Cyprus-Forum.com

[Get Real!]

@GR,

Nevertheless the MISTRAL is an amazing weapon, with a proven success hit of 95%!! Have you seen one? I examined a couple of them in the past..

No, I've seen dozens...

[oranos64]

Question 1 : When is an arms race won ?
Question 2 : When does the race end ?


Lesson 1 : Never enter an arms race unless you're guaranteed to win.
Lesson 2 : In arms races there are no guarantees.


Solution 1 : Buy a missile.
Solution 2 : Buy an anti-missile
Solution 3 : Buy an anti-missile-missile
Solution 4 : Buy an anti-missile-missile-missile
.........
........

: Never enter an arms race unless you're guaranteed to win.
what do you mean by this ...america won the arms race in the 80s

korea south and north are always buying and devloping arms

china and taiwan ...

the moral of the story is

again ....peace is maintain by a strong defence ...

[devil]

Look, I started this thread to discuss the FACT that partition will be dangerous and that there are better solutions. I did not intend it to be a platform for discussing military hardware or war. The object is to avoid it. So can we please get back to the subject? If you wish to discuss such matters, please start a new thread instead of hijacking this one.

My views: scrap all previous ideas on rapprochement and start again from scratch with new ones. It would require a totally new constitution based on the experience of small multicultural states that have achieved peace and prosperity.

[zan]

Nikitas,

A general question-

Why do military men always talk of soft underbellies and point to the south of a nation when they do? By what standard is the south of every country assume to be soft? Is this some hidden Freudian thing that afflicts army people?

A most influential book for me was Norman Dixon's "On the psychology of military incompetence", first published in the late 1970s I think. There are some fascinating sections both on how military leadership has habitually (at least in the modern period) spoken in a highly sexualised way about people in general and about tactics and strategy in particular. Dixon also refers to, if I remember rightly, what he calls the 'bullshit complex' which is essentially a Freudian interpretation of the military's obsession with shit and defecation.

On a Freudian account, I suppose, the 'soft underbelly' is the lower abdomen of the uterus and vagina, to be easily taken and invaded.

I remember in the official (UK govt) reporting of the 1982 Falklands War the govt spokesperson, Ian Macdonald (?), reported with a straight face and no sense of Freud that British troops had "... engaged in a pre-dawn frontal insertion on sleeping Argentine troops ..."

I think that this might have some thing to do with bayoneting as well......If stuck in the ribs of a man sometimes the thing would get stuck so the best place to stick it would be the soft underbelly.


Devil

Have you done a study on how many countries that were forced or even signed together stayed together.........I can think of one...The Cyprus Republic....Only lasted 3 years..

[denizaksulu]

I don't usually contribute to this board, but exceptions prove the rule.

I've given long thought to THE problem and have firm views on how it may be resolved to the satisfaction of both sides, but they are irrelevant to this post. In any case, they would not be acceptable at a political level, although I'm sure they would be by the people of both sides.

I have thought about partition and sought some examples from past and recent history.

A bad example of partitioning occurred in the early 1920s when Ireland was divided into the Irish Free State (later Eire). All this did was create a tinder-box of strife that lasts today (and will certainly blow up again within a few years).

The most populous one is, of course, India and Pakistan (part of which later became Bangladesh). This happened 60 years ago. Result: 60 years of bickering, strife, sabre-rattling and armed conflict.

A year later came the creation of Israel, partitioned out of Palestine. I hardly need to say that this has not been very successful, do I?

More recently, the USSR was partitioned into Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, some of the -stans, Baltic States etc. Relations between them have not been exactly harmonious, have they?

Then the partitioning of Yugoslavia has been and still is a catastrophe that needs no further explanation.

Here, in Cyprus, we have had a de facto partition since 1974. Fortunately, over recent years, this has been physically peaceful but politically an unending battleground with neither side yielding an iota. Let's imagine what would happen if the island became officially partitioned into two independent states. Would the political situation improve? Of course not. The UNFICYP would disappear and the battles over the land within the Green Line would become physical. If a frontier could be established, security on both sides would demand armed patrols and skirmishes would happen. I would not rule out the possibility of terrorism developing between the two countries; there are enough hot-heads who would be willing to resort to violence to claim their pretended rights. Experience elsewhere has shown that partitioning has never been nor ever will be a solution towards peace.

My suggestion is therefore one of ΕΝΟΣΙΣ but not a union with Greece but a union of GCs and TCs. Is this possible? Yes, I believe it is, but not under either the Annan Plan or anything yet proposed. It would require a totally revised Constitution and a helluva lot of goodwill and determination on the part of the citizens. Of course, some individuals, on both sides, will feel aggrieved over pretended losses but half a cake is better than no cake. But all would be winners because such a new ΕΝΟΣΙΣ would bring much more prosperity and stability to the island. I'm convinced it can be done.

