“Ukranian” Topics deleted, that country is not discussed here, Irak war is.
Here is another site with similar purpose to Kim Komando’s:
Any Soldier . com
http://www.anysoldier.com/
Thanks
Alas the days of irony are slipping too in our wonderful PC world. Was the Empire a good thing, probably not, did some good things come out of it, maybe, should it be around today, no.
Sure we did a lot of bad things, but at the time thought they were right. Thats the trouble woth history, we always have to look back and see the past through modern morals.
Cheers
Nowt wrong with the Empire.
For the wrongs of the Empire, look at the good it did. It brought civilasation, medicine, education, law, and all manner of things to countries that up to that point they may not have had.
Admittedly some countries may have had these things prior.
The Empire also brought about a vast trading system that benefited many (alright fair trade it wasn’t but) and pushed the development of new technology to speed such systems up.
The problems we see today, are mainly casued by arbritrational devision of lands (look at the straight line borders of Africa, literally drawn by a ruler) and by the pull out of the Empire Control too quickly, ie India.
As for the bad things…
In perspective (as in our acts in the past) they weren’t that bad.
Slavery, for one is a big buzz word at the time, but was practiced by many countries in the world at that time. Other civilised cultures of the time (such as the Persians) practiced it before us, and many slaves were sold to us by the local chieftains.
The African tribes had been swapping slaves and waging war for slaves for centuries.
Without getting too political, slavery didn’t just affect those of Black origin. Slaves were also white, inparticular convicts and the Scottish Miners of the 18/19th century were slaves, if not in name.
FWIW, slavery was stopped under the Empire, so far as bringing slaves to Britain was concerned, because of initiatives in Britain, not the slave source countries.
It continued in Africa, among other places, and still continues without the Empire.
It’s not politically correct to say such things, but it’s an unfortunate fact that a lot of places that were European colonies are a lot worse off under local despots and reversion to traditional systems than they were under the colonists, and have suffered a great deal more with internal wars and butchery and exploitation than would ever have happened under a European colonial power during the same period. Just look at Zimbabwe, Angola, and so on.
Or, dare I say it, Iraq.
Wow!!!
This is a borderline psychotic solution…
Actually, we should divide Iraq into three countries along the ethnic make-up and allow them to govern themselves…
Northern Iraq is de facto “Kurdistan” as it is! Keep about 30,000 US soldiers there to guard against Turkish fuck-buggery and al Qaeda of Iraq, that is if they survive the withdrawl of American troops whose presence seems to be the only thing keeping them going
Let’s not kid ourselves though. These wars are the direct result of the faulty multi-nations/one state that followed arbitrary colonial re-drawings of tribal and ethnic regions based on which power got in which area first. Much of Africa, and Iraq, are prime examples of this, also…
Also, whole regions were put to providing one particualr resource, with no thought as to what would be beneficial to the local population. For example: great swathes of West Africa produced hemp for rope making. Also…
To some extent, but a lot of it is just the usual political bastardry in any dictatorship combined with ancient tribal distinctions corrupted by the colonial powers imposing an unsuitable form of democracy on their colonies before granting independence which produced Darwinian political systems. It crosses a lot of borders. Have a look at New Guinea and some of the Pacific states.
Again, it’s politically incorrect to say it, but it’s a big ask to expect people whose grandfathers were active tribal and clan headhunters (I’m not talking about WWII Yugoslavia here) and cannibals in very primitive small societies to make the jump to rather more complicated and widely based social, political and economic systems.
Idi Amin wasn’t on the same level as Margaret Thatcher.
Upon reflection, there might be some difficulties with pursuing such comparisons as I was going to say that Robert Mugabe isn’t on the same level as George Bush. That’s undoubtedly true, but it’s a matter of opinion which one is dumber and more dangerous. 
If anyone has a relitive/freind serving in Iraq or is a veteren of another war I can make a tribute webpage for them. If you want one just send me a private message with the info I need to make the Page. Here is one page I made already http://www.military.com/HomePage/UserCreatedTributePage/0,10980,832791,00.html
Here are some more pictures from Iraq
does this look familiar
got one more left
