USAAF, especially after their involvement in Dresden (in which USAAF a/c actually went down to low level and strafed civilians - something the US hypocritical correspondent saw fit not to mention when he accused the RAF of carrying out a terror raid on the place
.USAAF bombing accuracy was always far below that of the RAF even though the USAAF operated in daylight, and throughout the whole War only 24% of USAAF bombs landed within 1,000 yds of their intended target, hence why the adopted carpet bombing, something far less accurate than the RAF even though today ill-informed people still suggest that RAF area bombing was a deliberately inaccurate method of bombing, when this was actually far more accurate than carpet bombing.
Unfortunately at the end of the War, the US put experts into the field far quicker than the RAF to carry out research into bombing accuracy, strangely enough they reported better accuracy even though the USAAF was never ever used tactically as a precision bombing force. Methinks this says far more than questionable reports into accuracy which were made with one eye on anticipated post-War criticisms of air bombing which subsequently came true.
Suggestions of USAAF bombing accuracy and "precision" bombing do not stack up when compared against actual records and data, but as with many falsehoods, if repeated often enough a fallacy can become an accepted truth over time.
Trog
Established Member
A little song from the time suggests what was thought of the USAAF and its accuracy.
Were flying flying fortresses at 30,000 feet
Were flying flying fortresses at 30,000 feet
We've bags of point 5 ammo
And a teeny weeny bomb
And we drop the ******* from so high
We dont know where its gone.
Glory Glory shall we drop it?
Glory Glory shall we drop it?
Glory Glory shall we drop it?
And we drop the ******* from so high
We dont know where its gone!
Were flying flying fortresses at 30,000 feet
Were flying flying fortresses at 30,000 feet
We've bags of point 5 ammo
And a teeny weeny bomb
And we drop the ******* from so high
We dont know where its gone.
Glory Glory shall we drop it?
Glory Glory shall we drop it?
Glory Glory shall we drop it?
And we drop the ******* from so high
We dont know where its gone!
NY Yankee
Member
I'm staying neutral in this issue and my home country (America) also has many colonies throughout the world, but I'm just curious as to why the UK cares so much about a remote island that's thousands of miles away.
SS4
Established Member
In short the Islanders wish to remain a British overseas territory. Argentina suggests the poll isn't legitimate for some reason. Ultimately we're acting as guarantor for the Islanders' wishes.
IMO it's a legacy of Empire
ralphchadkirk
Established Member
The residents of the Falklands wish to remain British. Therefore, the Government has rightly said that they will keep the Islands British until the islanders state otherwise.
MidnightFlyer
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The same with the USA and Hawaii then?
SWT_USER
Member
Slightly different but didn't the people of Hong Kong wish to remain British in 1997? Obviously China is a more dangerous enemy than Argentina...
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