AngusThermopyle

Putting aside the question of whom the PM speaks for and back to the subject at hand. I've looked into this incident since hearing about the apology and though I'm sure my research could be more complete its looking to me like this is nothing more than political opportunism. From reviewing the facts as reported I would say that no apology at all is warranted as it appears these people were illegal immigrants who were quite rightly turned away. If we apologize in this respect who else are we to apologize to? Further to that, how many should we compensate for things that didn't even happen to them? Seems to be more than just a little loony if you ask me, but thats just my opinion.

Typical mindless drivel that has nothing much to do with anything much. Basically what I've come to expect from this particular source. I suppose so. Its not really surprising though, given that China seems to have an endless string of lies on offer when anyone scrutinizes what they do and how they do it.

Don't waste your time thanking him. If you did that you'd have nothing to do but thank all of us who ignore you and your largely unfounded opinions. All you'd be doing with your time is thanking everyone who ignores you, and what about all the people who laugh at you? Are you going to thank them as well?

Indeed I do hold self sacrifice in the highest regard, there is no greater measure of honesty or commitment than the willingness to sacrifice oneself for the good of others. Your contention that economic sacrifice is the highest indicator of sacrifice is false and merely points toward your own unwillingness to make a truly meaningfull sacrifice. Or is it your contention that giving up a couple of bucks is equal to the act of giving ones life? If so I truly feel sorry for you as you obviously do not understand the true value and meaning of sacrifice. Could you perhaps explain to me how giving a few bucks trumps the act of giving years of ones life and sometimes ones very life itself?

The arrogance is mind boggling. Not only have I put both my money and my vote where my mouth is to use your rather prosaic phrase, I have also put my life where my mouth is. How about you? Rather than just downplay the contributions others make, why don't you make a contribution of worth? How about something that actually requires you to make some sort of self sacrifice, something all Forces members are very familiar with.

What do you mean "might want to". I agree 100% with him, he is correct. what I do not agree with is your broad sweeping generalizations as to why the forces engage in the missions that they do. If one were to listen to you and several other uninformed posters one would believe our sole purpose is to go to foreign countries and kill people. I have stated repeatedly that this is never our mandate. Further to that I have asked you to show me one single instance of such a mandate. You always seem to conveniently miss or forget to answer this question. I will repeat, never once in recent history, post WWII, or even prior has our mandate ever been to go and indiscriminately kill the populace of a foreign country. In all instances in fact our primary mandate has been to assist and protect the populace with emphasis placed on avoidance of conflict and peacefull resolutions to situations deemed hazardous. Obviously Afghanistan is different in some respects, however there is still emphasis placed on avoidance of civilian casualties and also, when stable enough, a shift of focus from combat to assistance and civil projects. Therefore, even in regards to Afghanistan, all those who frequently go off about going to other countries to kill people are in fact incorrect. The use of force is never the reason in and of itself that we go to these countries, it is just a means that must be employed in order to accomplish the broader and more encompassing factors of the the mission mandate. So, once again, I am in 100% agreement with AG, perhaps you should take your own advice and defer to AG since he knows more about it than you could ever hope to comprehend. P.S. Why we went in the first place? We went because a Liberal government sent us, something many people seem to forget quite conveniently.

Actually they did promote him right after the Somali mission, much to the disgust of those who were there. Once the actual facts started coming out they demoted him again. To say this man was worthy of promotion was a farce to put it mildly.

With all due respect AG, I served under Labbe in Somalia and in all honesty he was not fit to kiss a dogs arse. Think of the worst kind of military man you can imagine and Labbe falls right into the description. And yes, he did offer a case of champagne to the first man to kill a Somali, any somali. He's nothing but a worthless waste of skin.

That was quite a plane. It had a thirty cylinder engine, yikes! No wonder the cockpit was set so far back, visibility must have been a bitch on take off but I'm sure the top speed of almost five hundred miles per hour more than made up for that.

