Signals.Cpl

Well nothing else left to say, you posted garbage and it was proven to be garbage now it is time to point out that you can't debate especially when using someone else's position, a position you don't really understand.

I don't need to defend anything Margaret Thatcher did or did not do, I poked holes in your comical opinion the opinions you googled.Everything you presented has been a lie to one degree or another but I cannot blame you for that since I doubt you have even the slightest understanding or knowledge of her actions and the reasons behind those actions since your position is obviously based on what you can quickly google.

Funny, you can't debate to save your life... otherwise you would have posted something that was not so easily torn apart.

Everything you have posted in this thread has been disproven and you have given up defending the opinions you googled in favour of posting more opinions that you don't understand... thats all we need to know. And if you are going to make a statement about security cost have some facts to back it up, and by facts I mean something solid rather than posting an opinion of someone you don't know an opinion you found by most likely googling "Margaret Thatcher Bad point"... You don't know anything about Margaret Thatcher or her policies and therefore I have come to the conclusion that you hate her not because of any action she took as an MP or as a PM but because she was a conservative... you can't even dislike someone for the right reasons.

Some people deal with facts and opinion, you deal with someone else's opinion poorly disguised as a fact and then you avoid answering anything by simply throwing around more pretty little pictures that someone else thought up. Seems to me you would have no opinion on the issue if it wasn't for google...

Putting the events in Iran during 1953 aside, the Middle East was guaranteed to fail as a region when it comes to democracy, economy or society in 1918 rather than any time after.

You must have been livid when the government wasted taxpayers money on the completely undeserved state funeral of Jack Layton... wait let me guess, you will reply with "take it up with the conservatives" right?

Graciously admitting you are wrong... a first for you... No, I am pointing out history and the outcome was already determined. The reaction of the people depends on their knowledge and understanding of the situation, in the cases I presented they did not know or understand what poor leadership they had until after an event or a series of events. No, I am comparing the potential reaction of one leader death at two different times, and Hitler too was an elected public official of sorts. The same could be said about the 1980's, but more to the point just because there was no internet and limited modes through which to present video propaganda(theatres) does not mean that the world of 1930's and 1940's was so drastically different as to render it incomparable... but more interesting is that you try to use the same argument you decried AW for using. Why? Can't come up with anything to counter the arguments? Admitting that you are wrong?

I have seen what Hudson/bud has accused you of and I am wondering why you even engage him. You must already know he is here to present a skewed one-sided view and would twist anything you say to fit his agenda, just like he has already done.

What law are you referring to? Be specific please...

That is like saying that 400 emails from the PM's riding in Calgary represent the opinion of the rest of Canada or taking 400 emails from Toronto-Danforth and claiming they represent the opinions of all Canadians.

Hand picking sources that support your twisted political position does not qualify as facts...

Here is the proof that you live in a fantasy world, if Hitler had died in May 1941 he would have had a funeral that Chavez could only dream of whereas in 1945 not so much. Ever thought that maybe just maybe people in Venezuela haven't discovered how bad they were screwed? Look at Greece, 10 years ago the leadership that brought them in line with European Standard of living would have been hailed hailed as heroes while now that the people see how bad they have been screwed they might not feel quite the same way.

And you point to an opinion YOU have... prove that she did nothing to end apartheid.

How do you know that she didn't help end Apartheid? Maybe her approach was more effective? Do you have concrete proof that she failed to help end it?

Many government have overlapping policies with regard to policies of other government, this statement is akin to stating that the NDP platform has many policies in common with the Nazis and therefore the NDP approves similar governments as the Nazis. And at the time it seemed like a good idea, its nice having that 20/20 vision to criticize...right?

How did Argentina make her look like a hero? Virtually the entire world was of the opinion that the Falkland Islands were lost and could not be retaken with the available forces yet she made it happen. This had little to do with luck and a lot to do with the abilities of the British forces to get the job done and the leadership both military and civilian, as a lesser leader would have would have stuck to lodging complaints with the UN and the islands would be Argentinian right now, against the wishes of all but three of the islands inhabitants. Which period are you referring to? And seeing as she had to lead through some very tough times her political life expectancy was limited. Yet she worked tirelessly to get jobs for people. She opposed Apartheid through means that she believed were right. And as mentioned by AW she was not unique for her time as to her stance on gay rights. Do you realize that in most of those nations you are referring to there was not "right" choice? The choice was between dictator A who killed his own people, or dictator B who also killed his own people.

One does not excuse the other unless you would extend the same courtesy to Western Soldiers committing crimes in theatre just because the other does it...

