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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (44721)	9/17/2002 11:17:32 AM
From: jttmab	Respond to of 281500

Morning. You first brought up Sears. I figured you might be trying to shift topics to something less ... tense. If you want to talk about the ethics of Sears continuing to furnish Diehard batteries to torturers with the knowledge that the batteries will be used to torture people, fine. I agree with you that this would be unethical. Certainly by my standards it would be unethical. Not sure about the legal portion; I would like to think since torture is illegal in this country and they would be knowingly providing the means for the torture, there would at least be a co-conspirator case. Have you ever studied the history of the development of poison gas?... I've read some pieces hear and there in the area, though I wasn't aware of Clara...Interesting. I think the first use of biological warfare is credited to have begun in the 1300s, when they catapaulted plague infected bodies into the ol' castle walls. Given a very ugly choice of means to die in war: 1) step on a land mine, a leg and a half blown off and your face ripped with shrapnel 2) burn to death covered with napalm 3) Sarin 4) anthrax. I'd take Sarin or anthrax. If you happen to survive either of those, you'll probably have a better life than if you survive the first two. If you told me there was an Ebola weapon, I'd have to think harder. The way genetic engineering is progressing, I might speculate that creating a biological weapon from scratch will be the equivalent of a high school science fair project in about 10 years. I don't think I would engage in an "ethics" of war discussion without it being a face-to-face conversation and having several bottles of wine, along with some very nice cheeses and some crusty bread. jttmab