RE: Martyrs and Atrocities

Hell, during the Iran-Iraq war the Iranians rolled bands of children
through
the mindfields ahead of their tanks to search for mines (Read that in a
JANE's journal!) 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alan E and Carmel J Brain [SMTP:aebrain@dynamite.com.au]
> Sent: Tuesday, December 21, 1999 6:29 PM
> To:	gzg-l@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
> Subject:	Re:Martyrs and Atrocities
> 
> Laserlight wrote:
> 
> > If you regard your citizens as expendable, you have a lot of
options.
> > I understand Syria is teaching its kids, in school, that being a
> > martyr is a great thing and walking into an Israeli building or
street
> > with a dynamite vest counts for making you a martyr.  Okay,
> > maybe--maybe!--a lot of the young impressionable kids who hear this
> > from authority figures on a regular basis still won't go along with
> > it, but what if one tenth of one percent of one year's worth of
> > schoolchildren believe and are willing to act on it?  Okay, now to
be
> > a little more organized, say you ask for volunteers to be carry a
> > biowar package into Washington, or a suitcase nuke into Norfolk?
> > Think you might find one? 
> 
> > Now let's take a militant government and send recruiters and Special
> > Forces troopers and Republican Guards and so forth, visiting every
> > grade in every school once a month.  Instead of football and
> > basketball, promote ROTC as fervently.  Think you'd  get enough
> > volunteers?
> > 
> > (Not that the Islamic Federation would do _any_ of this.  Really).
> 
> This is extrememly plausible. In fact, it's a wonder that it hasn't
> happened yet.
> 
> (The last time I used the above statement was to an DIA friend of mine
> just before the Aum cult used GB in Tokyo, when we were discussing
> extremist biowar attacks on the COMPUSERVE military forum.)
> 
> What's the defence? Pretty much what we're doing now. Some checks at
> borders to prevent it being a "no-brainer", and the implied threat
that
> if it happens, to paraphrase Admiral Halsey, "Arabic will be a
language
> spoken only in Hell."
> 
> To people who value their children's lives so lightly, such a threat
is
> much more plausible than to us. We PROBABLY wouldn't launch a war of
> extermination using Nukes in profusion on civilian targets (only). But
> they couldn't be as sure of this as we are. And they're certainly not
> sure that the Ol Debbil CIA won't go putting multi-billion-dollar
prices
> on the heads (just the heads...) of the people who gave the orders.
Come
> to think of it, I'm not sure of that one myself... Oh yes, and
execution
> via the electric chair is looked upon by many outside the US as being
> "Death by Torture", comparable with burning at the stake.
> 
> "Let's see... if you order this, your family will be raped and killed
by
> hired gunmen, and you yourself will be fried slowly on an electric
> chair, probably after several failed attempts to stop your heart.
During
> these attempts, your hair will catch fire, your skin will blacken, but
> you won't be dead. And there's a possibility that everyone you've ever
> known will be instantly burnt to charcoal beforehand. Have a nice
day."
> 
> The big problem is finding out who's responsible. But as the USA has
> shown, it really doesn't care too much. So X plants a bomb in a US
> target, and Y gets the retaliation (or vice versa). Even when this is
> found out, the US public doesn't care as it's last month's news, and
the
> rest of the world just wonders why the US doesn't bomb the bejasus out
> of all of them on principle. Such a cavalier attitude is a great
> deterrent - even your friends won't give you support as they might get
> nuked in the backlash.
> 
> (For those who might be offended by the above statement about US
> attention-span, let me first apologise, then ask how many bombs hit
Iraq
> yesterday, and how many the day before that? Because this isn't News
any
> more, it's just information. BTW I have no idea myself, either.)  
> -- 
>		http://www2.dynamite.com.au/aebrain 
> aebrain@dynamite.com.au     <> <>    How doth the little Crocodile
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