From: Adam Flinton 

Gene McAloon wrote:

> On Thu, 08 Jul 2004 17:56:25 +0100, Adam Flinton

> wrote:
>
>
>>Umm Gene...how much of Canada resembles Afganistan? So if I follow you,
>>you'd send troops to fight in a Jungle or in mountains that had only
>>ever trained on a prairie?
>
>
> Good god, man. Do you suppose Canada is all flat tundra?

No there's steamy jungle & dry as a bone mountains all over the place.

> For that matter, if it
> were, it wouldn't make the slightest difference. No troops, anywhere, must be
or
> even have been trained in particular terrain, except for ski troops and that
> hasn't been done since WWII.

What bollox. Various countries maintain (for example) jungle training
facilities (e.g. France in French Guyana, UK in Belize & Brunei etc.
I'm sure the US has some where all jungly where PBI are forced through mud
& other jungle loveliness.

> Did the US train its troops in a jungle somewhere
> before sending them to fight in the jungles of  South East Asia during WWII?

Gene....That was WW2. That was more than 60 years ago...nowadays we have
"jet airliners" which can & do carry people in some comfort
over thousands of miles through the air as a matter of course.

> Did Brit troops, French troops, Japanese troops?  Of course not. The idea is
> idiotic.
>

Then it may have been however nowadays what with long distance air travel
& other things not available then (e.g. a long peace given by MAD) this
is the norm as countries have moved towards an all professional military.

> Canada is full of mountains. Do Canadian troops train in those mountains
before
> being sent to Afghanistan? Of course not. Nor do American troops. There is
> absolutely no need whatsoever to do so and they do not. Do they wait to train
> their troops only after they are in a war zone? Of course not. Except for the
> Canadians apparently. The sad fact of the matter is those troops were hardly
> trained in combat operations at all until they got to Afghanistan. It was and
> remains a national scandal. It wants to play with the big boys, but doesn't
have
> an army qualified to do so. They are good at peace keeping operations and
that
> is about it.
>

Hohum.

Adam

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