Swiss War Game Envisages Invasion By Bankrupt French 245
An anonymous reader writes "The Telegraph reports, 'Hordes of bankrupt French invade Switzerland to get their hands on their "stolen" money — such is the imaginary scenario cooked up by the Swiss military in simulations revealed over the weekend. Carried out in August, the apparently outlandish army exercise was based on the premise of an attack by a financially stricken France split into warring regions, according to Matin Dimanche, the Lausanne-based daily. ... Operation "Duplex-Barbara" went as far as imagining a three-pronged invasion from points near Neufchâtel, Lausanne and Geneva, according to a map published in the Swiss newspaper. Behind the dastardly raid was a paramilitary organization dubbed BLD, the Dijon Free Brigade bent on grabbing back "money that Switzerland had stolen from Saônia". "For its credibility, the Swiss army must work (to ward against) threats of the 21st century," Antoine Vielliard, Hauate-Savoie councilor, told Matin Dimanche. However, Daniel Berger, captain of the Swiss armored brigade, sought to play down the specificity of the threat. "The exercise has strictly nothing to do with France, which we appreciate" he told the Swiss press. ... "French towns were cited to provide soldiers with a real scale," he said. ... Neutral Switzerland has not been invaded since the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century. '"
Re:Countries do this all the time (Score:3, Informative)
I live just outside of Wengen, Switzerland. Every home in my town has a bomb shelter. It was required at the time it was built.
Re:Countries do this all the time (Score:2, Informative)
Switzerland is one of the most strategic points in Europe. For thousands of years being able to control those mountain passes meant the ability to take nearly the whole continent.
Re:Countries do this all the time (Score:3, Informative)
That's not true anymore. The explosives has been removed year ago.
Re:Countries do this all the time (Score:4, Informative)
By folded you mean what?
The swiss have been making a fortune by acting as a tax evasion haven for Europeans. The dirty little hypocrites have been saying one thing and doing another for generations. And I apply that to most of the EU.
So the Swiss start expanding their game to US clients and shockingly the US IRS isn't as willing to play that game.
We're always told about the taxes in europe. But one of the secrets is that the tax enforcement agencies in europe are a joke compared to the IRS. Income in France for example is negotiable. That is you can bargain about what your income actually was that year. The IRS isn't interested in your bargains. They want to know what you made and on what and when. The IRS is not f'ing around. True, they're getting scammed pretty hard by the multi nationals but its unclear as to why that is happening. It could be bribery or it could be just getting out played. I suspect they're mostly getting out played. The Multinationals like to bury bureaucracies in details until their eyes bleed. IBM famously gave the government something like 5 million documents in a court case involving monopoly charges. Case went on for a decade because the government had to read through all the documents. Which took hundreds of people that whole time. By the time the government got around to making a case it was too late and no one cared anymore.
Microsoft did the same thing. Enron TRIED to do the same thing but it didn't work.