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Building a Better Bomb
dr who and the darlix writes "There is a nice article here about carbon composite warheads being tested. They destroy their targets while minimizing collateral damage."
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Not guilt. PR.
Do you think Bush's approval ratings would be so high if everyone knew that we've killed 6,000 civilians in Iraq? I vote "no."
but
a) It doesn't do any good if you hit the wrong building.
b) It doesn't do you any good if you mean to hit the 'wrong' building.
Furthermore, if a civilian happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, this still won't help... such is the nature of war I guess, though.
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Crudely Drawn Games
Bombs are rarely used for the purpose of killing people these days. They're used to destroy facilities, bridges, buildings. That kind of thing.
Consider the bombing of Baghdad. Generally speaking, most bombing raids were conducted during the middle of the night, local time. Why? To avoid surface-based defenses? Partially. But our forces are essentially immune to ground-based attack. We could bomb any time we wanted. We did it in the middle of the night so we could destroy buildings without killing people.
Bombs are designed to destroy, not necessarily to kill. Killing's an important part of war, but not the only, or even most important, part.
don't take it from me. eisenhower said it first:
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
president eisenhower
2 1337 4 u!
Nope. Sorry, doesn't work that way. As long as there are people out there who can think independently, there will be some who want to kill you, take your home, rape your children, whatever. As long as human beings have free will, there will be people who wish you harm.
This has nothing to do with what you do or do not do. You can make more people dislike you through your choices, but you can never make no people dislike you. You can never be loved by everyone. Sooner or later, somebody's going to come along who hates you, hates your way of life, and wants to kill you.
Societies that fail to defend themselves from these kind of people inevitably fall to them... or wake up and start hammering their plowshares into swords.
The best way to guarantee a war is to be unprepared for one. And the best way to prevent a war is to be absolutely, undoubtedly ready to wage one if called upon to do so.
Welcome to Earth. Enjoy your stay.
Let's reverse the question. Why hamper a technical discussion about bomb efficiency with irrelevant issues and issues of morality? There are certainly times and places for discussions of the morality of weaponry, and this is not one of them.
Not a couple hundred years ago, if someone mentioned evolution, someone would pop up and ask why you aren't inserting the word "heretical" into the discussion. And if they aren't...well, is that because of guilt? Fear of God? Same thing you're doing here, different topics involved.
May we never see th
Nope. Collateral damage means just what it says: damage that's collateral, in other words damage that wasn't intentionally caused, but rather came as a side-effect of whatever caused the damage that was intentional.
Sometimes people, such as yourself, like to paint military jargon as being full of euphemisms for killing and whatnot. Ain't so. Military jargon is exactingly precise. We say "collateral damage" because that is precisely what we mean. We say "civilian casualties" because that is precisely what we mean. ("Casualty" means a person killed or injured. Which is why we don't say "people killed.")
It's just precision of language. I'll give you a non-military example. My wife's a surgeon. Sometimes she works in the emergency room. When somebody wrecks their car, the incident is referred to as an MVC: motor vehicle crash. It used to be called an MVA, for motor vehicle accident, but the fact is that when somebody comes in from that kind of thing, you have no idea whether what happened was accidental or deliberate, act of God, whatever. So "motor vehicle crash" is more correct.
Why not simply "car crash?" Because a boat wreck is an MVC, too. So are motorcycle accidents. MVC's aren't limited to cars.
It's about precision of language, not euphemism.
Thanks for trying to slip a shallow and thoughtless political remark into the discussion, though. Appreciate you trolls keeping the rest of us on our toes.
if your government is indulging in "hobbies" you need another government. i think ike was referring to the military, not private gun owners. in which case, the purchase of armaments takes tax dollars which could be used for:
- more or better programs
- tax reduction
or some combination thereof. you obviously, would prefer the later - but that does not invalidate the original statement.you look at the "social" programs that work, they are the programs where volunteers or workers take the time to form a relationship with those they help and simply love and care for them.
ah, yes, the "thousand points of light". remember that? great. let's give those people some tax assistance or direct funding to buy materials or specialized services.
that would be a better use of cash than coming up with more efficient ways to kill people in countries where the "elite guard" means "soldiers with shoes". dontcha think?
2 1337 4 u!
Most would agree that, in all nations, a certain amount of military expenditure is necessary to national defense. How much depends on the threats a nation currently faces. What I think you are concerned about is the effect on a society when military spending exceeds what is needed for national defense: when it becomes part of the leadership of a nation's attempt to project power outside its own borders. In the short term, this is mostly detrimental to both the citizens of that country and the citizens of the other nations the military power threatens. Paradoxically, though, I think excessive military spending and international adventurism act to sap the economic strength of countries that undertake it. In the long term, this has the beneficial effect of tending to prevent those countries' ability to indefinitely control the destiny of others.
One of the finest books ever written is Paul Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. In it, he clearly demonstrates, based on historical experience, the importance of economic power in being able to maintain military strength (and thus the means to project power outside one's own borders).
Thus, while sorry for the citizens of any country whose lives are damaged by their leader's power ambitions, I recognise that the consequent damage to their countries' economies is in the world's long term best interests.
That's right, the solution to Saddam cooperating with the weapon inspections was to blow him to oblivion. I guess next you're going to say that he wasn't enthusiastic enough when we supplied him with the poison gas that he used to gas his "own" people. Oh, but gee, Bush found two tractor trailers that might have contained weapons of mass destruction. And, I need to remmember that we weren't there for WMD's, unless we find them, then of course we will be. And, our goal is to find Saddam, unless we don't, of course. Just like our goal in Afghanistan was to find Bin Laden, unless we don't, then it's still victory, since the goal of course was destroy the Taliban, not find Bin Laden. I guess you just can't lose a debate when lying is not only an option, but also policy, right George?
In the real world, Saddam was capitulating to every single request.
The reasons for war in order..
1. To get Saddam to comply with Weapons Inspections, of course, he did that, soo....
2. To get Saddam to destroy his WMDS', of course, the inspectors couldn't find any, so...
3. To get UN approval to let us go in so we couldn't find them, but we had no suppport, so....
4. To go in and find WMD's, unless, of course, we don't, in which case, we bombed them because we love democracy so much..
Did I leave anything out?