RE: Off-topic, and not sorry one iota

["Stephane Leon" <s.leon@xxxxxxx>]

Why people talkin about that here ?
There is many forums for that on the net.

--
Stephane


-----Message d'origine-----
De : midrange-l-bounces@midrange.com
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@midrange.com]De la part de Jeff Bull
Envoyé : vendredi, 7. février 2003 10:41
À : 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
Objet : RE: Off-topic, and not sorry one iota


I have been in the British military, and fought in a war ... though at heart
I am a pacifist,
and certainly not an appeaser.  Saddam needs dealing with in the same way
that Hitler
needed dealing with (for example).  Unfortunately, the historical reason he
needs dealing
with is often over-looked.  Remember appeasement ?

In the 1970's and 80's, Iran was the baddy, many 'civilised' first world
countries, the USA
and many in Europe, were have to encourage Iraq to war with Iran, the
profits from the
sales of military hardware to Iraq were icing on the cake; though in
reality, many of the
weapons were not paid for by Iraq, the debts being picked up by the US and
Britain.

We (in the west) have piled weapons into the Middle East, Central and South
America,
Africa, Asia - and all in the name of the furtherance of Democracy (and, I
suspect, a
healthy profit for our armaments industries).  Of course, at one point, the
bigger
bogey man was the Soviet Union / Russia; these areas of conflict were often
a proxy
war against them.

Until we get our polititians and fat-cat armaments industrialists under the
control of the
people, we will never have our true democracy or world peace.

An analogy: How can there be gun-less crime on the streets of our cities,
while the
availablility of hand-guns / rifles is so easy.  Surely the logical step is
to stop making
and selling them.

Now we have to deal with Saddam, and North Korea is making loud noises
believing
they will be the next world enemy no.1 .

I for one will vote for any politian who stands on the promise of working
towards the
dismantling of the international arms trade - a first step to peace.

I know that the planes that flew into the twin towers on 11/Sep were not
products of the
conventional arms industry, but it would be truly ironic if in the next such
terrorist attack on
the west utilised conventianal western munitions - a cruise missile into
another high-density
area of civilian population, or a patriot missile into a 747.  The phrase
"hung by our own
petard" comes to mind.  The British HMS Sheffield was sunk with a French
missile, fired
from a French aircraft, flow by an Argentinian.  There might be more British
sailors alive
today if our allies had not sold these weapons to Argentina.

Lets show a united front on tackling the evils in our world, Saddam for now,
and the arms
industry.  If we must fight each other, lets put our national leaders in the
arena against
each other to decide the outcome.

Jeffrey E. Bull


DISCLAIMER

Any opinions expressed in this email are those of the
individual and not necessarily the Company. This email
and any files transmitted with it, including replies and
forwarded copies (which may contain alterations)
subsequently transmitted from the Company, are
confidential and solely for the use of the intended recipient. If you are
not the intended recipient or the
person responsible for delivering to the intended recipient,
be advised that you have received this email in error and
 that any use is strictly prohibited.

If you have received this email in error please notify the IT
manager by telephone on +44 (0)870 871 2233 or via
email to Administrator@itm-group.co.uk, including a copy
of this message. Please then delete this email and
destroy any copies of it.

________________________________________________________________________This
e-mail has been scanned for all viruses by ITM. The
service is powered by MessageLabs. For more information on a proactive
anti-virus service working around the clock, around the globe,
email marketing@itm-group.co.uk
ITM - Managing Communication and Information through technology
Company registration number -
3783433_____________________________________________________________________
___
_______________________________________________
This is the Midrange Systems Technical Discussion (MIDRANGE-L) mailing list
To post a message email: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change list options,
visit: http://lists.midrange.com/mailman/listinfo/midrange-l
or email: MIDRANGE-L-request@midrange.com
Before posting, please take a moment to review the archives
at http://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l.