Morality of war (was Re: [Humor] Defenders of the US)
Ruediger LANDMANN
: Bah. In order for such reasoning to work, one must assume things that
: were not shown on screen... one must assume that, basically, the
: scriptwriters were lying. Occam's Razor suggests that you take it as it
: was shown, as they never even hinted at GO24 being anything but the real
: deal.
Indeed, and I remarked on the unlikelihood of it being a bluff in part of
my post that you snipped.
The problem is reconciling this part of the story with everything else we
know about Kirk, his officers, and the Federation, none of which points to
them being the sort of genocidal maniacs that this part of this episode
seems to suggest at face value. While we might debate the morality of
having such a General Order on the books at all, or under what
circumstances it might be appropriate to use it, can there be any
justification for using it under *these* circumstances? I mean all the
government of this planet has done is take a landing party into custody -
the Enterprise is (demonstrably) free to go at any point.
This kind of behaviour is more what we'd expect from villains in the show
- we could easily imagine a Klingon captain ordering it (Kor does
something similar in Errand of Mercy, and Kruge does too, on a far far far
smaller scale!)
Any reconciliation of this problem necessitates assuming that what we saw
on-screen was not the whole picture.
Of course, we *know* that 60s TV didn't work that way, and that the
writer's intentions are what we saw, prima facie, on screen. But then, we
also know that warp drive and phasers aren't real either.... don't we? ;)
Scott Lowther
> The problem is reconciling this part of the story with everything else we
> know about Kirk, his officers, and the Federation, none of which points to
> them being the sort of genocidal maniacs that this part of this episode
> seems to suggest at face value.
Oh, please. One does not need to be a "genocidal maniac" to call for
massive retaliation.
While we might debate the morality of
> having such a General Order on the books at all, or under what
> circumstances it might be appropriate to use it, can there be any
> justification for using it under *these* circumstances?
Yes.
"Don't fuck with the Federation."
It's all nice and wonderful to be seen as the Good Guys. But as both
Star trek AND the real world show, if you project the image of "nice"
too much, to soem types that's the equivalent of projecting the image of
"weak, decadent and easy meat."
Listen to the lyrics of "Star Trekkin'." There's a reason why they have
Kirk singing, "We come in peace, shoot to kill."
--
Scott Lowther, Engineer
"Any statement by Edward Wright that starts with 'You seem to think
that...' is wrong. Always. It's a law of Usenet, like Godwin's."
- Jorge R. Frank, 11 Nov 2002
ToolPackinMama
>
> Ruediger LANDMANN wrote:
>
> > The problem is reconciling this part of the story with everything else we
> > know about Kirk, his officers, and the Federation, none of which points to
> > them being the sort of genocidal maniacs that this part of this episode
> > seems to suggest at face value.
>
> Oh, please. One does not need to be a "genocidal maniac" to call for
> massive retaliation.
True!
>
> While we might debate the morality of
> > having such a General Order on the books at all, or under what
> > circumstances it might be appropriate to use it, can there be any
> > justification for using it under *these* circumstances?
>
> Yes.
>
> "Don't fuck with the Federation."
True! :)
Ruediger LANDMANN
:> The problem is reconciling this part of the story with everything else we
:> know about Kirk, his officers, and the Federation, none of which points to
:> them being the sort of genocidal maniacs that this part of this episode
:> seems to suggest at face value.
: Oh, please. One does not need to be a "genocidal maniac" to call for
: massive retaliation.
Sure, but when that retaliation is out of all proportion to the supposed
"offence" and when it would involve the wholesale slaughter of millions or
billions of innocent lives, if not the utter extermination of an entire
intelligent species, then I think the term fits.
: While we might debate the morality of
:> having such a General Order on the books at all, or under what
:> circumstances it might be appropriate to use it, can there be any
:> justification for using it under *these* circumstances?
: Yes.
: "Don't fuck with the Federation."
Nothing shown in the episode shows the Eminiens being even capable of
doing anything of the sort. The kidnap of a landing party seems to have
been the limit of their capabilities. The technological gulf between them
and the Federation means that there were any number of other solutions
that should have been available - even violent ones - that would not
involve massacres.
: It's all nice and wonderful to be seen as the Good Guys. But as both
: Star trek AND the real world show, if you project the image of "nice"
: too much, to soem types that's the equivalent of projecting the image of
: "weak, decadent and easy meat."
Which is why, of course, Federation starships are so heavily armed. But
there's a big difference between turning those weapons on an enemy warship
or military asset, and using them to slaughter civilians whose only
"crime" is to be in the wrong place at the wrong time under the wrong
government.
: Listen to the lyrics of "Star Trekkin'." There's a reason why they have
: Kirk singing, "We come in peace, shoot to kill."
But like many other literary myths, he doesn't really behave like this on
the show. What other examples of this sort of "gunboat diplomacy" are
there?
ToolPackinMama
>
> In rec.arts.startrek.tech Scott Lowther <lex...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> :> The problem is reconciling this part of the story with everything else we
> :> know about Kirk, his officers, and the Federation, none of which points to
> :> them being the sort of genocidal maniacs that this part of this episode
> :> seems to suggest at face value.
>
> : Oh, please. One does not need to be a "genocidal maniac" to call for
> : massive retaliation.
>
> Sure, but when that retaliation is out of all proportion to the supposed
> "offence" and when it would involve the wholesale slaughter of millions or
> billions of innocent lives, if not the utter extermination of an entire
> intelligent species, then I think the term fits.
I feel constrained to point out that the threat never actually was
carried out. For all we know the order is really intended to be a big
bluff.
Scott Lowther
>
> In rec.arts.startrek.tech Scott Lowther <lex...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> :> The problem is reconciling this part of the story with everything else we
> :> know about Kirk, his officers, and the Federation, none of which points to
> :> them being the sort of genocidal maniacs that this part of this episode
> :> seems to suggest at face value.
>
> : Oh, please. One does not need to be a "genocidal maniac" to call for
> : massive retaliation.
>
> Sure, but when that retaliation is out of all proportion to the supposed
> "offence" and when it would involve the wholesale slaughter of millions or
> billions of innocent lives,
And that woudl be different from what they were doing already, how? They
were happily marchign into the suicide booths for their tidy little war;
Kirk was jsut ready to point out how nasty real war can be.
Consequently, what Kirk would do(through Scotty) would not kill any
excess peopel... it'd just trash the landscape.
> : While we might debate the morality of
> :> having such a General Order on the books at all, or under what
> :> circumstances it might be appropriate to use it, can there be any
> :> justification for using it under *these* circumstances?
>
> : Yes.
> : "Don't fuck with the Federation."
