Friday, June 17, 2011

USMC - wins...UK Ministry of Defense - loses.


The title of this post indicates the outcome of the UK MoD's decision to sell Harriers to the US at bargain basement prices.

We win.  They lose.  BIG.  From the Sun (via Phoenix Think Tank).

Ex-Security Minister Admiral Lord West said that whoever was behind the "joke" £34million sale was "as mad as a box of frogs".
UK taxpayers forked out more than £1BILLION for the iconic jets - up to 40 of which are going to the US Marine Corps for the knock-down price.
Lord West, 63, stormed: "We're in a land of complete madness. Selling these Harriers in this way - well, what a stupid, extraordinary decision.

"It makes one feel that whoever is behind this is as mad as a box of frogs. We're in the extraordinary place where we rely more and more on the US.
This is how freedom ends.

If you depend on another for your protection then you're not a Man...or a nation.  You're a slave or in the case of a nation a protectorate.

The UK has/is in the process of losing all leverage with the US.

Its not yet too late to turn this around, but its getting close.

But in the meantime, the UK can be proud of one fact.  Between the US purchase of the Harriers and the Australian fleecing them on the buy of the Albion class ship, they're at least strengthening allies.

6 comments :

  1. will they be used in operational settings or will we use them as spare parts? i read somewhere it was the spare parts we wanted them to keep the current USMC harriers flying until the F35Bs come online.

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  2. Hello Solomon,

    the worst thing is,all this waste is deliberate.
    Getting rid of the Harriers makes it a lot easier for David Cameron to justify the creation of an Anglo-French carrier force.
    Creating military interdependence is a fundamental part of the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy and the British Prime Minister is one of it's staunchest advocates.

    GrandLogistics.

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  3. I think you'll find it's one of the Bay Class that's being sold to Aussies not HMS Albion or HMS Bulwark.

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  4. i stand corrected.

    thanks.

    still a very, very young and capable ship no?

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  5. Bay class LSD(A) are indeed good ships. I bet the Canadians wish they had jumped on that deal? Other navies have versions of it.

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