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UK to provide armoured vehicles and body armour to syrian rebels

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Old 6th Mar 2013, 13:38
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UK to provide armoured vehicles and body armour to syrian rebels

BBC News - UK to send armoured vehicles to Syrian opposition

Pity they couldn't have provided this for our own troops in the early days of the Afghanistan saga.
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Old 6th Mar 2013, 14:01
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Un-freakin-believable. Anyone want to join a sweep on when our own kit will be used against us?
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Old 6th Mar 2013, 14:12
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How nuts is this...?
Can't equip our own country properly but can spunk cash on a bunch of 'opposition' that contain a fair % of extremists that will hate us...
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Old 6th Mar 2013, 15:41
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Keeping the civil war going. It's not as though arms and armaments are not being provided to Assad by a few of the usual suspects:

Iran (apparently flying stuff in through Iraqi airspace)
Russia (not sure if their maritime transport has been resumed or not. Suspect some gray shipping ops are getting stuff through to Assad)

Others?
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Old 6th Mar 2013, 15:41
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.....and the Desert Rats are about to lose their armour.

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Old 6th Mar 2013, 18:54
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Fair makes one proud to be British.
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Old 6th Mar 2013, 19:10
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Madder than Mad Jack McMad, only it's not funny.

I'm sure there's a good reason why we're doing this, as opposed to letting our Turkish friends deal with issues on their borders. Apparently, not being seen to support the "Arab Spring" on the BBC is just too politically incorrect.
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Old 6th Mar 2013, 19:22
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Boffin, is it not possible that our Turkish allies have asked for just such a thing, in the coffee or chai sipping meetings that don't get massive media attention?
I'm sure there's a good reason why we're doing this, as opposed to letting our Turkish friends deal with issues on their borders. Apparently, not being seen to support the "Arab Spring" on the BBC is just too politically
incorrect.
As to the this Arab Spring: why should Westerners interfere with "their" movement?

Keep the "Arab" in "Arab Spring."
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Old 6th Mar 2013, 20:35
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Brilliant,

Just how many irrelevant, nasty little wars are Cameron et al going to drag us in to this year?

And just how much will the Defence budget be cut by at the same time to help keep the rest of the world in the comfort to which they've become accustomed to?

Incandescent doesn't even come close to it
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Old 6th Mar 2013, 21:01
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I don't B***DY BELIEVE IT!!! On second thoughts, why am I suprised at our "leaders" amazing grasp of the "non-essentials", they are merely continuing in the only manner they know!
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Old 6th Mar 2013, 21:04
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Take it they have to collect it from our regional depot in Afghanistan.... I cannot believe we are chopping the Military, chopping the Armoured divisions and then giving the equipment to those militants that we are fighting in the rest of the world..... Call me old fashioned, but that is barking mad.

The cuckoo has well and truly left the clock and is residing in Downing Street.


I am still trying to get my head round the rationalisation that moving the Pongoes out of Brawdy and into St Athans at a cost of 100 Million pounds is a good move in a period where money is tight...

Ohh and shutting down serviceable power stations early to abide to EuroCraze when there is nothing to replace them.. Pollution being the reason, WELL, the coal fired power station near me was closed years ago, the mechanics of which with the generators etc were removed for the Chinese and shipped to China where they have no qualms over such things and is now spewing its smoke out over the other side of the world. But still spewing it out into the same atmosphere.

..

Last edited by NutLoose; 6th Mar 2013 at 21:18.
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Old 6th Mar 2013, 21:10
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They simply can't help themselves can they!!! Yet again we will get involved and ruin another country. Another nation can be added to the recent long list of disasters we have got involved in! Good job we are awash with money and the economy is doing well to pay for these little adventures, oh.......

Its as if these foreign adventures are like drugs to the political elite and they cannot get enough of them! Considering they are so good at telling other nations what they should do you would think they had made brilliant success stories of their own nations, rather than being the total failures that they are
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Old 6th Mar 2013, 22:04
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Lonewolf - our Turkish friends have plenty of their own kit. Can't see a single good reason for us to supply it.

As for the Arab Spring being Arab - clearly you're not listening to the Beeb - "something MUST be done"....

As I'm sure you're well aware!
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Old 6th Mar 2013, 22:57
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Trials are underway with promising results to airdrop the vehicles to them, live drops will use Snatch Landrovers. The results below show that we can be seen to have aided them without actually having aided them

What Happened To This Flattened Truck?


4th SQDN 73rd CAV, 4th BCT 82d ABN at Ft Bragg, NC. That's my unit! Seriously, the truck burned in on a heavy drop attempt last week. The parachute failed to deploy. I believe the drop was from 800 ft AGL. Monday 7:11pm

Last edited by NutLoose; 6th Mar 2013 at 22:58.
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Old 6th Mar 2013, 23:00
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Wtf? The so called FSA are the same idiots that 5 years ago were regularly using hand drills for executions in Iraq. Why the hell are we supporting the bad guys? Assad may not be perfect, but its a damn sight better than what has ended p happening in Libya for example.
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Old 7th Mar 2013, 01:57
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On the plus side, had we not sold them to the USMC we would probably be offering 70 or so Harriers to them as well. So maybe there was a happy ending afterall....every cloud!

Sorry - didn't mean to mention Harrier per se, you could put MRA4 or Ark Royal in the above sentence if the H-word upsets you!
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Old 7th Mar 2013, 02:07
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I expect that this is outdated lightweight body armour held as surplus? The Libyan rebels received similar.

Libya

Q36 Chair: How much is this body armour worth? That may seem a very small question in the overall cost of all of this, but I am just wondering who provided it and who paid for it.

Dr Fox: It came from contingent stocks, which won’t affect current UK operations. As for the price tag, I am unable to give you that, but I shall look to see what it is. I am not sure if Mr Watkins is able to do that. He is very good with numbers.

Mr Watkins: I don’t have a precise figure, Mr Chairman. This is basically armour that we had in stock against our potential needs. We are in the process of replacing that armour as part of our routine replacement programme so it was available to be given to the opposition in the way we are saying.
Uncorrected Evidence - Operations in Lybia
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Old 7th Mar 2013, 04:46
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UK given the rebels armor while they hold 21 UN people hostage
and won't release them until the Syrian Army retreats from a
village close by !!!

Sounds like we have it arse about again.
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Old 7th Mar 2013, 06:38
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We need a Syrian car wash in our market town to balance the Latvian one up the road, the Iraqi one and the Polish one.
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Old 7th Mar 2013, 07:13
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Thumbs down

WTF Is Hague up to? I always thought he was a sensible bloke, but I think we are backing the wrong side here.

Interestingly the Arab world don't really seem to be doing much to help sort out this Arab problem. Funny that!!
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