>
> Nothing shown in the episode shows the Eminiens being even capable of
> doing anything of the sort. The kidnap of a landing party seems to have
> been the limit of their capabilities.
WARNING: The following tale may well be apocryphal. YMMV.
I understand that during the era of lebanese hostage taking, the
Palestinian terrorist types started kidnapping many "westerners" apart
from just Americans. At one point the mistake was made to kidnap a
member of the Soviet embassy in Beirut. The Soviet response was to send
in KGB and/or Spetznaz... not to find the hostages, but the families of
the kidnappers. When the Soviets started delivering pieces of favorite
relatives to the hezbollah (or whoever it was), they decided not to
irritate the Soviets. Hostage released, no more taken.
Again, this may not have happened. But... it has the ring of truth. It's
the sort of thing that everybody involved would do.
MAssive over-reaction is in the eye of the beholders, and the
effectiveness of such is highly dependant upon the players.
The technological gulf between them
> and the Federation means that there were any number of other solutions
> that should have been available - even violent ones - that would not
> involve massacres.
The locals were already being massacred in their millions.
> Which is why, of course, Federation starships are so heavily armed. But
> there's a big difference between turning those weapons on an enemy warship
> or military asset, and using them to slaughter civilians whose only
> "crime" is to be in the wrong place at the wrong time under the wrong
> government.
Yes, there is. But there's a big difference between seeing orbital
bombardment as an evil, and seeing as a necessary evil.
> : Listen to the lyrics of "Star Trekkin'." There's a reason why they have
> : Kirk singing, "We come in peace, shoot to kill."
>
> But like many other literary myths, he doesn't really behave like this on
> the show. What other examples of this sort of "gunboat diplomacy" are
> there?
Off the top of my head, little comes to mind except the image of Kirk
standing on a new alien world... phaser in hand.
Cory C. Albrecht
>Ruediger LANDMANN wrote:
>Listen to the lyrics of "Star Trekkin'." There's a reason why they have
>Kirk singing, "We come in peace, shoot to kill."
So that the United Federation of Planets can be seen as being
hypocritical about being the pillar of democracy and morality in the
Trek universe just like same criticisms directed at he USA in this
universe?
How's that for a reason? :-)
--
Cory C. Albrecht
Scott Lowther
>
> In article <3E1644...@ix.netcom.com>, lex...@ix.netcom.com wrote:
> >Ruediger LANDMANN wrote:
>
> >Listen to the lyrics of "Star Trekkin'." There's a reason why they have
> >Kirk singing, "We come in peace, shoot to kill."
>
> So that the United Federation of Planets can be seen as being
> hypocritical about being the pillar of democracy and morality in the
> Trek universe just like same criticisms directed at he USA in this
> universe?
And just as with the USA, those ciriticisms are usually laid by their
enemies.
CaptJosh
news:3E164EFE...@lauragoodwin.org...
Knowing from the series what I do of Captain Kirk, I think he was bluffing
and that the writers expected you to know it by now because the bluff was a
standard tool in Kirk's arsenal.
CaptJosh
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ToolPackinMama
>
> "ToolPackinMama" <la...@lauragoodwin.org> wrote
> > I feel constrained to point out that the threat never actually was
> > carried out. For all we know the order is really intended to be a big
> > bluff.
>
> Knowing from the series what I do of Captain Kirk, I think he was bluffing
> and that the writers expected you to know it by now because the bluff was a
> standard tool in Kirk's arsenal.
Not just Kirk. Even when Spock said: "Vulcans never bluff", he was
bluffing.
MistWing SilverTail
>> "offence" and when it would involve the wholesale slaughter of millions
or
>> billions of innocent lives,
>
> And that woudl be different from what they were doing already, how? They
> were happily marchign into the suicide booths for their tidy little war;
> Kirk was jsut ready to point out how nasty real war can be.
> Consequently, what Kirk would do(through Scotty) would not kill any
> excess peopel... it'd just trash the landscape.
Which, of course, is none of Kirk's business. If a people want to have a
nice neat war, who are they (the Federation) to say they can't have it. As
Kirk said at the beginning "It's their planet".
Granted, the Eminians (and the Vindicarians?) should have just told Kirk and
company to leave once the Enterprise got 'hit'.
NON-CANON: One comic showed the aftermath of this interferrence. Vidicar
launched real weapons and Eminiar retaliated. Fox's diplomacy failed
utterly.
--
MistWing SilverTail
Dragon Code
DC2.Dw Gf L6m3t5w W- T Phfwlt Sks,wl Cau+,bau,bl' Bfl/pl/zz A- Fr+++ Nn
M O/ H--- $ Fo R- Ac+ J+ S+ U! I--# V+++![Power] V---[Control] V++[Food
Fight Magic ++] Q+++[tk] Tc+++[sw] Tc+[other]
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FMSmpsw3r A-- C- D H+ M- P R+ T+++ W- Z+ S- RLCT ca++$ d-- e+ f- h- i+
j+ p-- sx--
MistWing SilverTail
>>>Kirk singing, "We come in peace, shoot to kill."
>>
>> So that the United Federation of Planets can be seen as being
>> hypocritical about being the pillar of democracy and morality in the
>> Trek universe just like same criticisms directed at he USA in this
>> universe?
Yep.
> And just as with the USA, those ciriticisms are usually laid by their
> enemies.
This is just like the TOS Federation commenting negatively about the
Klingons or Romulans.
Ruediger LANDMANN
: Knowing from the series what I do of Captain Kirk, I think he was bluffing
: and that the writers expected you to know it by now because the bluff was a
: standard tool in Kirk's arsenal.
I have to agree with Scott here and say that that's pretty unlikely
given the highly episodic nature of 60s TV in general and TOS in
particular. Nowhere in TOS is knowledge of what's gone before in the show
assumed. If it was intended to be written as a bluff, then I feel
confident that this would have been spelled out for us in dialogue.
In any case - how many times had Kirk bluffed his way out of a sticky
situation by this time? "The Corbomite Maneuver" is the only instance I
can think of.
Ruediger LANDMANN
:> Sure, but when that retaliation is out of all proportion to the supposed
:> "offence" and when it would involve the wholesale slaughter of millions or
:> billions of innocent lives,
: And that woudl be different from what they were doing already, how? They
: were happily marchign into the suicide booths for their tidy little war;
: Kirk was jsut ready to point out how nasty real war can be.
: Consequently, what Kirk would do(through Scotty) would not kill any
: excess peopel... it'd just trash the landscape.
