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  • #91
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    • #92
      Originally posted by Aussiegunner View Post
      Bigfella, as I have said on here before ...... threats as they emerge and all potential responses.
      Aussiegunner, nice one sir.

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      • #93
        Originally posted by vsdoc View Post
        Aussiegunner, nice one sir.
        Thanks mate.
        "There is no such thing as society" - Margaret Thatcher

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        • #94
          Originally posted by nvishal View Post
          A totally ridiculous interpretation, one that is not required. Why are you confusing yourself and the others? Please identify for me the fine line between (just) passing design secrets and giving a ready made bum...
          !
          Nvishal, I entirely agree with the sentiment but assure you that Australia will not require a 'ready made bum' from India any time soon ... ;-).
          "There is no such thing as society" - Margaret Thatcher

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          • #95
            Originally posted by Double Edge View Post
            China did not give Pakistan a bomb.

            I give you this you give me that, did not happen. Thats whats being alluded to in AG's post.

            Otherwise my post is pretty clear.
            Military men are not politicians. They don't make arbitrary interpretations. There is a fine line between politicans and army men.

            The need to pick out or create a semantic on the interactions between china and pakistan wrt nuclear weapons is a political one. From a pragmatist PoV, china literally gave nuclear weapons to pakistan. Any other interpretation of this pragmatic reality is an excuse and an indication of how helpless that individual is in this great game. Aussiegunner's suggestions in the first post on bum trade is nothing but an instinctual cry to get even. He sees the stakes. He wants to raise it.

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            • #96
              Originally posted by Aussiegunner View Post
              Bigfella, as I have said on here before I have read that the US plans for 67 possible global contingencies where it may have to take military action. Obviously and thankfully not even a fraction of those contingencies will actually occur. Australian defence planners also plan for multiple contingencies and always did. Hence the plans to deal with aggression by Britain's rival imperial powers during the first part of the twentieth century and with Communism in the second part.
              Sorry? 'Defence Planners'? When did I restrict my comments to 'Defence Planners' or elevate internet warriors to that level? The problem in Australia is that we have always been very quick to convince ourselves that anything that might concievably happen will happen if we don't fight a war or spend a fortune on kit of questionable value.

              According to you, they are just being neurotic and probably racist as well. It is a typical revisionist all care and no responsibility left wing historian's approach of critsising the decision makers of the past with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight.
              Oh dear, here we go again. Dare to besmirch the blameless reputation of Australians past with even a hint of racism & the right wing outrage machine cranks up. You do realise that one of the motivations behind the anti-conscriptiuon campaign in WW1 was a fear that we were 'undefended' from the Japanese allies who were helping to guard our shores. There has been plenty of neurotic & more than a dash of racist to go around for an awful long time. Sorry if that doesn't conform to the John Howard New Standard Revised version of Australian history - I'm sure that if you wait long enough Windschuttle will write you a book proving that the White Australia Policy didn't actually exist.

              Yeah right, Surkano waged an undeclared war of aggression on Malaysia because of Menzies.
              Menzies chose to get us involved - an act that carried risks. By all means argue the rights or wrongs of that act, but don't go pretending that he didn't dramatically increase the chances of conflict between our nations by doing it.

              For that matter even after he got kicked out Javan imperialism just replaced Dutch and Portuegese in places like East Timor and West Papua.
              More mangling. Indonesia invaded West Papua in 1961. Once again Menzies was quite prepared to get us into a war with our largest neighbour. That was the threat to us, not Sukarno's plans.

              As for East Timor, the threat there was seen as Fretilin. That is why we & our major ally were enthusiastic supporters of the Indonesian takeover - and anticipating the predicted swipe at Gough, both sides of politics were very much on board, to our eternal shame. Again, the only threat from an expansionist Javanese Empire was us getting into a fight a long way from home.

              If you think that under a situation where resources are increasingly scarce and problems at home require distraction, that there would be no threat of a future nationalist Indonesian government picking a border fight with Australia, then you seriously need to improve your ability to apply your historical knowledge to usefully addressing future risks.
              See, this is the really funny stuff. We have consistently been the ones intervening in Indonesia's sphere of interest. We have been the ones taking actions most likely to provoke conflict and yet all the talk is still of the threat Indonesia might pose. Only in Australia folks.

              Is there a threat potential? sure, but I wouldn't trust the screaming hysterics who see a threat every time the neigbours by a new ship or plane to warn me about it - I'm afraid the 'boy who cried wolf' effect just kicks in after a while. besides, what the f*** does this have to do with nukes?

              Um, that if we were prepared to consider developing a nuclear arsenal in the past then it is not out of the question that we would do the same in the future?
              No, but I suspect that most of the reasons that made it unlikely then will make it unlikely in the future. Given the expense & infrastructure involved & the damage to our mining industry (can you imagine the hystrical advertising campaign?...sure you can, you cheered the last one) I would rate it a very long shot. Of course, in the surreal world of Australian defence discussions the difference between 'very long shot' and 'very real possibility' is so often blurred.