Glad to know you don't think the Church Street Bombing in 1983 was not a terrorists action. When a leader be it Nelson Mandela or anyone else supports violence to achieve his means and the violence in question is a terrorist attack they are responsible for the consequences, just because Nelson Mandela did a lot of good does not erase his leadership in, activities with and support of an organization that committed terrorist attacks nay he convinced the leadership of the ANC to create the military wing and resort to violence thus Margaret Thatcher had a legitimate point.

Thats your answer, its a pyramid scheme...

I disagree, the money is there if we only had the leadership willing to go and get it by cutting out all the waste that is sucking it out of the people that need it most.

No but that is what we have so we should work within that, besides I think the LFA's are going to be named Divisions and as such a pretend CBG would be just the right name for it... As long as the CF backs their troops up and they signed on the dotted line only legitimate reasons will be accepted... A small satellite training centre does just that especially when we throw in support trades which do need the actually infantry to get some hands on experience as well... How many times a year do they do it? Do you really think it is a good idea to take soldiers and train them for 36h every 2 months for 8-9 months or do you think it would be better to do that same training 2 times a month for 36h for 8-9 months? And again, no Reg Force regiment nearby they become light infantry and specialize with mountain and arctic warfare. It is already happening with the Arctic Response coy's but they bring the same coy back year after year but not necessarily the same support troops or even coy troops which means that a lot of the experience and lessons learned are not applied the next time they go out. Maybe but they can't do it enough to get experience, do proper exercises locally 1-2 times a month and maybe one major exercise 2 times a year but limiting it to just flying in limits the already negligible time they have to gain experience and will fall further behind compared to the Reg Force. Not often, but this doesn't mean that it can't work, units within geographic locations can get training along with their reg force counterparts while units outside the geographic location will full fill other roles and do the major exercise twice a year. Honestly though, do you think that the first time there is a budget crunch trips to the local CTC will survive? Even cutting one such exercise means that the soldiers lose out on 25% of their training time. Not all that the Reg Force units do can be transferred to the reserves. A few back after someone overspend on the CBG's budget or something along those lines they cancelled winter warfare for a number of units, limiting it to once every 2 years, you still qualify by getting the powerpoint lecture but its not exactly the same so what guarantee do we get that this won't happen with some brigade where they overspend on something or their budget is cut and they end up axing 2 exercises a year out of the four and with little in the way of infrastructure set up to conduct training in the local area we will end up with the current format nothing more. doesn't work out to be so black and white if we see soldiers end up going to the field once every 4 months which means in between they will have lost the experience learned from previous ex. With the money we are wasting on stupid stuff like changing the names of formations from Land Forces Area to Division, or Changing unit names to align with brigade names... or we can start putting officers in appropriate positions of command... stop wasting resources at the end of the fiscal year in order to justify the same resources next year... how many units do you think save up resources and at the end of the year figure out they have a lot of money so they go on exercises wether they serve a real purpose or not? I have done 5 BFT's in 1 month because someone somewhere had held back and now they had to burn the budget, or Ive gone to the range 3-4 times in 2 months just to burn off the ammo for the unit. Cut back on the waste and we can do wonders, or we can increase the budget by 20 billion and we would still be in the same position. And unfortunately we don't get wars based on the our cycle of equipping our military we get wars based on the situation and we should not trust politicians to give us enough funding we should work within our means to be able to be as efficient as possible.

Never said we should have a combined arms brigade out of one CBG rather each CBG would do their part to provide trained troops for the Primary Reserve. I have had to miss exams because of last minute tasking when I was in university and I can tell you many go the professors are sympathetic but thats where the government comes in and affords protection to both the working reservists and the students. It is a two way street, we need to have willing soldiers but also a government that backs them up, you send a Reg force guy to Afghanistan and when he comes back he has a job, you force a Reservists to go without protecting his job he won't be a CF member for long after his return... The difference is not how big or how fancy the training centre is, the difference is that you have a small cadre of instructors that know what the are doing and know the end goal they can accomplish much with the time allotted and the resources available. four guys who know what they are doing and utilizing instructors from local units can do a pretty damn good job and we don't need CTC Gagetown and its mock up villages. I am not saying it will not work, I am saying having an exercise once every 2-3 months is not optimal when you can have the same 120 troops as a light Infantry coy in the field every other weekend. What you are suggesting is flying a coy over to an exercise for 36h and then fly them back home 4-6 times a year whereas I am suggesting we utilize that we should CBGs within reasonable drive time to a nearby Reg Force Combat arms unit should utilize that, CBGs not so lucky should make do with what is available and flying a coy 2h to a different province for an exercise twice a month is not likely on the other hand driving the same coy in a couple of busses to a nearby base is affordable and as far as I know there are 6 bases with Reg force infantry and Combat Arms units within acceptable distance of reserve CBGs. Wether it works or not is irrelevant, what is relevant is the ability to go to 4 exercises in 2 months or 1 exercise in 2 months, the reserves are already strapped for time as it is we don't need to cut down even further on the training time. Or we could go about doing things concurrently because at some point in time we might not have the opportunity to do so.Solving the reserve problem might increase our available forces to a level not available if it were done through the Reg force only and ignoring that means we will be throwing away a potential to have a versatile force that can meet more than one major deployment and a minor deployment at a time. We can make the same argument about the different elements too right? Lets solve the Navy's problem before we go and deal with the F-35's or we could solve the F-35's before we deal with the Army and its barracks in which even squatters would not occupy because of the neglected state or we restructure the Army and worry about the new ships 10 years from now.