Huh? There was no indication that these people were dying out faster than
they were reproducing, or how likely it would be that the life of any
individual Eminien would be ended by the war. Anan 7 says that they have
been at war for over 500 years, and that they lose between 1-3 million
citizens per year. He also says "Our civilization lives. The people die,
but our culture goes on," which is quite a different proposition from what
eradicating all life from the planet from orbit would represent.
: WARNING: The following tale may well be apocryphal. YMMV.
: I understand that during the era of lebanese hostage taking, the
: Palestinian terrorist types started kidnapping many "westerners" apart
: from just Americans. At one point the mistake was made to kidnap a
: member of the Soviet embassy in Beirut. The Soviet response was to send
: in KGB and/or Spetznaz... not to find the hostages, but the families of
: the kidnappers. When the Soviets started delivering pieces of favorite
: relatives to the hezbollah (or whoever it was), they decided not to
: irritate the Soviets. Hostage released, no more taken.
: Again, this may not have happened. But... it has the ring of truth. It's
: the sort of thing that everybody involved would do.
: MAssive over-reaction is in the eye of the beholders, and the
: effectiveness of such is highly dependant upon the players.
OK, so which particular group of barbarians are you putting forward as the
good guys in this sordid tale? Do you find the actions of either side
morally justified?
: The technological gulf between them
:> and the Federation means that there were any number of other solutions
:> that should have been available - even violent ones - that would not
:> involve massacres.
: The locals were already being massacred in their millions.
Indeed - but not by the Federation. In the story you recounted above,
would it have been an acceptable solution for the Soviets to have just
nuked Lebanon and killed every last man, woman, and child in the country,
regardless of *which* faction they (nominally) belonged to? I mean,
lots of people were getting killed there too...
:> Which is why, of course, Federation starships are so heavily armed. But
:> there's a big difference between turning those weapons on an enemy warship
:> or military asset, and using them to slaughter civilians whose only
:> "crime" is to be in the wrong place at the wrong time under the wrong
:> government.
: Yes, there is. But there's a big difference between seeing orbital
: bombardment as an evil, and seeing as a necessary evil.
Even if we accept that there is, I still think it's a pretty big stretch
to say that such a step was in any way "necessary" in the situation at
hand.
:> : Listen to the lyrics of "Star Trekkin'." There's a reason why they have
:> : Kirk singing, "We come in peace, shoot to kill."
:>
:> But like many other literary myths, he doesn't really behave like this on
:> the show. What other examples of this sort of "gunboat diplomacy" are
:> there?
: Off the top of my head, little comes to mind except the image of Kirk
: standing on a new alien world... phaser in hand.
Which is a pretty far cry from "Shoot to kill".
A recent trivia topic on alt.tv.star-trek.tos pointed out that during the
whole series, Kirk had only killed with his phaser twice during the entire
series - and one of those was clearly an accidental death (In "Miri" - the
other killing was a Mugato in "A Private Little War".) I personally wonder
whether this is *quite* exhaustive - ISTR him phasering a neural parasite
or two in "Operation: Annihilate". It also leaves out other killings, such
as Gary Mitchell, but the point is that really, Kirk killing *anyone* was
a pretty rare occurrence. He generally seemed to prefer knocking them out
with his own "unique" martial arts style.
CaptJosh
news:av8ift$5dv$1...@bunyip.cc.uq.edu.au...
I mentioned another instance earlier in the thread.
The episode was "The Deadly Years". Kirk, Spock, and McCoy start aging at an
accelerated rate because of radiation exposure on Gamma Hydra IV.
One Commodore Stocker, a passenger being ferried to his command of a
starbase, takes command and orders the ship through the Neutral Zone on a
straight line course to the starbase in question.
While this is happening, an antidote to the radiation poisoning is found and
McCoy gives it to Kirk, who gets up to the bridge to take command, with the
Enterprise already surrounded by warbirds. He orders Uhura to send a message
using code 2, knowing that the Romulans have broken it. The message states
that he, being surrounded, is going to initiate self-destruct using the new
(wait for it) corbomite device, which will destroy everything within X
distance.
The message is broadcast, and the Romulans immedately pull away, giving Kirk
an opening to warp the ship out.
CaptJosh
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CaptJosh
> A recent trivia topic on alt.tv.star-trek.tos pointed out that during the
> whole series, Kirk had only killed with his phaser twice during the entire
> series - and one of those was clearly an accidental death (In "Miri" - the
> other killing was a Mugato in "A Private Little War".) I personally wonder
> whether this is *quite* exhaustive - ISTR him phasering a neural parasite
> or two in "Operation: Annihilate". It also leaves out other killings, such
> as Gary Mitchell, but the point is that really, Kirk killing *anyone* was
> a pretty rare occurrence. He generally seemed to prefer knocking them out
> with his own "unique" martial arts style.
Martial arts? You mean barroom brawling, don't you?
CaptJosh
"CaptJosh" <capt...@phantos.subspacelink.com> wrote in message
news:av8vch$d0997$1...@ID-107133.news.dfncis.de...
didn't have the right tools for the job. Star Trek III, for example. He
tricked the Klingons into boarding his ship just before it blew up.
Ruediger LANDMANN
: I mentioned another instance earlier in the thread.
: The episode was "The Deadly Years". Kirk, Spock, and McCoy start aging at an
Yes, but this was in Season 2 - "A Taste of Armageddon" was late in Season
1. There's no way that the writers could have been relying on the audience
"knowing" that this was a bluff by Kirk (even if this *had* been their
intention, which I'm sure it wasn't).
So by the time "Taste" went to air, the only place the audience could have
seen Kirk bluff before was in "The Corbomite Maneuver", which was my
point.
(unless anyone can think of another example)
Scott Lowther
> they were reproducing, or how likely it would be that the life of any
> individual Eminien would be ended by the war. Anan 7 says that they have
> been at war for over 500 years, and that they lose between 1-3 million
> citizens per year. He also says "Our civilization lives. The people die,
> but our culture goes on," which is quite a different proposition from what
> eradicating all life from the planet from orbit would represent.
As it's been 10+ years since I've seen the episode, my memory is
fuzzy... but I don;t recall mention of destroyign ALL life on the
planent. Just flattening a continent or so...
>
> : WARNING: The following tale may well be apocryphal. YMMV.
> : I understand that during the era of lebanese hostage taking, the
> : Palestinian terrorist types started kidnapping many "westerners" apart
> : from just Americans. At one point the mistake was made to kidnap a
> : member of the Soviet embassy in Beirut. The Soviet response was to send
> : in KGB and/or Spetznaz... not to find the hostages, but the families of
> : the kidnappers. When the Soviets started delivering pieces of favorite
> : relatives to the hezbollah (or whoever it was), they decided not to
> : irritate the Soviets. Hostage released, no more taken.
