Re: Re:

[Don Kaag <dkaag@turbonet.com>]

Melynda:

Of course, "women".  I served proudly beside many fine women in  
uniform, both officer and enlisted.  I was simply quoting correctly,  
from an era when women in the military were nonexistant.  So long as  
women meet the objective mental and physical requirements, they should  
be able to perform any job in the military services.  They shine  
particularly well as pilots, not so well as infantry, due to the loads  
infantry must carry.

As a Historian I must differ on the subject of a large, rich, nation  
with no military force.  I simply point to History, where strength  
protects and weakness does not.  It is very hard to stand upon your  
moral superiority as a pacifist when the barbarians are busy chopping  
holes in the gate, preparatory to their customary looting, raping and  
pillaging.


On Wednesday, September 4, 2002, at 11:33 AM, Melynda Huskey wrote:

> Don Kaag writes:
>
>> DEPLETED uranium!  It's about as radioactive as the hands on your  
>> watch.  The DU rounds are armor penetrators, and they use a depleted  
>> uranium alloy because it is the densest metal known to man.
>
> Gee, that'll teach me to make an ill-informed post and then fail to  
> check my email for days!
>
> Prompted by Don, I did a little research and found that I was  
> completely wrong about radioactivity and Kosovo.  The BBC has a great  
> fact sheet on depleted uranium ordinance--they're not quite the  
> enthusiasts Don is on the subject, particularly with regard to the  
> toxic dust generated, but they proved me wrong. (And truth to tell,  
> I'm relieved.)
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/europe/2001/depleted_uranium/ 
> default.stm
>
> On the other hand, Don also said:
>
>> But don't think for a minute, whether you like it or not, that there  
>> >are not "rough men" out there somewhere making it possible for you >> to
>> exercise your violence-secured First Amendment right to post pacifist
>> nonsense on Vision 2020.
>
> You know, those "rough men" (and women!) make peace less possible, not  
> more.  The idea that armies secure peace through threat is just as  
> nonsensical to me as pacificism is to you.  Peace is not the  
> substitution of intimidation for active warfare.
>
> Here's a quotation from the War Resisters League that I find pertinent:
>
> "Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on  
> a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of  
> it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common  
> people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that  
> matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the  
> leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a  
> simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or  
> a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.
> Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of  
> the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are  
> being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism  
> and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
> Hermann Goering (April 18,1946, as quoted in Gustave Gilbert's  
> *Nuremberg Diary,* Farrar, Straus & Co, 1947.)
>
>
>
>
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