You oversimplify the problem. Illicit substances and there control are part of the problem, so is control of prostitution. However a large part relates to control and power, saving face for some, protecting turf for others. Then there are the factors such as disaffected youth, lack of oportunity for youth etc. etc. When one looks at the big picture it becomes a horrendously complex problem. Personally I believe part of the solution to be rather simple. Meaningfull sentences and an absolute zero tolerance policy towards such activity. This may not be the solution but it certainly wouldn't make the situation worse. It's easy to be simplistic about the issue when ones life is not affected in any appretiable way by these problems. The picture probably looks entirely different when one is caught in the middle though.

The P-38 was always one of my favourite aircraft. It had some pretty neat tricks up its sleave for the time. One major advantage it had over conventional aircraft was the fact that all the guns were mounted in the nose of the nacelle. Wing mounted guns have to be set up with a convergence point, meaning the guns on either wing have to be angled in toward each other. Usually this point was set at about 250 yards, so effective range would be about 250 yards. The P-38 with its nose mounted guns needed no convergence point on the rounds. Therefore effective range was about 1000 yards and the clustered weapons were devastating. It could also manouver incredibly well in the hands of a skilled pilot. The twin engines would allow it to turn on a dime. The pilot would feather one prop while going to full power on the other engine. This in effect would cause the plane to swivel or rotate on its axis. While other planes would be banking and using rudder to turn the P-38 would sort of just zip around in a much shorter arc. All in all it was another very effective aircraft. Its real challenger was the Zero. Zero's were the ballet dancers of the Pacific theater, another great plane.

Actually after seeing your posts for a while I can understand how it would be "horseshit" to you, a subject you have shown yourself to be intimately familiar with. Some of us do actually believe in and strive for a greater good, just because you are a bitter person who senses his own inate failure does not mean you should project those feelings upon all. Some people are willing to sacrifice for others, just because this concept is alien to you does not mean it does not exist. So why dont you open wide and eat some of what you spew constantly. This is just wrong, cant say much more than that. Once again we have those who just like to make stuff up as they go. Show me our official policy or even an unofficial one that states what you have just claimed. Didn't think you could, so in effect your statement was nothing more than a fabrication.

Its the cheese man! They want the cheese!

The usual snotty ignorant answer I've come to expect. So intervening and saving innocent lives is not a good reason. I guess we should all take your attitude and say "screw them, who gives a f*ck". If you are trying to say we should not kill those who would murder the defenseless and innocent then all I can say is you have a very unusual sense of morality. Or are you trying to say we go to these places to kill the innocent and defenseless? If that is the case I call you a bald faced liar with no sense of shame or knowledge to base your (worthless) opinion on.

Thanks for that obviously studied and well thought out post Olegh, you certainly ramped up the discussion a notch or two.

Yeah sure, all the way to the prairies. You make it sound like they'll be catching the Dartmouth ferry within the next month or two, it just aint so. However even without being able to head too far east the problem is still a large one that we have to try to fight. Alberta will be the stumbling block that stops the Beatles (Pine that is) just as it was for the Norway rat, no rats in Alberta ya know. This is due to a combination of factors. Rats are human dependent, as such the South Eastern border is guarded against rat entry by rat hunters. To the south lie plains and prairies, impassable terrain for rats. The west has the Rockies, once again impassable for rats. It will be a similar situation for Pine Beatles, they can not cross the prairies. Therefore unless transported by man they have no chance of spreading east beyond the bounds of the mountains.

Where we differ is the reason for Canada being there. I do not believe we are there to defend oil pipelines at all (I don't think there are any to defend in Afghanistan are there?). It is my belief that Canada is in Afghanistan to help bring stability and a government of the people to that land. Sure, I still have many friends who have and still do serve in Afghanistan, all reg force, I was reg force so I don't know too many reservists actually. I retired in 01, when this was all starting to blow up. I did feel guilty about getting out but my plans were set and underway, as you probably know, when retiring you actually start the process about a year before hand. As such my Seargeant Major was against me pulling the plug on my plans and stated that it was someone else's turn now. You are correct, they were in the 90's, really nice places to go, if you count Somalia, Yugoslavia and Rwanda amongst your list of nice places to go. Thats why it irks me when I hear people talking about non combat reconstruction. If these people had ever been to any of these types of places they'd know that the entire concept is fantasy. The first time you see a "technical" speed up and open up on a crowd of women and children with no warning you know that the khumbyar approach is just a dream. For those situations you need firepower, kind words and good wishes just don't cut it. What people don't seem to realise is that the world has more than its fair share of very very bad people. These are people to whom talk is meaningless and the rule of might is paramount. They don't care how good your intentions are, they just want to kill you and dominate others by any means.