>
> : Again, this may not have happened. But... it has the ring of truth. It's
> : the sort of thing that everybody involved would do.
>
> : MAssive over-reaction is in the eye of the beholders, and the
> : effectiveness of such is highly dependant upon the players.
>
> OK, so which particular group of barbarians are you putting forward as the
> good guys in this sordid tale? Do you find the actions of either side
> morally justified?
Whether true or not, clearly the Soviets ahd the right idea. They ended
the situation switfty with minimum loss of life, AND using means that
assured that the likelihood of the situation occuring again was nil.
Past all the bullcrap moralizing... THAT is what matters.
Back to my original point... if, after Sept. 11, the US had responded
the way *I* wanted us to, the world would be a very different place.
There would be changed landscapes in Afghanistan... mountains would be
knocked down. Al Queda would be vapor. The world would be so
sufficiently terrified of the wrath of the Americans that even the
freakin FRENCH would get off their butts and do something about the
situation of growing anti-western Islamists, just to make sure that they
didn't become targets. Five millenia from now, after world civilization
collapses, rises again, collapses again and rises again, people would
still tell the tales of how some evil people did something terribly
wrong, and as a result the gods came from the heavens and smote them.
Instead, we've gone the "friendly idiot" route. Trying to build
coalitions amongst people who really don't care, and as a result, the
enemy slips away and continues to grow.
What the hell is the point of being a superpower if you're so restrained
that you can't actually use your power? Bah. Western civ is doomed.
> : The locals were already being massacred in their millions.
>
> Indeed - but not by the Federation. In the story you recounted above,
> would it have been an acceptable solution for the Soviets to have just
> nuked Lebanon and killed every last man, woman, and child in the country,
> regardless of *which* faction they (nominally) belonged to?
No. For that to be acceptable, there woudl ahve had to ahve been
somethign far worse than a single embassy staffer kidnapped: say, an
attack on Soviet soil itself, killing hundreds or thousands of Soviet
citizens; carried out by a group of Lebanese zealots, with the full
intention of doing it again and again until the Soviet Union surrendered
to Lebanon and converted its citizenry to Lebanese ways. Having Lebanese
dancing and partying in the streets after the attack would have
contributed to the Sovs nukign them.
> A recent trivia topic on alt.tv.star-trek.tos pointed out that during the
> whole series, Kirk had only killed with his phaser twice during the entire
> series - and one of those was clearly an accidental death (In "Miri" - the
> other killing was a Mugato in "A Private Little War".) I personally wonder
> whether this is *quite* exhaustive - ISTR him phasering a neural parasite
> or two in "Operation: Annihilate". It also leaves out other killings, such
> as Gary Mitchell, but the point is that really, Kirk killing *anyone* was
> a pretty rare occurrence.
So? Many soldiers in war kill few people. Yet... there the guy is,
weapon in hand. He's trained, he's equipped, he's pissed, he's killed
before. Don't fuck with him.
Kirk killed MANY times by using the Enterprise weaponry. I remember more
than one enemy ship blown into clouds of technicolor vapor. And I don't
recall Kirk ever agonizing over any of them. Some people just need
killin'.
GeneK
> Kirk killed MANY times by using the Enterprise weaponry. I remember more
> than one enemy ship blown into clouds of technicolor vapor. And I don't
> recall Kirk ever agonizing over any of them. Some people just need
> killin'.
Your memory is somewhat faulty. Kirk destroyed a total of *one* enemy
ship during the entire run of TOS (the Klingon scout that attacked the
Enterprise at the beginning of "Errand of Mercy"), and *one* enemy ship
during the TOS movies (Chang's BoP in STVI). He also destroyed a
Klingon cruiser in "Day of the Dove," but not in battle, it was disabled by
an alien entity and its crew evacuated to the Enterprise before it was
destroyed to prevent it from causing even more destruction by blowing
up on its own. All other enemy ships destroyed as a result of combat with
the Enterprise were merely disabled, and were destroyed by their own
crews to avoid capture. In no case has Kirk ever retaliated for an attack,
he merely defended, on the scene, against the individual attackers. Kirk's
and Starfleet's response to attack is actually a sterling example of the
"restrained" response that you are criticising, you have to look to the Mirror
Universe Kirk or the Klingons, Romulans or Dominion for the kind of
"superpower" response you are advocating.
GeneK
ToolPackinMama
>
> "Ruediger LANDMANN" <zzrl...@fox.uq.net.au> wrote
> > In any case - how many times had Kirk bluffed his way out of a sticky
> > situation by this time? "The Corbomite Maneuver" is the only instance I
> > can think of.
>
> I mentioned another instance earlier in the thread.
>
> The episode was "The Deadly Years".
Yes, and there was no way Kirk could have actually used Corbomite,
because it didn't actually exist.
Kirk frequently shows extraordinary mercy to his enemies, too. He could
have killed the Gorn, but opted not to. In Elaan of Troyius, they
crippled the Klingon ship enough to cause them to halt their attack, and
the fight was over, as far as Kirk was concerned. He didn't even radio
the Klingons one more time to gloat.
ToolPackinMama
> Further note on this: Kirk was fond of subterfuge on the whole when he
> didn't have the right tools for the job. Star Trek III, for example. He
> tricked the Klingons into boarding his ship just before it blew up.
True, but he wasn't really committed to killing them all. He refused to
execute his Klingon prisoner.
--
"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!"
Laura Goodwin
GeneK
"CaptJosh" <capt...@phantos.subspacelink.com> wrote in message
news:av8vch$d0997$1...@ID-107133.news.dfncis.de...
> news:av8ift$5dv$1...@bunyip.cc.uq.edu.au...
> > In any case - how many times had Kirk bluffed his way out of a sticky
> > situation by this time? "The Corbomite Maneuver" is the only instance I
> > can think of.
>
> I mentioned another instance earlier in the thread.
>
> The episode was "The Deadly Years". Kirk, Spock, and McCoy start aging at an
> accelerated rate because of radiation exposure on Gamma Hydra IV.
"The Deadly Years" is *after* "A Taste of Armageddon."
GeneK
ToolPackinMama
> Yes, but this was in Season 2 - "A Taste of Armageddon" was late in Season
> 1. There's no way that the writers could have been relying on the audience
> "knowing" that this was a bluff by Kirk (even if this *had* been their
> intention, which I'm sure it wasn't).
>
> So by the time "Taste" went to air, the only place the audience could have
> seen Kirk bluff before was in "The Corbomite Maneuver", which was my
> point.
