Re: [OT] [gzg hist] UN Covert Ops

> I also thought it impressive
> how the story covered the fact that while the First World provides the
money
> and "the angst", the Third World end up providing the troops - the
> "Mogadishu Line" determining that no Western country is willing to
risk
> their own troops in such operations.

Unless they go in *before* the UN, and under somewhat more liberal rules
of engagement. As in East Timor recently.

(Anyone know of any other occasion in recent memory when a country
of 20 million was willing to take on one of 180 million? No? OK, that
proves it, we *are* stupid barbarians. Of course, that reputation is
useful sometimes.)

> Wasn't it Australia who was mixed up in the use of Sandline
mercenaries in
> New Guinea?

Only peripherally. We intercepted the arms that were going to be used,
as
the
Government of the day rather disapproved of the whole concept. The
ordnance
was
disposed of  as a public danger ( some of those 70mm rockets were
actually
rusty... )
and the transport helo was a mouldy old Mi-8, not the new Mi-17 that had
been
promised. So when conracting mercenaries, make sure they're equipped as
well
as
they say they are.

AFAIK we still have the Mi-24(B model I think) in storage somewhere near
Darwin.

Truth is stranger than even the Tuffleyverse.