Nice try but you missed by a mile with that one. I did sign up, did 20 years and 6 tours. So when you signing up? Talk is cheap.

Actually the Mosquito was constructed of plywood which gave it unusual strength and durability. It was without a doubt one of the most versatile planes of WWII filling the role of both fighter and bomber. A precursor to the modern fighter bomber concept we utilize now days.

Nope, not just you. Keep in mind that it is French, these are people who think Jerry Lewis is the greatest comic genius ever to live.

Thats easy. AMD has always structured its data pipeline far more efficiently than Intel. Intel has always used a significantly longer data pipeline than AMD, they merely ramped up the clock speed to make up for the inefficiency. The newer Intel chips now utilize a pipeline similar to that of AMD. Combine that with a larger L2 cache and they have managed to wrestle the performance crown from AMD who held it for about 9 years. So the AMD point of view could be said to be "more with less". There, is that all clear now?

Because when dealing with brutes, force is necessary. Once again you provide proof that you have no idea at all of what you are talking about. Tell me, how can your generosity, goodness and enlightenment happen when a specific group don't want it to happen and are not averse to the concept of killing anyone who does not go along with them? How can you educate, provide healing and rebuilding when you will be taken hostage or killed outright? Do you think you could "dialogue" with them and they'd suddenly see the error of their ways and apologize, promise to be good boys now you've explained to them how naughty they are? In the existent circumstances the only way to provide what you say we should is with the backing of guns and the will to use them. This may not sit well with you but I guarantee that life under the Taliban would sit even less well with you. A good portion of our time in Somalia was spent rescuing NGO's from Somali militia. They believed that good deeds and kind words would be enough as well. That is until they were staring down the muzzle of an AK47 with the knowledge that death was a mere few pounds trigger pull away from them. More than a few of them had a sudden epiphany at that point, you could say rather radical changes of attitude. So go on, tell us how you would accomplish anything at all with a gang of thugs hell bent on killing you. I'm really curious to know how you would do that. There's probably a whole shit load of people who would love to know how to do that as well, go on, share the knowledge and by doing so save countless lives.

Topol Missile. Those clever Russians, they have mobile silo's? Actually the Topol is a portable missile, always has been, no silo's for these babies. The Russians have always favoured mobility over fixed assets when it came to their missile arsenal. They have also had MIRV's for a long time now, nothing new there for the Russians. As for highly manouverable ballistic missiles, well, perhaps a little more info on how ballistic missiles work is in order. A ballistic missile by its very nature can not fly "low" do "s" turns or jump up and down in glee. The very use of the word ballistic should be indicator enough for you. I don't know where your info came from but it might as well have been a Dick and Jane reader for all its value.

Sorry Xul, it appears he is indeed Chinese. I just finished reading an article in the paper that said he and his wife were recent arrivals in Canada. He apparently worked two jobs, one delivering newspapers and the other working in the automotive department in Walmart. He and his wife lived in Edmonton. I fail to see what his nationality has to do with the fact that he appears to be a real true to life nutjob though. Is it possible that he cracked because of the fact that he had to work two dead end menial jobs? The man has to be insane in order to do what he did. Not only did he hack off the head but also other body parts which he then proceeded to eat. Perhaps more information will come to light when the police are done with the analysis of his laptop. That in itself is an interesting story. They obtained the laptop from a kid who had bought it from him. The kid states that he noticed Mr. Li sitting on a bench outside a Greyhound station in Manitoba, he was still there the next day. He had his laptop sitting next to him with a for sale sign on it, he was asking $500.00 obo. The kid offered him $60.00 for it which he accepted. This indicates that he was desperate for money, also the fact that he left his wife in Edmonton would indicate a high degree of desperation. It looks like it may be a while before we know what really lead up to this incident, if we ever fully do.

I believe you're right Guyser. I was just responding to a vacuous comment posted by one of those Canadian twits that I mentioned.