>
> (unless anyone can think of another example)
Well, we certainly saw that Kirk was an unusually deliberate and
forgiving fellow before then. He took his sweet time arriving at a
decision about Kodos in Conscience Of The King, And he was
extraordinarily forgiving of Spock's excesses in Menagerie. He showed
fierce reluctance to abandon his people in Galileo Seven. Then there
was Arena, where Kirk showed both extraordinary resourcefulness, and
extraordinary mercy to his non-human foe. We had been given plenty for
reason to believe that Kirk was respectful of all sentient lifeforms -
not the type who actually would casually kill off a whole planet full of
misguided human beings.
ToolPackinMama
> As it's been 10+ years since I've seen the episode, my memory is
> fuzzy... but I don;t recall mention of destroyign ALL life on the
> planent. Just flattening a continent or so...
They targeted the cities. They weren't going to flatten any continents.
ToolPackinMama
> ... Kirk's
> and Starfleet's response to attack is actually a sterling example of the
> "restrained" response that you are criticising, you have to look to the Mirror
> Universe Kirk or the Klingons, Romulans or Dominion for the kind of
> "superpower" response you are advocating.
He's right, you know.
ToolPackinMama
>
> In rec.arts.startrek.tech CaptJosh <capt...@phantos.subspacelink.com> wrote:
>
> : Knowing from the series what I do of Captain Kirk, I think he was bluffing
> : and that the writers expected you to know it by now because the bluff was a
> : standard tool in Kirk's arsenal.
I agree with Josh.
> I have to agree with Scott here and say that that's pretty unlikely
> given the highly episodic nature of 60s TV in general and TOS in
> particular. Nowhere in TOS is knowledge of what's gone before in the show
> assumed.
Excuse me, that is incorrect. The only reason they kept reminding
people that Spock was half-human or whatever is for the sake of people
who were tuning in late. They did not repeat every salient fact about
everybody from week to week. TOS was episodic, but it was a serial. It
was one story being told in one hour segments. Kirk was not a different
guy from week to week, he was the same character throughout the series.
ToolPackinMama
> A recent trivia topic on alt.tv.star-trek.tos pointed out that during the
> whole series, Kirk had only killed with his phaser twice during the entire
> series - and one of those was clearly an accidental death (In "Miri" - the
> other killing was a Mugato in "A Private Little War".) I personally wonder
> whether this is *quite* exhaustive - ISTR him phasering a neural parasite
> or two in "Operation: Annihilate".
They killed the entire population of parasites, but that was to save a
planet full of people from a horrible fate.
> It also leaves out other killings, such
> as Gary Mitchell
That was a bit abberant, but technically I think that one in the end was
self-defense.
GeneK
The line goes something like "all cities and installations." You have to
wonder, even if GO24 is for real, how long would it take for the
Enterprise to destroy "the entire inhabited surface" of Eminiar, and
where would they have begun? Based on the personalities of all the
persons involved, my guess is that they would have started with various
automated production installations, like powerplants and industrial
facilities, before moving on to population centers. Executing GO24
"in two hours" would have to refer to *starting* the destruction at that
time, even in the TNG era one starship can't lay waste to an entire
planet in an instant. So Kirk might have been assuming that the
Eminians, who are rather stoic about walking into disintegrators but
hadn't experienced "an actual attack" in generations, would have
folded when the lights started going out and they saw their means
of producing food for their population going up in flames.
And with regard to the "morality" of such a tactic, remember, this is
TOS; (a) the Prime Directive doesn't apply to a planet that's on a
technological par with the Federation, and (b) any diplomatic
responsibilities Kirk might have had for observing neutrality in the
situation had already been trashed by the Ambassador.
GeneK
ToolPackinMama
> The line goes something like "all cities and installations." You have to
> wonder, even if GO24 is for real, how long would it take for the
> Enterprise to destroy "the entire inhabited surface" of Eminiar, and
> where would they have begun? Based on the personalities of all the
> persons involved, my guess is that they would have started with various
> automated production installations, like powerplants and industrial
> facilities, before moving on to population centers. Executing GO24
> "in two hours" would have to refer to *starting* the destruction at that
> time, even in the TNG era one starship can't lay waste to an entire
> planet in an instant.
True, besides, to stop all hostile action temporarily all they really
have to do is stun everybody. They can stun groups of people from outer
orbit. Kirk wouldn't use maximum force before trying minimum force.
In Taste of Armageddon, those dopes committed an act of war on the
Enterprise, and in effect declared war on an agent of the UFP, without
provocation. That was stupid. Kirk no doubt had orders to deal swiftly
and in a strict no-nonsense manner with people who made war on
representatives of the UFP, not just member planets, but the Starships
of the fleet. Kirk's response was on behalf of the entire UFP. He and
his ship full of crew represent the UFP, remember? A UFP ambassador was
taken hostage. All of them had been summarily sentenced to death
without provocation, adequate warning, or good reason. I'm curious to
know what sort of response some of you Kirk critics think ~would~ be
appropriate in a case like that?
By invoking General order 24, Kirk was probably just following orders,
and implementing a prescribed course of action. Kirk was apparently
never rebuked for the inappropriate use of General Order 24, so it's
safe to assume he used it appropriately.
And as I pointed out before, for all we know General Order 24 *IS* a
bluff, by design. We know of no one case where it was actually carried
out.
GeneK
> True, besides, to stop all hostile action temporarily all they really
> have to do is stun everybody. They can stun groups of people from outer
> orbit. Kirk wouldn't use maximum force before trying minimum force.
Well, they can by the second season, but whether they have that capability
in the first is unknown. I would tend toward the idea that it was a later
upgrade, since there's no mention of even trying it in this episode.
> In Taste of Armageddon, those dopes committed an act of war on the
> Enterprise, and in effect declared war on an agent of the UFP, without
> provocation. That was stupid. Kirk no doubt had orders to deal swiftly
> and in a strict no-nonsense manner with people who made war on
> representatives of the UFP, not just member planets, but the Starships
> of the fleet. Kirk's response was on behalf of the entire UFP. He and
> his ship full of crew represent the UFP, remember?
I'm not so sure about that in this case. The Ambassador makes a big deal
of his authority in the beginning of the episode, and essentially gives Kirk
a direct order to violate the Eminians' space, so from one point of view the
Enterprise can be said to have been the initiator of the entire affair. However,
the fact that this is done on Fox's order takes the responsibility for the intrusion,
and quite probably for everything that follows, off Kirk's shoulders. He is in
command of the ship and the landing party, but Fox has assumed command of
the mission, which puts Kirk in a rather luxurious position in this case. My guess
is that the worst that can happen is that Fox's diplomatic efforts fail, he gets the
blame for everything, and Kirk comes out of it as the captain who managed to
save his ship and crew from the idiot diplomat. There might have been hell to
pay if GO24 was real and had been carried out, but it never was, and while
using it as a threat could be looked upon as poor diplomacy, Kirk's already
off the hook for that aspect of the mission.
