Re: [OT]Responsibility and the Merchants of Death

From: "Oerjan Ohlson" <oerjan.ohlson@telia.com>

> If someone buys a weapon and later on uses it in a war, is the weapon
> designer/manufacturer involved in the war too?

"Once the Rockets are up, who cares where they come down, that's not
my department" - said Wehner Von Braun

If they knew there was a reasonable chance the weapons were to be used
that way, then not just Yes but Hell Yes!

I refused to work on several projects at STN-Atlas simply because
of such ethical questions. I might add that the company had a deliberate
policy of not just allowing, but encouraging anyone not totally
comfortable
about working on a project to leave it, with not just no penalty but
with
praise. Being a German firm, they were very sensitive to the whole
issue.

You and I both have blood on our hands, Oerjan, because of who we work
for
or
have worked for. I take personal responsibility for every weapons system
I've helped design or make, no matter how small or large my part in it
may
have been.

I know of 2 Iraqi pilots whose deaths can be directly attributable to
air intercept code that I wrote - code that I designed quite
deliberately
and cold-bloodedly to have the maximum chance of success, even though
that
meant the targets' pilots had essentially zero chance of ejecting.
Am I comfortable with this? No. I would have preferred for them to have
baled out. But not at the price of increasing the risk to our side by
one scintilla. I take full responsibility for this decision, and would
do
the same again.

There is an obverse side to this too: there are many people here in
Australia
who can remember a certain Swedish firm refusing to supply us with ammo
for
our Karl Gustavs when we became involved in Vietnam. Every firm has not
just
the right, but the obligation to ensure its weapons aren't misused. So a
buyer should be careful to make sure he only buys from someone with the
same
beliefs - or from someone who's morally Bankrupt.