              BTW, can we actually stop pretending this thread was supposed to be a serious discussion of Australia's potential defence needs? It was you getting huffy because the US isn't providing the UK the backing that you see fit over the Falklands. Thus when it came to the issue of our nukes you did your standard rewrite of Australian history to make it look like the horrible Americans stopped us from getting nukes after we shed 'rivers' of blood for them (funny how they become the baddies so easily when it suits).

              You are being deliberately picky about the form of assistance that we might offer, there would as always be several options. The point was that if another Commonwealth nation with very closely aligned interests to Australia was willing to help out last time, then we might see fit to do so next time.
              No, I was pointing about the absurdity of talking about deploying assets to a combat zone - which you were most definately doing. You are playing games here. You decry our failure to send enought troops to Afghanistan & take a swipe at the current government because you think it wouldn't 'put in' for the UK, and then you call me 'picky' for focussing on the part of your discussion that would appear to best fit your bombastic rhetoric. Sorry AG, if you turn up the volume then you don't get to complain when I ignore your whispering.

              I do not appreciate your reference to the Yellow hordes when replying to my posts. You know very well that I am not racist and my reasoning on this thread has only discussed this matter in terms of economics and geopolitics. Cut out the dishonest, cheap shots - it just makes you look nasty, desperate to impress with your "obvious" wit and a bit pathetic really.
              Don't get your knickers in a knot dearest, I was referring to something Troung said. I think you are silly, not racist. No offence intended.

              As for the White Paper, it is online for everybody to read so why don't you do so before you try to talk authoritatively about it.

              http://www.defence.gov.au/whitepaper...paper_2009.pdf
              This white Paper isn't my first time at the dance AG. I've read White Papers & Defence Reports that go back decades. Thus I remain unimpressed by any one of them being waved about as some great source of insight or wisdom. No sale.

              Clearly Canberra and the senior decision makers in your own party don't have the "she'll be right" attitude to our defence that you clearly do.
              Sigh! So if I don't envisage us engaged in a life or death nuclear conflict with an aggressive Indonesia fronting for an expansionist China than I've got a 'she'll be right attitude'.

              See what I mean about the surreality of these discussions folks? Dare to suggest we aren't under some existential threat and people start name calling.

              If you bother to look past the end of your nose you will understand this suggests that based on this behavior we have to consider China a nation willing to extend its influence well into our immediate geographical region and possibly to our detriment.
              So beyond our defence planners having a flair for the blindingly obvious what is this supposed to tell me about us getting nukes? Are you really trying to tell me that we are going to go toe to toe wit China in a nuclear exchange?....oh...wait...sigh!

              Stupid comment, my original post clearly stated that we would obviously be looking for delivery systems as well.
              So I'm the one making the stupid comments. Riiiiight. Its times like this I REALLY miss the Colonel.

              Yup, so they decided not to build them because they were expensive and we had sufficient backing from the US (and maybe the UK) deterrent. Are you trying to tell me something that I don't know? It was all in the Cabinet papers released about 10 years ago.
              Again, only part of the story. Has it ever occoured to you that the fact that these discussions got so serious had a lot more to do with the mental state of the people having the discussions than any actual need for the weapons? Fortunately saner voices prevailed. I'm betting they will continue to.

              I strongly more than suspect that the current government will do nothing but that future governments facing a changed security outlook, like was hypothesised in the White Paper, will look at the threats as they emerge and all potential responses.
              ....and the winner of the 'bland generalization of the week is'....
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              • #97
                Originally posted by Bigfella View Post
                Sorry? 'Defence Planners'? When did I restrict my comments to 'Defence Planners' or elevate internet warriors to that level? The problem in Australia is that we have always been very quick to convince ourselves that anything that might concievably happen will happen if we don't fight a war or spend a fortune on kit of questionable value.
                Isn't that the classic definition of preparedness? I am not sure why you are restricting this view point primarily with regard to Australia. History might explain differently.
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                • #98
                  Originally posted by Dago View Post
                  Isn't that the classic definition of preparedness? I am not sure why you are restricting this view point primarily with regard to Australia. History might explain differently.
                  Yeah, that is the definition of preparedness but try telling that to the typical antipodean peacenik of which we have a specimin before us. This peculiar variety of peacenik is convinced that if it's fellow Australians would just stop being a bunch of dumb, racist clods and would sit around singing kumbi fuckin' ya with our neighbours to our north, that they will never be tempted to solve thier economic or political problems at our expense. As you can see it's preferred mode of argument is to critisise former decision makers for preparing for every risk that never happenned. It is a wonder that it wears seatbelts when travelling or bother to lock thier doors at night, because clearly a smart person should have perfect foresight of what will go wrong and will only prepare for those eventualities

                  Consequently the fact that we enter alliances that mean that we end up in the odd war beside our allies and spend the World beating proportion of less than 2 percent of GDP on defence is a travesty to the antipodean peacenik. It also likes to point out how more evolved countries like Sweden or the Swiss do things so much better than us with thier neutrality. It always seems to overlook the fact that those countries have avoided war for more than a century by spending a much bigger proportion on defence than we do, ensuring that action against them is too much of a bother. Oh, and by selling iron ore to the Nazis or conducting no questions asked banking for senior members of that party.

