Wikileaks-gawd bless

[glad rag]

Obama you are a disturbed individual.

WikiLeaks cables: US agrees to tell Russia Britain's nuclear secrets - Telegraph

[WPH]

Interesting article but may I suggest a more eloquent summation would be more appropriate glad rag!

I think we all realise that the 'special relationship' is completely a one-way street. I'm 'lucky' enough to work with the US on a daily basis and constantly witness their contempt for all 'foreign nationals'. However, our government continues to put us in an increasingly subservient position where we have no choice but to suck it up.

Bottom line, we don't have 300 million taxpayers contributing 20% of their GDP to Defence!

[Dengue_Dude]

Sadly, it's just further confirmation of what most of us know anyway.

I've despised successive US administrations for quite a few years, but they're actually no worse than ours.

Blair acting as a poodle to that moron Dubya abides in my memory and should forever shame Bliar . . . but it won't, because shame is not something politicians seem to respond to.

The sad fact they could reflect upon is that they carry the rest of us along, with very little choice.

Special relationship = Tell me when you can taste willow in the back of your throat.

[Pontius Navigator]

willow?

que?

[threeputt]

Cricket bat shoved up one's a£$e perhaps?

3P

[NURSE]

unfortunatley the START treat required the USA to give the russians figures on exactley how many trident missiles they produced and that included ours. Wonder if at a later date a US president will sacrifice our missiles as opposed to US ones?

[Dengue_Dude]

Thanks threeputt - exactly

[Trim Stab]

This is a non-story. The US has supplied our missiles and have ownership of that intelligence - they can give the intelligence to anybody they wish to. I suspect they told us before they handed over the information. If they didn't, the people on the JIC who have to worry about these sorts of things would have realised that it was a strong possibility.

It would be a different matter entirely if we had given the US some piece of intelligence over which we had "ownership", and the the US had then given that to the Russians.

[Lima Juliet]

I'm 'lucky' enough to work with the US on a daily basis and constantly witness their contempt for all 'foreign nationals'.

I too work daily with our US colonial cousins. I find then very easy to work with and if you put things in their terms and show some understanding of their rules, regulations and procedures it is amazing how helpful they can be. However, if you insist on being a stiff upper lip arrogant Brit then its amazing at how quickly the shutter doors will come down.

As for being a "one way street", no it isn't. We share, commonly fund and exploit many things within our common interests. Those "in the know" will know what I'm talking about.

Finally, we should remember that if it wasn't for our US cousins then we would probably be eating smoked sausages, wearing leather trousers and saying "Guttentag" whilst walking up and down Whitehall Strasse - for that I will be eternally grateful.

LJ

[Yamagata ken]

It was the USSR that beat Germany.

[Tourist]

No, it was us who beat them to the point that we no longer had to fear invasion, it was US/Russia that let us all invade Germany later on.
We would still be speaking english without them.

[WillDAQ]

That's what allies are for...

Now it's our turn.. lets pull out of AFG.

[cazatou]

Just to put the record straight - the USA did NOT declare War on Germany in World War 2. Adolf Hitler declared War on the USA in a speech to the Reichstag on 11 December 1941.

[Dengue_Dude]

Oh dear, here we go again . . .

[Lima Juliet]

Er chaps, I suggest that you bone up on "lend-lease" that the US offered us prior to their entry into the war - we couldn't have kept the sea-lanes open without them (Liberty Ships, Corvettes and LRPA Liberators) and well over 25% of the British Military's equipment was from the USA for North Africa, Italy, Normandy, Arnhem and Far East campaigns (Sherman Tanks, DC3 Dakotas, P-40 Tomahawks, Liberators, Catalinas, Jeeps, Lee-Grant Tanks, etc...).

Here's the idea of the ships:

Type # Class Years Country
Carrier BAVG 5 Long Island 1941-42 UK
Carrier CVE 29 Brogue 1942-43 UK
Cruiser (CL-5) 1 Milwaukee 1944 USSR
Coast Guard Cutter 10 Lake/Chelan 1941 UK
Weather Patrol (WAG) 3 Wind 1945 USSR
Destroyer (DD) 50 Wicks,Clemson 1940 UK
Destroyer Escort (DE) 46 Buckley UK
Destroyer Escort (DE) 8 Cannon,Evarts Brazil,China
Frigate (PF) 27 Tacoma USSR
Gunboat (PG) 10 Corvette
Patrol Craft (PC) 44 PC-461 FR,USSR
Sub Chaser (SC) 142 SC-497 FR,USSR
Mine Sweepers (AM) 35 Admirable USSR
Motor Torpedo Boat (PT) 185 several USSR
Submarines (SS) 9 R-,S-boats 1941 UK
Oilers (AOG) 3 Halawa France
Liberty Ships ?of 2,710 UK
Landing Ships 35 LST UK, Greece

Plus, the "lend lease" for the Soviets was immense - some 18,700 aircraft for starters (about 20% of all their military aircraft)

So no, the Soviets did not win the war - we all did, but without the US I doubt whether the UK and Soviet Union would have managed.

LJ

[DERG]

Top Gun

Leon

Don't you know that the UK taught the USA how to dog fight and it was the Royal Navy (Kinloss) who established the Top Gun school?

[Lima Juliet]

DERG

Err, I think you mean RNAS Lossiemouth. Anyway, to what you refer to is most likely incorrect if you're thinking of Rowland White's book, here's why:

One British writer erroneously claimed that the early school was influenced by a group of a dozen flying instructors from the British Fleet Air Arm, who were graduates of the Royal Navy's intense Air Warfare Instructors School in Lossiemouth, Scotland. However an earlier incarnation of TOPGUN, the U.S. Navy Fleet Air Gunnery Units, or FAGU, provided air combat training for Naval Aviators from the early 1950's until 1960, when a doctrinal shift, brought on by advances in missile, radar and fire control technology, contributed to the belief that the era of the classic dogfight was over, leading to their disestablishment. The pilots who were part of the initial cadre of instructors at TOPGUN had experience as students from FAGU.

Anyway, I should think the US would be most insulted by the UK trying to claim that "the UK taught the USA how to dog fight". Have a think about the following US aces with their kills - are you claiming that we taught them?

WWI

Edward V. Rickenbacker, 26
S. C. Rosevear, 23
William C. Lambert, 22
Frederick W. Gillette, 20
John J. Malone, 20
Alan M. Wilkinson, 19
Frank Luke, 18
Frank L. Hale, 18

WWII

Richard I. Bong, 40
Thomas McGuire, 38
David McCampbell, 34
Francis "Gabby" Gabreski, 28
Robert S. Johnson, 28
George Preddy, 27
Charles MacDonald, 27
Joseph Foss, 26

And don't forget, they started late in both wars!

Sadly, you have displayed, just the type of "Brit arrogance" that I refered to in my first post - OK, for a bit of banter, but that is all.

LJ

[Tourist]

Leon

yes we bought lots of weapons from the US

Yes they nearly bankrupted us.

I hardly think that makes them helpful

Joining in at the start or giving free would have been nice........

[Two's in]

Ignoring the perennial "my dad's bigger than your dad" squabbling here, there is a great quote in the article;

While the US and Russia have long permitted inspections of each other’s nuclear weapons, Britain has sought to maintain some secrecy to compensate for the relatively small size of its arsenal.

If that's not a euphemism then I've never seen one.

[DC10RealMan]

In referring to Britains contribution to both world wars once should remember who was with us from day one ie: countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, India and all the other countries of the Commonwealth.
The USA was neutral (officially) until December 1941 and the USSR was allied with Nazi Germany until the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.