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-----
Come
> to think of it, I'm not sure of that one myself... Oh yes, and
During
> these attempts, your hair will catch fire, your skin will blacken, but

> Laserlight wrote:

> If you regard your citizens as expendable, you have a lot of options.

> Now let's take a militant government and send recruiters and Special

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

> Mike Wikan wrote:

..each holding a tacky little plastic "key to Paradise" made in North

The Iraqi's also dug in their zsu-23/4 to fire at ground level against
those Iranian mass assaults......

> Mike Wikan wrote:
But
> > they couldn't be as sure of this as we are. And they're certainly
Come
> > to think of it, I'm not sure of that one myself... Oh yes, and
During
> > these attempts, your hair will catch fire, your skin will blacken,