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Jeff Wilson · 19 Jan 2011, 05:13 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2011 23:13:33 -0600
Subject: (urth) (no subject)
In-Reply-To: <4D35F4E6.2000104 at gmail.com>
References: <SNT123-W493895AB437E16A8B7F2BBCFF70 at phx.gbl>	<4D35EB6F.1050002 at io.com>
	<4D35F4E6.2000104 at gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4D3672FD.9080602 at io.com>

On 1/18/2011 2:15 PM, James Wynn wrote:
>
>> Jeff Wilson-
>> It is both a horrible crime *and* a justifiable, necessary action,
>> which is one reason for the schism and doublethink; if the defenders
>> stop to consider if their tribe of fallible, corruptible people is
>> worth preserving by burning alive the widows and orphans of the tribe
>> who is also prone to gratuitous slaughter, they might hesitate too
>> long or even disreagrd their orders entirely.
>
> To put things in perspective, in order to take Berlin, the Soviets
> pummeled the city with 5X the explosive force in rockets as Hiroshima.
> And the conventional invasion of Okinawa resulted in the deaths of
> almost 1/3 of the population (many from suicide or deliberate suicidal
> charges). By comparison, the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a mercy.
>
> But your point, as I take it, was that they are all awful.

All were awful, but the atomic weapon makes it so much easier and 
convenient to be awful. The overkill bombardment of Berlin and the 
Okinawan slaughter required a huge human cost in sustaining the terrible 
resolve to kill and keep killing for as long as it took, so that few of 
the victors could look forward to repeating it. Robert E. Lee would weep.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >

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