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Holy Fuck - Switzerland invades Liechtenstein

metirish Mar 02 2007 04:19 PM

] ZURICH, Switzerland - What began as a routine training exercise almost ended in an embarrassing diplomatic incident after a company of Swiss soldiers got lost at night and marched into neighboring Liechtenstein. ADVERTISEMENT According to Swiss daily Blick, the 170 infantry soldiers wandered just over a mile across an unmarked border into the tiny principality early Thursday before realizing their mistake and turning back. A spokesman for the Swiss army confirmed the story but said that there were unlikely to be any serious repercussions for the mistaken invasion. "We've spoken to the authorities in Liechtenstein and it's not a problem," Daniel Reist told The Associated Press. Officials in Liechtenstein also played down the incident. Interior ministry spokesman Markus Amman said nobody in Liechtenstein had even noticed the soldiers, who were carrying assault rifles but no ammunition. "It's not like they stormed over here with attack helicopters or something," he said. Liechtenstein, which has about 34,000 inhabitants and is slightly smaller than Washington DC, doesn't have an army.

ScarletKnight41 Mar 02 2007 04:26 PM

So much for neutrality.

Frayed Knot Mar 02 2007 04:30 PM

"Switzerland invades Liechtenstein" What did they do with the remainder of the hour?

ScarletKnight41 Mar 02 2007 04:33 PM

After the Grenada invasion, SNL had a spoof about the U.S. invading Switzerland. They cited the Swiss arms build-up as justification, and showed a large pile of confiscated Swiss Army Knives. It was pretty funny.

Nymr83 Mar 02 2007 04:39 PM

Do the 170 soldiers make up the entire Swiss army? More importantly, do they all carry Swiss Army Knives?

metirish Mar 02 2007 04:40 PM

There go the Swiss spreading freedom......

Frayed Knot Mar 02 2007 04:51 PM

The way it is in Switzerland (or at least used to be) is that all males of a particular age are technically in the army - or at least in their version of the reserves. They may be a small, land-locked country but a very organized one where the reserve force can be called up quickly. And when virtually all men in the country both own and know how to use a gun it's one of the things that kept them out of all them European squabbles over the years; the whole trouble vs payoff ratio of invading them just isn't worth it. Of course that mountainous terrain helps too.

Nymr83 Mar 02 2007 05:05 PM

not a bad plan, i fully endorse military training for everyone... frankly half our youths could use the exercise.

sharpie Mar 02 2007 05:51 PM

Today's fun fact: Liechtenstein is one of two double landlocked countries (landlocked countries surrounded by landlocked countries). The other is Uzbekistan.

Farmer Ted Mar 02 2007 07:33 PM

Been to Liechtenstein. Beautiful place. Basically a mountain side town and some ski resorts make up the place.

Nymr83 Mar 03 2007 12:44 AM

the ski resorts have been taken over by the Swiss Army.

DocTee Mar 03 2007 01:46 AM

]the ski resorts have been taken over by the Swiss Army. There's a lot of holes in that story. /groan/

MFS62 Mar 03 2007 08:45 AM Re: Holy Fuck - Switzerland invades Liechtenstein

="metirish"] ] Liechtenstein, ..... doesn't have an army. But they still have a better defense than the Knicks. Later