ΕΝΟΣΙΣ is the answer: partition is not, or ever will be, the answer.

Normally I turn my back on the 'Devil' but I make an 'exception' in this case, providing a working constitution is created. For the sake of calming down the fears can we not rid ourselves of the word Enosis' and 'partition' for this purpose to alleviate any connection or bias towards the GCs or TCs. The words have strong connotations to either side. Using that word might seem a defeat for TCs. You get my drift. Devil, I suggest you or we find an alternate term. Lets ask Phoenix our resident 'Biologist' about the term Zygosis (From Zygote). (Thats the joke part because some clever d--- will bring which sex into it.)


Regards

[devil]

Have you done a study on how many countries that were forced or even signed together stayed together.........I can think of one...The Cyprus Republic....Only lasted 3 years..

The problem with the 1960 constitution was that it was totally botched by the vested interests of the three guarantor powers and did not consider the interests of the Cypriot people. It was not even thought through (when I read it in 1960, I said to myself that it was unworkable). This was exacerbated by the attitude of the Brits in their last 6 years of colonialism, leaving a legacy of strife. We live today under this same legacy and that is why we need a totally new and not a revised constitution.

There are not many other examples of countries where polyethnicism has been imposed on them by external forces in the same way as Cyprus, if any. This is one good reason why we need a totally new constitution: it was an experiment that failed. India/Pakistan was another such experiment in partitionism that failed. OTOH, there are many countries where polyethnicism has been voluntarily and more-or-less peacefully accepted, often after years of strife. Some examples: Europe; Switzerland, Belgium, Italy, France: Asia; Singapore, Philippines, Malaysia, China, Indonesia: Africa; Egypt, South Africa: Americas; Canada, Mexico, USA etc. Note that I don't exclude competitiveness or comparisons between the ethnicities, often characterised by jokes (how many Poles does it take to screw in a light bulb?) or regionalisation. It may take a century or more for total elimination of racial strife, but once the citizens see the advantage, then they do work towards it for the common wealth of all the communities, but it does take time, even a couple of generations, for some of the hard heads to be convinced.

So, I advocate a clean slate for a new constitution that gives truly equal rights to all Cypriot citizens, be they Greek- or Turkish-speaking, Maronite, Armenian, Latin or whatever and the right of each community to determine its own future within the framework of the common good. It can be done, provided that the exercise is approached in a spirit of goodwill. Others have done it.

[Piratis]

Have you done a study on how many countries that were forced or even signed together stayed together.........I can think of one...The Cyprus Republic....Only lasted 3 years..

And since when you are a "country" mate? You are a minority, the remnants of the Ottoman rule, just like you exist in Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and many other places that Turks spread their kind during their brutal rule.

If you can not live and assimilate with Cypriots then go back to Turkey. As simple as that. We didn't force you to come and live with us, remember?

[devil]

And since when you are a "country" mate? You are a minority, the remnants of the Ottoman rule, just like you exist in Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and many other places that Turks spread their kind during their brutal rule.

If you can not live and assimilate with Cypriots then go back to Turkey. As simple as that. We didn't force you to come and live with us, remember?

That is unhelpful in the context of this thread. We are seeking positiveness here.

[Get Real!]

Have you done a study on how many countries that were forced or even signed together stayed together.........I can think of one...The Cyprus Republic....Only lasted 3 years..

And since when you are a "country" mate? You are a minority, the remnants of the Ottoman rule, just like you exist in Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and many other places that Turks spread their kind during their brutal rule.

If you can not live and assimilate with Cypriots then go back to Turkey. As simple as that. We didn't force you to come and live with us, remember?

Exactly!

[MR-from-NG]

Have you done a study on how many countries that were forced or even signed together stayed together.........I can think of one...The Cyprus Republic....Only lasted 3 years..

And since when you are a "country" mate? You are a minority, the remnants of the Ottoman rule, just like you exist in Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and many other places that Turks spread their kind during their brutal rule.

If you can not live and assimilate with Cypriots then go back to Turkey. As simple as that. We didn't force you to come and live with us, remember?

Exactly!

And to think poor Halil joined the forum to get to know his compatriots and distant cousins a little better to make his own judgement. He even thought he clould bond and make friends with some forum members.

Halil we are not Greek, we are Turks, we were not invited to Cyprus and dont belong. I guess we'll have to make do with our friends in the North.

My father always says "domuzdan post rumdan dost olmaz"