BL> Did Dubya and his bureaucrats give a moment's thought to the
BL> Iraqi people? They demonise their leaders, make "Iraq" the
BL> enemy, organise proper PR and get the Media onside, and to hell
BL> with the innocent "enemy."

BK> I've often wondered, if you compared the lives lost in the war
BK> to the number saved by the technical advances, how much the
BK> loss would be.

 It's an interesting anomaly that in SF, super-weapons always lead to
massive loss of life, but reality has been the reverse. To conquer
acountry of 16-million like Iraq and only kill 20,000 doing it is
remarkably efficient. If you take Germany's 50-million in WWII with a
loss of 7-million Germans, or Russia's 150-million that cost
20-miliion, or Vietnam's 7-million that cost *them* 2-million...

 On the other hand, those three were willing to fight to the last man
(and woman, for Russia and Vietnam). Was it the American clever-bombs,
or the fact that Iraq was a *really* easy target with damn-all air
defence, no air force, no WMDs, tanks that belonged in WWII, and an
disloyal Army? IMO, the *real* war in Iraq did not start until Dubya's
war ended, and that urban guerilla war has so far cost 10,000 of them
and 1,000 for you... no clever weaponry required, just bullets and
body bags.  

 I despair of Dubya's fight against "terror"... he's in the wrong
place, fighting the wrong people. When he sorted Afghanistan and took
Australia with him, I was all in favour. When he bluffed Pakistan onto
our side and neutralised Iran, I thought it was brilliant! But that's
where he went off the rails. Iraq? Is he kidding? Anyone with half a
brain (snigger) can see that the Saudis are the real problem in the
Middle East, with the Southern Philippines and Malaysia, in this
area... so he invades Iraq!  

 The Australaian Embassy was bombed in Jakarta (Indonmesia) on
Friday, a 200-kg suicide bomb that blew the hell out of the main
street and killed no Australians inside the protected embassy, but
manged to get 7 innocent Indonesians (plus the three dickheads in the
truck) and injured 270-odd. We're dealing with incompetents, not
master criminals. They're living in caves in Afghanistan and in
the jungles of the Philippines, being financed out of Saudi Arabia!
What the hell are we doing in Iraq?

 I saw your Mighty Leader on TV say that we are fighting for
Civilisation. Is he kidding? Does he really believe that a poor
asthmatic Arab dickhead in a cave, who got lucky in New York but
even then did no lasting harm, and a bunch of incompetent Malays
in the jungle are threatening the West? The *easy* target is the Royal
House of Saud. Forget about Saddam, who was mostly on our side
anyway... why not "democratise" Saudi Arabia, and take *their* oil
while you're at it? Cut off the money, and Osama will gasp himself
into oblivion (if he isn't dead already).

 we ought to take a leaf out of Israel's book. A few suicide bombers
is just the cost of doing business in the 21st Century... but it
*does* make a nice election campaign.

 We're in election mode here in Oz, too. We had the "big" debate last
week (it only rated second, most people watched Australian Idol
where poor hopeful little-talent kids are insulted by the judges), and
the audiience was attached to a button where they coudl show instant
approval or disapproval of what the politicians were saying... the
"worm" appears on the screen. As soon as out Mighty Leader started
rabitting on about terror and the fall fo ciivilisation, the worm took
a dive. No one believed him,, and to add insult to injury, the ratings
in that 15-minute sector also took a dive.    

BK> OTOH, in war more of the casualties are from plague and
BK> starvation than the actual combat, usually.

 Not for along time... maybe WWI was the last of those, and not even
much of that. The Art of War and weaponry has run in phases. With
sieges, and in the era of Genghis Khan when killing was man on man
with sticks and long knives, civilian populations suffered greatly.
Then there was the machine-gun period when civilians were left right
out of it, until WWII and aerial bombing revived the trusted method of
killing women and children first. Then Mao perfected guerilla warfare
as a counter to bombers, and that still works. Since then, the US
invented clever-bombs for destroying organised defences by knocking
out the infrastructure first... and fanatical suicide bombers were
invented as the response to that.

 So far as I know, Iraq is the first to try urban guerilla warfare.
It seems to work pretty well. They kill a few, the Americans respond
and kill a lot, including women children (the old standby), and the
general population hates American even more. Ho Chi Minh would be
pleased.  

 What goes around comes around...

BL> I've always had a soft spot for those little round bombs with a
BL> wick.

BK> Ah, what a tempting thought.

 Fanatical Islam and nutters have taken all the fun out of bombs.
      
BL> mostly meaningless prose but hey... text books are like that.

BK> I once had a philosophy text like that. It had a summary of
BK> every idea, and the text which was totally impenetrable. I had
BK> major problems until I realized everything you needed to know
BK> was covered in the summary, the text probably was just inserted
BK> to pad it out to a book, so the author could actually sell it.

 ROFL! Maybe all philosophy books are writen that way. My one had
example discussions up the back, and they made it perfectly clear what
the impenetrable crap up the front meant. What a waste of time it was!
My favourite time-waster at Uni was steam engines - in an electronics
course! I never did find a use for it...

Regards,
Bob
 

--- BQWK Alpha 0.5