                  Specimins like this are wilfully ignorant in such matters and debating them on these matters is a waste of time. I'm not going to any more on this thread, there are heaps of people here who will offer more interesting conversation anyway.
                  Last edited by Aussiegunner; 18 Dec 11,, 13:54.
                  "There is no such thing as society" - Margaret Thatcher

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                  • #99
                    Originally posted by nvishal View Post
                    Military men are not politicians. They don't make arbitrary interpretations. There is a fine line between politicans and army men.

                    The need to pick out or create a semantic on the interactions between china and pakistan wrt nuclear weapons is a political one. From a pragmatist PoV, china literally gave nuclear weapons to pakistan. Any other interpretation of this pragmatic reality is an excuse and an indication of how helpless that individual is in this great game.
                    The fine line is the diffference between giving them something vs helping. Its a crucial distinction.

                    The helping bit isn't in question.

                    Iran & NoK were 'helped' but still don't have a working nuke. It takes more effort.

                    Giving somebody a working nuke implies responsibility if ever that nuke were used against somebody else because it was your nuke and is the primary reason nukes will never ever be 'given' to somebody else. So if Pakistan ever uses their nukes China cannot be held responsible, therefoer its clear that 'literally gave them a nuke' is bunk.

                    Originally posted by nvishal View Post
                    Aussiegunner's suggestions in the first post on bum trade is nothing but an instinctual cry to get even. He sees the stakes. He wants to raise it.
                    And he has no qualms turning his country into a rogue state or for that matter any other country that assists in this endeavour. To do what he wants will require Australia to go down the path of NoK & Iran. To ask others to 'help' is the equivalent of turning them into Pakistan. Its a totally lose-lose situation for both parties concerned.

                    The time to have done this was before the NPT came up, that window has now long been closed.
                    Last edited by Double Edge; 18 Dec 11,, 13:59.

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                    • Double Edge Reply

                      "...And he has no qualms turning his country into a rogue state or for that matter any other country that assists in this endeavour. To do what he wants will require Australia to go down the path of NoK & Iran. To ask others to 'help' is the equivalent of turning them into Pakistan. Its a totally lose-lose situation for both parties concerned..."

                      Perfectly identified. It is the rather poisonously large flaw in his ointment. That he would see a kindred soul in India, of all nations, suggests he's thoroughly missed the whole foundation of Indian nuclear weapons policy and, further, why the NSG, despite India being a non-signatory to the NPT, provided waivers to existing protocol for U.S.-Indian nuclear energy cooperation.
                      "This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
                      "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs

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                      • Originally posted by Double Edge View Post
                        The fine line is the diffference between giving them something vs helping. Its a crucial distinction.


                        I can't help but *sigh* away at your interesting use of semantics and logic. I think I must reserve myself from challenging such supreme logic ever again.

                        Originally posted by Double Edge View Post
                        Iran & NoK were 'helped' but still don't have a working nuke. It takes more effort.
                        I have so many questions.

                        So, a phizzzle nuke is not a working nuke and hence not a nuke? So, assisting a state to develop a phizzzle nuke is okay before signing NPT? Since it is not a working nuke?

                        What happens if country A "helped" country B for a full one mega ton nuclear bum design and it phizzzled out to just 500 kilo ton? or 100 kilo ton? Is this phizzzled nuke a working nuke or a not working nuke?

                        Originally posted by Double Edge View Post
                        Giving somebody a working nuke implies responsibility if ever that nuke were used against somebody else because it was your nuke and is the primary reason nukes will never ever be 'given' to somebody else. So if Pakistan ever uses their nukes China cannot be held responsible, therefoer its clear that 'literally gave them a nuke' is bunk.
                        I agree; china only "helped" pakistan build a bomb.

                        Originally posted by Double Edge View Post
                        And he has no qualms turning his country into a rogue state or for that matter any other country that assists in this endeavour. To do what he wants will require Australia to go down the path of NoK & Iran. To ask others to 'help' is the equivalent of turning them into Pakistan. Its a totally lose-lose situation for both parties concerned.
                        lol says who? The NSG? The NPT? The UN? The micky mouse club?