Look at 32 Brigade, there are 6 light infantry units and from my experience they field 70 or more soldiers per exercise on average so expecting them to supply a primary reserve light infantry company with as little as 20 soldiers each and we have the company there, so basically we get dedicated troops in one formation, troops who want to be there and know that if they slack off there are a dozen other soldiers waiting for their chance. I personally have no problem letting a platoon even carry on the name and traditions of a regiment if it will keep people content as long as the platoon is led by an Lt rather than an LtCol. Ultimately they are the most important segment thought right? We don't have the guys who kick doors down. I would say that having a small cadre of combat arms instructors go out west and set up a training centre would be more beneficial and cost-effective than sending 100 or more soldiers over to Edmonton for a weekend every couple of months. We should work within our geographic situation if a Reserve brigade is located close to a base with Regular Force Combat arms units then they should take advantage, if a brigade is not so conveniently located then they should adopt a different role for example 39 Brigade would field a light infantry Coy which would specialize in mountain and Arctic Warfare, whereas 38 CBG can field a Mechanized coy which would be attached to 2 PPCLI which would house major equipment on base and assist with their training while out east brigades close to Gagetown would field 1 Mec coy and other that are farther away will field light infantry specializing in Naval Operations or something along those lines. Not quite, Secondary reserve would be kept current on their training, would man the schools during the summers so that instead of sending people from the Primary reserve to teach courses we can send the Primary reserve on exercises to gain experience and more training. The Idea is for deployments like Afghanistan it gives us more depth when it comes to choice for deployable personnel . Not quite, right now you don't have to justify much, if you show up once every 30 days you don't have to worry about it, so if you are senior NCM that 3h a month could for years on end could mean that you are keeping a senior position occupied without doing much to help the unit. Sometimes circumstances get ahead of people and they have to work around it so telling someone that you are signing 2 or 3 year contract that you CANT get out of no matter what and they get fired or laid off from their job they can't look outside their geographic area means they will either not sign the contract out of fear or stay and miss opportunities in civi career which is not good for moral. This is also where the second layer of the Reserves comes in where someone is released from the primary reserve immediately a replacement is sent rather than having to train and equip a soldier from from nothing in effect we can guarantee 100% strength or close to it at all times. So the CDS knows that there are 3,4 or 5 battalions with support units near to 100% strength at all times in the reserves and those units are ready to support the Reg Force at any time.

The gear is for us to complain about but we always did our job no matter how riddiculous the situation was, but as for the leadership part I agree with you 100%, my unit had a CO who was working his ass off as he was the CO one unit and Acting CO of two other units in three cities and he worked hard and I cannot have a complaint about him but some of the officers were there for the other reasons than to be leaders, they wanted a salute, feel important and leave. Same goes for many of the Senior NCMs in some of the units I worked with but at the same time I remember a number of units who had amazing leadership who I would gladly follow in a warzone. The reserves are cheaper than the reg force, you dont need a reservists you send him home and he does not get paid, you dont need a reg force soldier you send him home he still gets paid and still gets medical and dental so the price is lower with the reserves. If the Reg force battalions addopt a single reserve company to train we could essentialy have 3 mechanized Battalions trained and equiped to the same standard as their reg force counterparts because they will be trained by and with their reg force counterparts. 38 Brigade 1 Mec Coy with supporting units 33 Brigade 2 Mec Coy with supporting units 34 and 35 Brigades 3 Mec Coy's with supporting units between the 2 brigades 37 Brigade 2 Mec Coy with supporting units 41 Brigade 2 Mec Coy with supporting units Brigades with no nearby Reg force units might field a light infantry coy to fill out 3 light infantry battalions. We could have 3 Mechanized infantry and 3 light infantry with assorted troops for the price of 1 of each if it were reg force so essentialy if push came to shove we can field up to 15 battalions and supporting units for the price of 11 battalions and supporting units and at the same time we will have thousands of trained troops for reinforcements, man the schools and field new units.