From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,dbd35bb508093bd9 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-12-18 11:03:24 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.newsreader.com!newsreader.com!newshosting.com!news-xfer1.atl.newshosting.com!uunet!dca.uu.net!ash.uu.net!spool0902.news.uu.net!not-for-mail Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 14:03:00 -0500 From: Hyman Rosen User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.3a) Gecko/20021212 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: OT Hatred (was Re: New Ada compiler for .NET) References: <3DEA5CC0.6B435E66@adaworks.com> <3df55f03_2@news.tm.net.my> <1039531607.289271@master.nyc.kbcfp.com> <3DF7362A.87F9FDA6@brighton.ac.uk> <1039618334.652640@master.nyc.kbcfp.com> <2ttK9.2461$X56.125646@newsfep1-gui.server.ntli.net > <3DFF20BD.A58113F5@brighton.ac.uk> <1040142718.867309@master.nyc.kbcfp.com> <3E00ACCE.9BF7AAC0@brighton.ac.uk> In-Reply-To: <3E00ACCE.9BF7AAC0@brighton.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Organization: KBC Financial Products Message-ID: <1040238180.939847@master.nyc.kbcfp.com> Cache-Post-Path: master.nyc.kbcfp.com!unknown@nightcrawler.nyc.kbcfp.com X-Cache: nntpcache 3.0.1 (see http://www.nntpcache.org/) NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.253.250.10 X-Trace: 1040238181 19256 204.253.250.10 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:32048 Date: 2002-12-18T14:03:00-05:00 List-Id: John English wrote: > Sorry, remind me which country the US has declared war against? No country. We are at war with the ideological fellow travelers of the people who attacked us on September 11, 2001. That means, among other things, carrying out targeted killings against enemy combatants in whatever country they happen to be, using our own definition of enemy combatant. (A working definition is "anyone that our government decides needs killing".) > I thought "war stuff" meant "Geneva Convention" stuff... Nope. It's whatever the strong want to do. Geneva conventions are for strong countries to use to badger weak ones into behaving the way they want. > The Nazis believed it could gas Jews -- and did so. It > doesn't make it right, as they found out at Nuremburg. As I said. War crime trials are imposed by victors upon the vanquished. If the Nazis had won, or there had been a negotiated peace instead of an outright victory, those trials would never have happened. > Signing a treaty is like signing a contract No. The difference between a treaty and a contract, at least for strong nations, is that there is no higher authority to whom to appeal in order to enforce the treaty. Therefore, if it is in a country's perceived best interests to stop participating in a treaty, it can do so. It simply accepts the consequences, which are presumably preferable to the consequences of upholding the treaty. > You may well disagree with it as a political system, but if > the citizens of another country vote for a different political > system from your own, that's surely up to them. See Nazis and Nurmeberg trials, above. There is no reason to permit someone to drill holes in their side of the lifeboat. > To believe that the US has an absolute right to veto the result > of elections held in foreign countries smacks of dictatorship > rather than democracy... Yes, that's pretty much why we don't care when the rest of the world complains about the actions of our elected president. > but I'm beginning to realise that you feel OK about that, as long > as you're on the side of the dictators rather than being one of the > dictatees I'm OK with that as long as we use our powers for good instead of for evil, for our own definitions of good and evil.