FlintlockJazz : Arnold was an American General, who when passed over for promotion a couple of times, conspired with the British to surrender the Military Academy at West Point.
The messenger was captured with his signature on the offer, and decided to scarper about 5 minutes ahead of one George Washington, who was sent to arrest him.

Other than that, yeah - North America for the British was a dumping ground for the religious zealots that wanted stricter enforcement of Church Doctrine - Puritans, etc.
George III was clinically....insane. Our appointed military commanders over there were sub-standard because GB was, at the time fighting, 3 or 4 other nations in Europe, and as I mentioned in the first reply, around the Pacific. The colonies in America, weren't so much an afterthought, as an after-after-afterthought. Not knowing the real conditions there (communications took weeks both ways), bad decisions were made, and then stubbornly enacted despite advice from people on the scene.

Amusing to note that a couple decades later, when USA wanted to invade Canada, they got their arses handed to them a couple times, before deciding it was a bad idea, and let it drop.

Lets see, lost empire, selling the rights to the Harrier off (I mean, what the fuck, whose great idea was that?), never capitalising on the technological skillbase we had and now we're losing it, never capitalising on the inventions we made (not only did we not patent penicillin, we gave it to America who then went "What a great idea, lets patent it!" and now we have nothing), there's a long list of them all, not least the revelations shown in the wikileaks. The UK government is run by a bunch of corrupt muppets who wouldn't know how to run the country even if they weren't corrupt. We've become a joke.
Ah cheers. So he didn't do much really aside from get caught with his pants down really?

Guess you had to actually be there, having your hands tied is a distinct disadvantage

My dad fought in Vietnam. The politicians screwed around and kept the soldiers from doing squat. Please try to get your facts right before mooning a forum.

?
what facts did he get wrong>

I was just about to ask the same question.

"where team a runs away crying whilst team b takes over all the territory that team a was defending".

That's simply not true. American soldiers fought bravely in that war, as they have done and continue to do. However, in the Vietnam war, their hands were tied by the actions of politicians and the news media, and they were withdrawn involuntarily by the government before they were done. I dislike anti-soldier sentiments like this, particularly when they're unfounded.
It's a fundamental misunderstanding many people have. Soldiers don't decide what they do in the U.S. military, the government does. Saying that the defending forces ran away is foolish - there is no evidence to support that. Instead, saying that the government was cowardly in the face of political pressure would be appropriate.

All I can say is that Friends was massive worldwide. Over here we were, at worst, perhaps a few months behind US broadcasts (often due to differently scheduled TV seasons).

"Over here" being Croatia, as it says on the left. I'm a native, born and bred, and this sounds like an interesting experiment. So if anyone has any questions I'll try and answer them as best I can.

In the meantime, a question for any Japanese GOGers, something that I've always been curious about... I understand that Japan is a fairly formal culture, but it's hard for me to gauge how much. In other words, how seriously do people take the social rules? Especially among the younger population. How much of it is basically mandatory and how much is more like politeness?
I'm sure he meant no disrespect Runehamster. Most world militaries function in this way, and any figurative running away was understood to be done by the government, not the soldiers under their command.

I seriously don't get what is your problem with what Alias said.

I am pretty sure he did not mean literally the fact that USA army cried when pulling out of Vietnam.

So rest of your comment just doesn't make sense in response on how Alias was wrong.

USA lost big time and was forced to pull out. Lost billions of dollars thousands of lives yet achieved nothing.
Calling this a draw is like saying Poland won world war 2.

I'm sure you're right. I'm probably just sensitive about this conflict in particular because of my dad's participation and the bad rap soldiers got returning from 'Nam.

I was taking the piss with the wording but the practical point of it was that american forces went in with an objective, they were repeatedly defeated, fell back then withdrew their forces with their objective completely unfulfilled and the ally they went to protect pretty pissed off. No way of calling that anything other than a loss.

Wars are lost not by the troops but by the strategists &/or politicians. They fucked up royally and the americans, vietnamese & australians lost a lot of lives over it

Damn straight. Thanks for the rewording, I should have known that's what you meant.

Point : The Americans won every battle in Vietnam, but lost the war through gutless, timid, armchair-general, politicians back home.

I remember reading once that the US asked us (Brits) to help them, to the point of wiping out the debts incurred from WW2, but we laughed and said it would never be a winnable war...not sure whether that was before or after the press campaign that rocked up the "moral" outrage at the war, though. How they treated their soldiers afterwards, draftees or not, was reprehensible all the way through.

I heard that put a different way: the Americans asked us to commit anything merely as a show of support, even if it was just a marching band, and in return they would wipe out the debt, but because the war was so unpopular with the british public at the time the British government was too gutless to do so for fear of protests and riots, despite being in the middle of a horrendous depression. Of course, it depends on who you talk to regarding that, the truth of the matter may never be known.

Soldiers should never be treated that way for doing their duty, and I find it disgusting that often it's the people who have never been to war who treat them the worst. In World War 1 there were Women's Clubs were they would get together to discuss who they would send white feathers (a symbol of cowardice) to for not doing their duty and to pressure them into serving, yet when many of these men and others returned home with missing limbs and crippling injuries they were again looked down upon as rejects by these same women.