GeneK
MistWing SilverTail
> the way *I* wanted us to, the world would be a very different place.
> There would be changed landscapes in Afghanistan... mountains would be
> knocked down. Al Queda would be vapor. The world would be so
> sufficiently terrified of the wrath of the Americans that even the
> freakin FRENCH would get off their butts and do something about the
> situation of growing anti-western Islamists, just to make sure that they
> didn't become targets. Five millenia from now, after world civilization
> collapses, rises again, collapses again and rises again, people would
> still tell the tales of how some evil people did something terribly
> wrong, and as a result the gods came from the heavens and smote them.
Or, the various countries of the world would have been so scared of the
madness of the Americans that they would have banded together and
annihilated us. Remember, even though the ex-Soviet countries are in
various states of difficulty, they still have the nukes and can still use
them if they feel they must
ToolPackinMama
> > Back to my original point... if, after Sept. 11, the US had responded
> > the way *I* wanted us to, the world would be a very different place.
> > There would be changed landscapes in Afghanistan... mountains would be
> > knocked down. Al Queda would be vapor. The world would be so
> > sufficiently terrified of the wrath of the Americans that even the
> > freakin FRENCH would get off their butts and do something about the
> > situation of growing anti-western Islamists, just to make sure that they
> > didn't become targets. Five millenia from now, after world civilization
> > collapses, rises again, collapses again and rises again, people would
> > still tell the tales of how some evil people did something terribly
> > wrong, and as a result the gods came from the heavens and smote them.
Well, nice fantasy, and I have days like that mysself, but thank
goodness we have leaders who are at least a tiny bit more sensible.
GeneK
> Or, the various countries of the world would have been so scared of the
> madness of the Americans that they would have banded together and
> annihilated us. Remember, even though the ex-Soviet countries are in
> various states of difficulty, they still have the nukes and can still use
> them if they feel they must
As long as the US refrained from the use of nuclear, chemical or biological
weapons, there's about as much chance of that happening as there was of
the world banding together to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan in the
1980's. If it did, those other countries would just be committing suicide as
they set off "the end of the world as we know it." If the Afghans learned
anything in the last century, it's that nobody outside of their country cares
enough about what anyone does to their country to do that.
BTW, the pro-atomic "world of the future" newreels of the 40's and 50's
notwithstanding, you can't "knock down" a mountain, even with nuclear
bombs; you'd have to spend months drilling into its core to plant hundreds
of devices to break up a mass that size, then spend more months trucking
away the debris. Any destruction less than that could be visited upon a
nation with conventional weapons.
GeneK
Scott Lowther
>
> "MistWing SilverTail" <Mist...@erols.com> wrote...
>
> > Or, the various countries of the world would have been so scared of the
> > madness of the Americans that they would have banded together and
> > annihilated us.
Seriously unlikely. Hell, many would have completely understood and
perhaps quietly applauded such actions... especially the Russians.
People will pick on the big dumb guy down the street. But they won't
pick on the big CRAZY guy down the street.
> BTW, the pro-atomic "world of the future" newreels of the 40's and 50's
> notwithstanding, you can't "knock down" a mountain, even with nuclear
> bombs; you'd have to spend months drilling into its core to plant hundreds
> of devices to break up a mass that size,
Actaully, no. Some penetrating nukes can burrow down through a few
hundred feet of solid rock when dropped from exoatmospheric; Nail the
same spot a few times and you can undermine the mountain enough to bring
it down. Remember, you donw need to vaporize, melt or pulverize a
structure to bring it down... as Sept 11 showed.
And as subsequent events have shown... the world would have been better
off if the US had stuffed tactical nukes (SADM type) down a few holes in
Tora Bora.
GeneK
"Scott Lowther" <lex...@ix.netcom.com> wrote...
> Actaully, no. Some penetrating nukes can burrow down through a few
> hundred feet of solid rock when dropped from exoatmospheric; Nail the
> same spot a few times and you can undermine the mountain enough to bring
> it down. Remember, you donw need to vaporize, melt or pulverize a
> structure to bring it down... as Sept 11 showed.
You're not seriously suggesting that a mountain is a comparable "structure"
to a skyscraper, are you? Penetrating warheads would do a very thorough
job of incinerating anything or anybody hiding inside of a mountain, but they
still wouldn't break one down. That's not what they're designed to do. You
could regrade some fairly large hills, though.
GeneK
MistWing SilverTail
>>> madness of the Americans that they would have banded together and
>>> annihilated us.
>
> Seriously unlikely. Hell, many would have completely understood and
> perhaps quietly applauded such actions... especially the Russians.
>
> People will pick on the big dumb guy down the street. But they won't
> pick on the big CRAZY guy down the street.
Again, this depends on circumstances. While people won't pick on the crazy
guy, they will act (or attack) the crazy guy if they felt that they were in
danger from him. And from your earlier post, they may well concider that
may be a possibility. After all, what would happen if a country decided not
to let us fly over their territory to get at Al-Queda. Would we then attack
them? Yes, I know I'm going a bit far afield. But the point is, whether we
were attacked back would depend entirely on how we acted to get at the bad
guys.
And let us not forget other countries that either knowingly or unknowingly
harbored some of the Al-Queda. What would happen if Bush said "We know that
you have them in your country. We're not going to show anybody our proof,
but if you don't do as we say, we'll attack you." This was (badly
paraphrased and simplified) very close to what he said. So, if we
obliterated Afghanistan and then started making threats against other
countries, The other countries might decide that it's in their best interest
to attach us and get rid of 'the crazy guy'.
Let me be clear. I agree that this is unlikely in the extreme. However, as
a head of state, one does have to consider such things. If you want to go
after someone, you need to make sure that the others will not decide you're
the bigger threat.
> And as subsequent events have shown... the world would have been better
> off if the US had stuffed tactical nukes (SADM type) down a few holes in
> Tora Bora.
Actually, this probably wouldn't have had all that much of an effect in the
long run. Al-Queda is not solely in Afghanistan. The survivors would like
have re-organized elsewhere and resumed their attacks. And if they acted
intelligently as well as vindictively, they could do considerable damage,
despite our increased security
ToolPackinMama
Scott Lowther
>
> "Scott Lowther" <lex...@ix.netcom.com> wrote...
> > Actaully, no. Some penetrating nukes can burrow down through a few
> > hundred feet of solid rock when dropped from exoatmospheric; Nail the
> > same spot a few times and you can undermine the mountain enough to bring
> > it down. Remember, you donw need to vaporize, melt or pulverize a
> > structure to bring it down... as Sept 11 showed.
