Re: [OT] Bell Canada - service vs. abuse

BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> wrote:

May 22, 2025 at 5:26:23 PM PDT, shawn <nanoflower@notforg.m.a.i.l.com>:

Thu, 22 May 2025 18:31:29 -0400, Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com>:

I *think* they are gradually
getting replaced but I'm not positive. We recently agreed to replace the
pistols that were available to our soldiers: they were made in the
1930s!! The need for newer pistols was blindingly obvious a LONG time
ago but our government (regardless of which party was in power) ALWAYS
finds money for the military last (if they find money at all). Our
current jet fighters are F-18s which are 40 years old and they're being
held together (figuratively) with spit and bailer twine. The
Conservatives, when they were last in power, agreed to buy a bunch of
F-35s but as soon as the Liberals got in, they decided to revisit the
decision, then spend almost 10 fucking years hemming and hawing before
finally deciding to buy F-35s anyway. Now Carney is talking about
pausing that order after all and going with a European fighter, just
because Trump. (We've committed to buying a handful of F-35s but they're
talking about taking the rest of the order away from the US and giving
it to the Eurofighter people which would be extra, extra stupid because
then we'd have a handful of F-35s and then a bunch of the Eurofighters
causing all kinds of complications in terms of basing, maintenance,
training, etc. etc. But the Liberals are nothing if not stupid so I'm
ready for anything.) But I digress....

I think you fail to see the obvious answer. If your country were truly
to move away from the F-35 then there's no reason to keep them. Just
sell them to another country that is using the fighters. I'm sure
there will be many willing buyers.

Weapons sales tend to come with a "you can't sell this stuff to anyone else"
clause in the contract. We only want those things going to certain countries.

And yet there's tremendous leakage of weapons to war lords all the time.
Sometimes there are American-made weapons on both sides of a conflict.

Of course, nothing destroyed our reputation more than our friends the
Saudis dropping American-made weapons on all those civilians during the
Yemenese civil war accomplishing zero military objectives. Might as well
allow weapons transfers to third parties as I don't see how we could
look worse during other people's wars.