Thanks, but, no thanks
 

NRF might be an option, however, which bits of it do we hold at the moment?

In addition according to NATO they don't do stuff south of the Tropic of Cancer . . . . here

Notwithstanding StopStart's admirable sentiment, I'm not sure anyone other than NuLabour have any interest in sending troops into another African inter-tribal war. Unless of course you're trying to show what a fine example of a 'world leader' you are . . . . . . :hmm:

Isn't the political dimension precisely that we weren't the former Colonial Power, therefore we might be accepted as not entirely self-interested.

Which is exactly why Zimbabwe is off-limits to us.

Sven

I know that I am getting a little long in the tooth BUT can someone please explain to me what there was in Post #9 by StopStart that elicited the reply at Post #19 by Monty 77?

You do have a valid question - a man volunteering for a military action to stop genocide seems to me to be in order?

Sven

As a British voter and tax payer I say no to sending you guys in. We are currently fighting 2 wars with an army a little over 100,000 strong! We have about 20 boats in the Navy and 200 combat planes in the RAF! Plus the country is in economic ruin! Lets not get into something new unless there is considerable support from other nations.
Maybe they would have been better off had we made all Africa part of the British Empire forever and created real law and order for the population there!
Instead many of them moved to the UK and now fight their own tribal/gang wars on UK streets! Best use the army to sort them out first! Once a few have been put in front of a wall and shot the others won't be as keen to stab people!

Ron Reagan

Genius. Where do you stand on bigotry and hatred?

I don't know. Maybe your right! It just seems every few years yet something else flares up in somewhere in Africa. We try the softly, softly approach and it fails or buys us a bit of time! Maybe this time we need to hit the bad guys hard! I have nothing against any innocent people anywhere. But with an Army of 100,000 men and we are already in 2 wars can we afford to get involved? We have a shrinking Army, Navy and Airforce already!
With regards the UK I believe in the death penalty thats all;)

The BBC report

BBC NEWS | World | Africa | UK calls for urgent aid for Congo

Quote
The UN has more than 17,000 peacekeeping troops in DR Congo - the largest UN force in the world
Unquote

What do the 17,000 do?

I may have part answered my own question from the above post.

A bit of research uncovers this (admittedly a couple years old)

The budget for MONUC

monuc.org: Budget ::: 26/06/2006

Those figures are in US Dollars (not Dollars and Cents)

What would you do with 17000 troops and an area 10 times larger than Afghanistan to cover?:ugh:

You could argue now us arrogant, good for nothing whites have been kicked out of Africa this is not our problem...

Indeed, I would very much like to witness a native African pick up a gun for the purpose of helping a fellow human being that is someone other than them self.

If the snot eating cyclops wants us in Africa, I suggest he pull us out of Afghanistan and Iraq first.

If anybody believes we would intervene for purely humanitarian reasons, then just look at all the mineral resources available in the Congo. Stabilising the country would be in the interest of all the miniing conglomerates and whichever government organised it would surely benefit. However, it is a mammoth task in a country with no national infrastructure ie; not even roads connecting the major towns.

Hope Milly stays there :D - I bet the warlords are really scared of him.

Ahhh, fresh meat. Bring it on.

I'm told you Pomgolians taste like chicken....:E

I was almost tempted to remove AIDU from my IGNORE list just to see what pearls of wisdom and humanitarian concern he had contributed to the thread.

Upon reflection I decided that to do so would be a total waste of 2 minutes of my life.

Was I right or wrong?

Stop Start.

If you want to spend another Christmas away, you can do it providing you don't spend a penny of my taxes.

And I did LXX famine relief in Somali in 93 for four months.. before you start.

We need to put our own problems at home right first and every time we go into an area to "help" we end up with hundreds of thousands of that countries population living in England!

On benefits or running dodgy taxis!

So not in my name ok??

:ugh:

If there's mileage in it for Brown and nu lab during the dying months of his administration, you can start packing your kit bags.

Just hope he sticks to form and hands out a few £millions of 'our' money, we can well afford it! :bored:

But we've no longer got the PR.9s to find the refugees!



:E

We dont need the PR9, just follow the sky news, bbc news crews etc etc

:8
Whilst my initial post may have been a bit OTT I was, in my defence, a little "worse for wear". :ouch:

That said, I still stand by my assertion that we of the "developed" countries have something of a duty to help those that cannot help themselves. The vast majority of Africa is run by corrupt or incompetent folk who line their own pockets at the expense of feeding their people. Other than by direct military action or focussed sanctions there's generally neither the political will or popular support to sort those places out. Look at the disaster that is Zimbabwe. I personally don't think those sort of places deserve max effort from UK Plc over and above our own domestic issues.

At the other end of the scale we have situations like Rwanda and Dafur. Incomprehensible numbers of people slaughtered in staggeringly short periods of time. We in the West can stand in mute horror at the industrial slaughter of The Holocaust of Nazi Germany, hunt down those involved and commemorate the dead. Similarly with the mass graves of Bosnia. The authors of both these inhuman acts are however base amateurs when compared with the ruthless efficiency of the Hutu militias et al in Rwanda - the thick end of 1 million people in just under 100 days; that's gotta take some beating. I won't claim to be a scholar of the Rwandan Genocide however I have studied the subject at some length and believe I know what I'm talking about. Words fail me when I try and describe my distaste for the vacuous, spineless Western officials and governments that prevaricated and vacilated whilst up to ten thousand people a day were ruthlessly and efficiently slaughtered.

That was 14 years ago and how quickly people forget. If you genuinely believe that it's easier to sit back and watch from afar, tutting at those "frightful africans" chopping each other up again then so be it. I'm not a righteous do-gooder and in fact consider myself to be just to the right of Genghis Kahn in my political views, but I do still believe that we as civilised, right-thinking people have a duty to help those that cannot help themselves. Yes we're involved in two medium-scale ops and yes we're overstretched. It is my personal opinion, however, that the UK military could make a real difference to the lives of millions of people with only a relatively brief period of additional strain. There are also plenty of NATO countries with no taste for combat ops in Afghanistan etc that could pile in and be "a force for good" there.

Still, perhaps I'm a fantasist and we should in fact reserve our efforts for things like making sure the Olympic Games a great success.

I've always wondered if this had been a church in a western country and those bodies had been a different colour would we have been quicker to react?

http://religiousfreaks.com/UserFiles...nda.church.jpg

Not accusing anyone of racism, just asking the question...


The Gorilla - you and the rest of the country's Daily Mail readership are entitled to your opinions and if I were to be involved in an operation that prevented another genocide I would happily refrain doing it "in your name".

Monty77 - genius post, good effort. Any luck getting the crayon off your monitor screen yet?

No oil, but plenty of this ...


http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:...uk/1710518.jpg