So "we" made the obvious conclusion that Iraq was involved.
You're talking to the wrong woman....
I put the collective "we" in quotes for a reason.
I have no idea where you are coming from. Maybe you can explain what you are talking about?
I thought I did earlier in the post. We provided weapons to Iraq and Iran. We didn't think it was for skeet shooting. We managed the killing. We didn't attempt any peace initiative. We knew that Sadam was using biological and chemical weapons against the Kurds. And at the time we knew it, we sent more weapons to Iraq and biological material to boot.
Perfectly respectable researchers spend their entire lives studying the most deadly toxins. Nobody blinks an eye unless they have a reason to suspect wicked intentions.
Are you telling me that even if you knew that Iraq was using biological and chemical weapons against the Kurds [which was the case with the Reagan and Bush Administrations] you would have no reason to suspect that they had any wicked intentions when they requested deadly toxins from the US?
I can think of lots of victims -- people who were tortured with cigarette butts being extinguished on their flesh. Shall we blame Phillip Morris for making Marlboro cigarettes? People who had electric shocks applied to their private parts. Shall we blame Sears for making Diehard batteries? People who were raped. Shall we blame everyone with a penis?
Exceptionally poor parallels. Sears has a reasonable expectation that a Diehard battery is going into a car, not a torture chamber. How does that possibly compare logically to the anticipated use of personnel land mines or other weapons?
But let's hypothetically elaborate on the Diehard battery. Suppose Sears delivers Diehard batteries to the interrogation rooms of the Chicago Homicide unit. And every month when they deliver the batteries, the detective says Great batteries. We got 30 confessions this month. They also see that with every suspect and detective that leaves an interrogation room the detective has a Diehard battery under his arm. They read in the newspaper that the homicide unit is getting record numbers of confessions. They also read that murder suspects are claiming torture; batteries attached to their finger tips, ear lobes and scrotum. Sears continues to deliver Diehard batteries to the interrogation rooms of the Chicago Homicide Unit. Does Sears, as a company, have any legal or ethical issues?
A better parallel is that of a drug cartel. The drug cartel just merely distributes processed "farm products"; hemp, cocaine, and heroin. Hemp is used for making ropes, the making of furniture; even clothing. Cocaine and heroin have legitimate medical uses. How are they to know that they might be used for illicit purposes? We shouldn't be holding the drug cartels responsible.
IMO, a country that provides weapons to instigate or prolong a third world conflict is behaving no different than a drug cartel. Personnel land mines are nothing more than weapons of terror; they are non-targetted booby traps. Most of the world wants them banned, but not the US, China or Russia. There's money to be made.
We didn't make the gas that Saddam used on his own people. We did not make the sarin that Aum Shinrykio used in Tokyo. We didn't even invent sarin, that was the Germans.
So what are you talking about?
That pretty well illustrates the point. As long as you can isolate yourself from the tragedy, you don't care about who or how they get killed.
Related topic. Up until a few months ago, I thought that there was a national consensus that the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II was a tragic mistake. I see that what we call the "Justice Department", uses the incident as precedent for the internment of Muslim Americans into military detention. I see very little public objection.
jttmab |
