From: Michael M. Butler (mmb@spies.com)
Date: Tue Jan 21 2003 - 14:14:38 MST
Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
> "The Spanish-American War"
> http://www.smplanet.com/imperialism/remember.html
>
> It is worth noting that the death toll (254 seamen)
> were an order of magnitude less than the death toll
> of *civilians* in 911.
Yes. I would lke to correct a possible misimpression--I am
not calling the loss of lives on 9/11 insignificant. I was
simply trying to cite the Spanish-American war as one where
some interesting arguments have been made that war was used
as a tool of policy. I am also not claiming that all of the
US actions since that time conform to that kind of model.
> I'm not going to try to justify the current U.S.
> policy with respect to Iraq (or North Korea).
> Because I'm not sure they can be presented in
> a rational manner. But Spike's recent note on
> nuclear weapons propagation and use raises the
> red flag.
Nobody's asking me, but my assessment at the moment includes:
Which one is more likely to hand dirty bomb stuff to J. Random Badguy?
Which one is more likely to mass troops and send them through tunnels
that have been being built since 1950? This tempers the simpleminded
"Nukes bad. Korea got nukes. Iraq don't. Why we attack Iraq first?"
Kim is watching what we do in the Middle East. This is not a perfect-
information situation.
> This isn't about being "right", it isn't about advancing
> ones own political perspective (the entire libertarian
> vs. some other political framework fades and exits stage
> left in this forum), it isn't about whether having or
> not having guns is a way to move forward a perspective.
> It is about whether or not the information content that we,
> as a species and civilization, have accumulated, is maintained
> and hopefully evolved.
Well said, friend Robert.
Nonetheless, there are some tradeoffs, and some "evolutions", I
find repugnant.
"Evolution" is a complex word, and different meanings have different
ramifications. I'm told there is a wading bird that only uses its
wings to shade its eyes while it looks for food in the water.
Such a bird is highly evolved--but flightless.
I'd prefer H. sap species survival to H. sap species extinction, sure.
I'd also prefer plenty to penury, and _civilization_ to subjugation.
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