>
> You're not seriously suggesting that a mountain is a comparable "structure"
> to a skyscraper, are you?
Yes, I am. A mountain is merely a very large rock, or a collection of
very large rocks. It is sufficently large that if you chop the side off
it, it will slump to fill the gap. And one really good way to chop the
side off of a mountain is with a properly placed nuclear explosive.
Let me put it real simple: YOU don't bring down the mountian. You let
gravity do that.
Scott Lowther
>
> >>> Or, the various countries of the world would have been so scared of the
> >>> madness of the Americans that they would have banded together and
> >>> annihilated us.
> >
> > Seriously unlikely. Hell, many would have completely understood and
> > perhaps quietly applauded such actions... especially the Russians.
> >
> > People will pick on the big dumb guy down the street. But they won't
> > pick on the big CRAZY guy down the street.
>
> Again, this depends on circumstances. While people won't pick on the crazy
> guy, they will act (or attack) the crazy guy if they felt that they were in
> danger from him.
*IF* they think they've got a chance in hell of stoppign him with
minimal damage to themselves and theirs.
And from your earlier post, they may well concider that
> may be a possibility. After all, what would happen if a country decided not
> to let us fly over their territory to get at Al-Queda. Would we then attack
> them?
Gee, did we bomb France after them cowardly cheese-eating surrender
monkeys refused overflight for the F-111's heading toward Libya?
Yes, I know I'm going a bit far afield. But the point is, whether we
> were attacked back would depend entirely on how we acted to get at the bad
> guys.
Not "entirely." Not even close. If after a massive travesty like Sept 11
the US had gone nuclear... but on specific targets, not bombs at
random... then the rest of the world woudl know that they've nothing in
particular to fear from the US... unless they are our enemies.
> And let us not forget other countries that either knowingly or unknowingly
> harbored some of the Al-Queda. What would happen if Bush said "We know that
> you have them in your country. We're not going to show anybody our proof,
> but if you don't do as we say, we'll attack you." This was (badly
> paraphrased and simplified) very close to what he said.
Wish what he'd REALLY said was: "We're going to drop a nuclear weapon
everywhere we think that bin Laden might be living." Then watch as
peopel scatter from where he is and/or they deliver his head ona
platter. This is, of course, all based on the notion that people believe
that the US actaully has the nads to defend itself... a belief that is
not well founded, sadly.
So, if we
> obliterated Afghanistan and then started making threats against other
> countries, The other countries might decide that it's in their best interest
> to attach us and get rid of 'the crazy guy'.
Bring 'em on. It would be a battle between modern western civilization
and the superstitious thirteenth century. I know what side my betting
money's on.
> If you want to go
> after someone, you need to make sure that the others will not decide you're
> the bigger threat.
This is not true. Not even close. Fear can be a remarkable motivator for
good.
> > And as subsequent events have shown... the world would have been better
> > off if the US had stuffed tactical nukes (SADM type) down a few holes in
> > Tora Bora.
>
> Actually, this probably wouldn't have had all that much of an effect in the
> long run. Al-Queda is not solely in Afghanistan. The survivors would like
> have re-organized elsewhere and resumed their attacks.
What survivors there were woudl ahve been profoundly unwelcome pretty
much anywhere. Right now most of the turd-world governments don;t seem
to give a damn whetehr Al Queda is there or not... and many are happy to
have 'em. if they knew that liquid-hot radioactive death follows those
who dare murder American citizens... those government just might start
thinking differently.
And if they acted
> intelligently as well as vindictively, they could do considerable damage,
> despite our increased security
If they were intelligent, they'd be on our side.
Scott Lowther
>
> Let's go back to talking about Star Trek.
Sure. There's a whole newsgroup just for that.
ToolPackinMama
>
> ToolPackinMama wrote:
> >
> > Let's go back to talking about Star Trek.
>
> Sure. There's a whole newsgroup just for that.
Couple of 'em.
MistWing SilverTail
I don't agree with your posts (in general). And could probably debate this
with you for a while longer. However, as was stated, it's not Star Trek and
most people here want to discuss Trek, not contempory politics.
Besides, I tend to get a bit angry sometimes when people 'argue' with me and
it's only a matter of time before I say something stupid and insult you. I
would rather avoid that
Thanks for the (mini) debate
GeneK
> Yes, I am. A mountain is merely a very large rock, or a collection of
> very large rocks. It is sufficently large that if you chop the side off
> it, it will slump to fill the gap. And one really good way to chop the
> side off of a mountain is with a properly placed nuclear explosive.
The problem with your plan is the "a" nuclear explosive. Unless you
live in one of several parts of the country where they call hills that are
only a few hundred feet tall "mountains," there has never been a nuclear
device on the face of the Earth, penetrating or otherwise, that could
remove that much rock. Maybe by Star Trek's time (just to get this
more or less back on topic), there'd be an antimatter device that could
do the job, but today's technology isn't there. Basides, what would be
the point of leveling a mountain, anyway? It'd take far less effort to
simply sterilize the surface so that nobody could live on it for a couple
thousand years.
GeneK
Scott Lowther
>
> "Scott Lowther" <lex...@ix.netcom.com> wrote...
> > Yes, I am. A mountain is merely a very large rock, or a collection of
> > very large rocks. It is sufficently large that if you chop the side off
> > it, it will slump to fill the gap. And one really good way to chop the
> > side off of a mountain is with a properly placed nuclear explosive.
>
> The problem with your plan is the "a" nuclear explosive. Unless you
> live in one of several parts of the country where they call hills that are
> only a few hundred feet tall "mountains," there has never been a nuclear
> device on the face of the Earth, penetrating or otherwise, that could
> remove that much rock.
Untrue. A nuclear device of several hundred kilotons yield, planted a
few hundred feet under rock, will make a crater a few hundred feet wide.
If you pick the right aim point, such as within a few hundred feet from
the top of a mountain, you'll take the top right off (which will slide
down and cover all cave entrances that weren't otherwise collapsed). If
you have a sheer cliff face, go for the base, and you'll bring down the
whole cliff.
> Maybe by Star Trek's time (just to get this
> more or less back on topic), there'd be an antimatter device that could
> do the job,
A photon torpedo could do the job, given a few grams of antimatter.
but today's technology isn't there. Basides, what would be
> the point of leveling a mountain, anyway? It'd take far less effort to
> simply sterilize the surface so that nobody could live on it for a couple
> thousand years.
Politics.
If you don't just blow something up, but you come down like the hand of
God and actually change the landscape... that will impress some people.