                        So the consensus coming from the compulsions of a few dozen destitute states of the world equates to moral authority?

                        Originally posted by Double Edge View Post
                        The time to have done this was before the NPT came up, that window has now long been closed.
                        Of course!
                        Last edited by nvishal; 18 Dec 11,, 17:28.

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                        • Originally posted by Dago View Post
                          Isn't that the classic definition of preparedness? I am not sure why you are restricting this view point primarily with regard to Australia. History might explain differently.
                          Dago,

                          Sensible planners use finite resources to prepare for the most likely or most threatening outcomes. Sadly ours don't always do that (did I mention that we just bought a bunch of Abrams tanks we can't operationally deploy on our own?), but they generally try.

                          As I pointed out, they were not the primary focus of my comments. Hysterics jump up & down claiming every threat that might come to pass will come to pass simply because it is theoretically possible. The latter are the people I have been addressing in my posts. I have been encountering them in person & on the net all my life. They will tell you that Indonesia can land 10,000 troops in Australia within 48 hours or that India has an aircraft carrier & enought sealift to get two battalions to Australia (I've heard both in the media & from people who should know better). They will tell you that "all they have to do is swim over here with their bows & arrrows in hand & we are defenceless" (another quote I've personally heard). They will tell you that the fall of South Vietnam posed some manner of threat to Australian security that had not previously existed (apparently the distance from Haiphong to Australia was too far for the Russians, but give them Cam Ranh Bay & they start eyeing off Sydney harbour - you can't make this stuff up). They are also the first ones on board when we decide to use the lives of young Australians to attempt to buy favours with our 'great & powerful friends'. We have been telling ourselves these little fairy tales so long that some of us (perhaps many of us) can no longer tell the difference between actual threats & confected ones. Woe betide anyone like myself who points out that not every threat we imagine is real or that not every war we volunteer for is essential to our security (did I mention that we sent troops to the Boer War? Cunning buggers, today Jo'burg, tommorrow the world!!). As yo can see from the fuming responese of my friend AG, suggesting that the Emperor is not as well dressed as he believes is simply not permissible - unless it is someone on his side of the political fence doing it. There is & always has been an unhealthy dollop of local politics in these sort of hysterics - usually conservatives beating up on us lefties for not being sufficnently convinved that the Vietnamese are coming.

                          This isn't a discussion for the sane or rational Dago. get out while you can!
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                          • BF,

                            I am not sure if I follow you correct, but every country has hysteric and chilled types messing around with public opinion and saying stupid irrational things.
                            No such thing as a good tax - Churchill

                            To make mistakes is human. To blame someone else for your mistake, is strategic.

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                            • Originally posted by S2 View Post
                              "...And he has no qualms turning his country into a rogue state or for that matter any other country that assists in this endeavour. To do what he wants will require Australia to go down the path of NoK & Iran. To ask others to 'help' is the equivalent of turning them into Pakistan. Its a totally lose-lose situation for both parties concerned..."

                              Perfectly identified. It is the rather poisonously large flaw in his ointment. That he would see a kindred soul in India, of all nations, suggests he's thoroughly missed the whole foundation of Indian nuclear weapons policy and, further, why the NSG, despite India being a non-signatory to the NPT, provided waivers to existing protocol for U.S.-Indian nuclear energy cooperation.
                              Typical hypocritical crap from a certain type of American but it is a shame to see it coming from some Indians now. If the foundation of our NPT membership, American willingness to provide a deterrant, falls away in thr future then we have every right to do what India and Israel have done and use whatever means we can to build our own nuclear weapons in secret. The US can't have its cake and eat it, it either has to make good on the deal to provide a nuclear umbrella or
                              face more proliferation.
                              "There is no such thing as society" - Margaret Thatcher

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                              • Originally posted by S2 View Post
                                "...And he has no qualms turning his country into a rogue state or for that matter any other country that assists in this endeavour. To do what he wants will require Australia to go down the path of NoK & Iran. To ask others to 'help' is the equivalent of turning them into Pakistan. Its a totally lose-lose situation for both parties concerned..."

                                Perfectly identified. It is the rather poisonously large flaw in his ointment. That he would see a kindred soul in India, of all nations, suggests he's thoroughly missed the whole foundation of Indian nuclear weapons policy and, further, why the NSG, despite India being a non-signatory to the NPT, provided waivers to existing protocol for U.S.-Indian nuclear energy cooperation.
                                Typical hypocritical crap from a certain type of American but it is a shame to see it coming from some Indians now. If the foundation of our NPT membership, American willingness to provide a deterrant, falls away in thr future then we have every right to do what India and Israel have done and use whatever means we can to build our own nuclear weapons in secret. The US can't have its cake and eat it, it either has to make good on the deal to provide a nuclear umbrella or
                                face more proliferation.
                                "There is no such thing as society" - Margaret Thatcher

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