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Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a
nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a
"Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed
considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense
initiatives more successful? Can such an application of
science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable,
necessary or impossible?
Read Debates, a new
Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published
every Thursday.
(5150 previous messages)
gisterme
- 02:51pm Oct 23, 2002 EST (#
5151 of 5162)
commondata
10/23/02 7:05am
"...When I told you about the Iraqi death toll figures
provided by the UN your intelligent and carefully considered
response was "you lying communist"...
Nope. My carefully considered response was "That's a lie".
You put the "communist" part on yourself. And your
statement was quite untrue. What you said was:
"More Iraqis were killed in the Gulf War than have been
killed by all weapons of mass destruction."
Highest estimates I've seen about Iraqi lives lost in the
Gulf War was 100,000. You said that that number is higher than
the number killed by all weapons of mass destruction. I wish
that were true but it's just not. That's why I'd personally
like to see weapons of mass destruction removed from the
world.
Approximately 20 million people died as a result of WWII.
Of those about 170,000 died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It's
also estimated that about 400,000 American and several million
Japanese lives were saved because that war ended without an
invasion of Japan.
It's estimated that another 50-60 thousand on both sides
died in gas attacks during WWI. God only knows how many
Iranians and Kurds died in Saddams's attacks.
I think your problem with your figures may be that you've
bought into the Iraqi propaganda that blames present sanctions
on the US. The blame for those sanctions and the suffering and
loss of life that may be associated with them lies squarely at
the feet of Saddam Hussein as you well know.
You framed your untrue statement in such a way as to make
it sound as if the US were responsible for every life lost in
the Gulf War. As you also well know, that war was a UN action
carried out by a coalition. That action successfully ended the
rape of Kuwait by Saddam.
"...That seems to come about as close to a definition of
hypocrisy as you're going to get..."
You do show your hypocracy along with your
disingenuousness, commondata.
gisterme
- 02:59pm Oct 23, 2002 EST (#
5152 of 5162)
rshow55
10/23/02 9:17am
"...If I'm right about who gisterme is,..."
You don't have a clue, Robert. You can't even get the
gender right when I tell you what it is. Your pompous
attitude remindes me of the character of Gen. George Custer as
portrayed on the movie "Little Big Man":
...What??? Change a Custer decision? You're a mule skinner
no matter what you say!...
If you weren't so serious about yourself, Robert, you'd be
comical. You seem to have as much trouble with the truth as
lchic. When the truth is not what you want to hear, you just
make something up that better suits your fantasy.
rshow55
- 03:02pm Oct 23, 2002 EST (#
5153 of 5162)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click
"rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for
on this thread.
Well, we're agreed that it would be good to get rid of
weapons of mass destruction.
But that can only happen, as a practical matter, with
broad agreement . For myself, I wonder how many people
around the world consider the US blameless for the
deaths in Iraq due to the sanctions.
Blame is a problematic notion - and cycles of blame - -
like cycles of violence -- can get out of hand.
For us to lessen inhumanity in the future - - we have to
deal with things that have happened - within the limitations
that we can actually make work - as things are.
I thought some postings from February 27th, 2001 - a few
days before almarst was invited on the board - were
worth posting again, and did so in #s 358-365 in Mankind's
Inhumanity to man and woman -- as natural as human
breathing? http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b085/401
rshow55
- 03:04pm Oct 23, 2002 EST (#
5154 of 5162)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click
"rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for
on this thread.
gisterme
10/23/02 2:59pm - - - I sure could be wrong - but I know
that - and notice how often things could be checked - -
- if there wasn't such systematic resistance to that.
I appreciate your 700+ postings on this board - maybe we
both have some comic moments - but there's hard effort going
on, as well.
lchic
- 03:24pm Oct 23, 2002 EST (#
5155 of 5162) ~~~~ It got understood and exposed
~~~~
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