Re: Fear of Nanotech

mark@unicorn.com
Thu, 9 Sep 1999 07:56:09 -0700 (PDT)

Brian D Williams [talon57@well.com] wrote:
>Wrong era, this isn't WWII, A 20 megaton H-bomb would vaporize
>baghdad.

You're seriously suggesting dropping a 20MT bomb on Baghdad? Really? I'm not misinterpreting you here? Are you insane?

>Nice of you to put such little value on U.S. soldiers.

When they're acting as hired mercenaries, sent out to put Western puppet leaders back in place in the name of 'freedom' and 'democracy', why should anyone value them higher than the hundreds of thousands or millions of Iraqi civilians who you would happily kill with your hydrogen bomb?

>yes I
>believe in the law of talion, use a weapon of mass destruction, get
>one used on you.....

So when Arabs decided to use nukes or bio/chemical weapons on DC and a few other US cities in retaliation for the US nuclear strike on Baghdad you'll just nod your head and say 'Well, that just serves us right for using nuclear weapons'?

I mean, seriously, forget for a moment that you're American. Imagine yourself as a foreigner reading this discussion, realising that ordinary Americans believe that they should be able to attack any other country which annoys them, for any reason, and if that other country decides to defend itself with the only effective weapons it has, those Americans believe that they are perfectly justified in vaporizing foreign cities containing millions of civilians in retaliation.

Try that for a second. Try to imagine how this kind of American militaristic arrogance looks to non-Americans (and if that fails, go rent 'Starship Troopers'; the best satire on American militarism I've ever seen). You may suddenly realise just why so many non-Americans fear and hate you.

Mark