The Logic Off Topic list

----- Original Message -----
From: Dennis Gunn <dennisg@...>

.  "But there was
one big bombed out building in the middle of everything that the
reporter claimed was a Taliban building. "

it probably was, unfortunately, in all the major wars of the 20th century
(except maybe ww1) there have sadly  been massive civillian casualties,
whilst the west have been trying to get the bad guys. Why is this?, even now
in the era of "smart bombs".

Not because US/UK wants to kill innocents, far from it I'm sure, but I
believe its down to public opinion who won't allow governments to spend what
they actually need to do on modern defense systems.

I am, of course, talking about precision guided munitions. These are the
missiles that would have taken out the Taliban building and left the rest of
the village mostly intact.

There are statistics to back this up- in the war with Iraq, something like
only 5-10% of munitions used were of the precisiion guided (either laser or
GPS) variety, however, (approx) 70% of the targets accurately hit were hit
by these "smart" bombs.

Sadly, most of the tonnage of bombs in Iraq (and probably Afghanistan as
well) were conventional bombs dropped from great altitude (30,000 foot plus)
by a B52. So, we are seeing 1950's technology in action.

Smart precision missiles cost a lot more than simple gravity bombs dropped
from planes, so the US/UK simply does not have enough of them, due to
defense cuts, hence, the seemingly indiscriminate (actually innacurate)
results we are starting to see now.

Of course, no technology is infallible, and some smart bombs will inevitably
go wrong, but it seems to me the best way to go to achieve maximum millitary
aims with minimum (ideally no) civillian loss.

and anyway, when you are fighting terrorists, just who is the civillian, and
who is the terrorist?

peace to all

John