If the peopel you are fighting are tenth-century barbarians, that's what
you need to do.
Ruediger LANDMANN
: As it's been 10+ years since I've seen the episode, my memory is
: fuzzy... but I don;t recall mention of destroyign ALL life on the
: planent. Just flattening a continent or so...
The relevant lines are:
(Kirk to Anan 7) "You heard me give general order 24.
In two hours, the Enterprise will destroy Eminiar 7.
(Scotty to Anan 7) "This is the commander of the U.S.S.
Enterprise. All cities and installations on Eminiar 7
have been located, identified, and fed into our fire
control system. In 1 hour and 45 minutes, the entire
inhabited surface of your planet will be destroyed.
You have that long to surrender your hostages."
The only reference to continent-flattening that I can think of (and which
you may be remembering) was in "The Cage", where Tyler (excitedly) notes
that the Enterprise's weapons have "enough power to blast half a
continent".
:> OK, so which particular group of barbarians are you putting forward as the
:> good guys in this sordid tale? Do you find the actions of either side
:> morally justified?
: Whether true or not, clearly the Soviets ahd the right idea. They ended
: the situation switfty with minimum loss of life, AND using means that
: assured that the likelihood of the situation occuring again was nil.
: Past all the bullcrap moralizing... THAT is what matters.
So, if there were a murderer (let's say a serial killer) at large, and the
police had a very good idea of who he was, would you condone the police
apprehending his family and torturing them until the killer hands himself
in?
: Back to my original point... if, after Sept. 11, the US had responded
: the way *I* wanted us to, the world would be a very different place.
: There would be changed landscapes in Afghanistan... mountains would be
: knocked down. Al Queda would be vapor. The world would be so
: sufficiently terrified of the wrath of the Americans
<snip>
Sure that violence and bloodlust aren't popular in the US?
: What the hell is the point of being a superpower if you're so restrained
: that you can't actually use your power? Bah. Western civ is doomed.
If it's the kind of "civilization" that you just described, then good
riddance to it.
When educated, civilised, and generally enlightened societies are drawn
down to the same level as barbarians and criminals, then the barbarians
and criminals have already won. There is no more rule of law, there is no
more justice, only eye-for-an-eye vigilantism and bullying. Our species
*started* to outgrow that around 4,000 years ago. Unfortunately, there's
obviously still a long way to go, and it's especially unfortunate when
societies that have learned these lessons suddenly forget them when it's
expedient to do so.
:> Indeed - but not by the Federation. In the story you recounted above,
:> would it have been an acceptable solution for the Soviets to have just
:> nuked Lebanon and killed every last man, woman, and child in the country,
:> regardless of *which* faction they (nominally) belonged to?
: No. For that to be acceptable, there woudl ahve had to ahve been
: somethign far worse than a single embassy staffer kidnapped:
Yes you seem to be saying wiping out a whole continent or two (at least)
would be appropriate payback for killing five Starfleet Officers. I don't
see how this stacks up.
: say, an
: attack on Soviet soil itself, killing hundreds or thousands of Soviet
: citizens; carried out by a group of Lebanese zealots, with the full
: intention of doing it again and again until the Soviet Union surrendered
: to Lebanon and converted its citizenry to Lebanese ways. Having Lebanese
: dancing and partying in the streets after the attack would have
: contributed to the Sovs nukign them.
So what do you reckon an appropriate exchange rate should be? How many
Lebanese lives are worth one Soviet life? Or how many Afghans, Iraqis, or
North Koreans are worth one US life?
: So? Many soldiers in war kill few people.
Just pointing out that the "Star Trekkin" reference is pure myth. Kirk
just doesn't behave like that at all.
: Kirk killed MANY times by using the Enterprise weaponry. I remember more
: than one enemy ship blown into clouds of technicolor vapor. And I don't
: recall Kirk ever agonizing over any of them.
Let's see:
Mudd's ship explodes because he overloaded its engines. The Enterprise
never fired on her, and takes damage while rescuing Mudd and his "cargo".
The Romulan ship in "Balance of Terror" - damaged by the Enterprise, and
with at least some casualties. Enterprise fired on her only after she had
completely wiped out four Federation outposts and attacked the Enterprise.
Kirk was about to beam the Romulan survivors to safety when their captain
scuttled the ship instead. Kirk showed great regret when it was obvious
what the Romulan captain was about to do.
In "Arena", Kirk is bent on destroying the Gorn ship that attacked the
outpost on Cestus III, despite Spock's protestations about preserving
sentient life. Yet by the end of the episode, he refuses to kill the
incapacitated Gorn captain. When the Metron (godlike being of the week)
offers his view of the situation, he remarks on Kirk's mercy being an
advanced trait and notes that the Gorn would not have done the same.
The Enterprise returns fire at the Klingon ship that ambuses her in
"Errand of Mercy", but it's far from clear that Kirk's intention was to
destroy the ship. Sulu's last report was "We've hit him, Captain. He's
hurt," just before "Captain, the other ship doesn't register. Only
drifting debris. We got him." Seems likely this was another scuttling, but
we can't be sure. Note also that Kirk's orders are to prevent the Klingons
from using Organia as a base. He does this by offering the Organians
Federation protection - they are given a choice whether Federation
defenses will be set up on their planet. When they decline, there is never
any sense that Kirk is about to force his idea of protection on them.
The Orion ship in "Journey to Babel" self destructs just as Kirk is trying
to ask them to surrender. There's no way of knowing one way or the other
if there were casualties from the Enterprise's fire on her.
Kirk destroys the (gutted, abandoned) Klingon ship in "Day of the Dove"
because the radiation it's emitting is "a hazard to the vicinity".
Dr Sevrin's ship, like Mudd's, explodes from an engine overload while
trying to run from the Enterprise. All aboard are beamed off safely.
How many times did Kirk kill with the Enterprise weaponry? It's not really
clear. The only occasion we can be absolutely sure of from TOS are the
Romulans in "Balance of Terror". Note also that all the vessels that the
Enterprise actually exchanged fire with had attacked her first, and each
time in an unprovoked and surprise attack.
In each case, Kirk's intention seems to have been to diable the enemy
vessel to the point where it could no longer threaten the Enterprise, and
then rescue the survivors.
: Some people just need
: killin'.
As an absolute last resort, I *might* agree with you. It's when that
option is first cab off the rank that I'm saddened.
GeneK
"Scott Lowther" <lex...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message news:3E1987...@ix.netcom.com...
> Untrue. A nuclear device of several hundred kilotons yield, planted a
> few hundred feet under rock, will make a crater a few hundred feet wide.
> If you pick the right aim point, such as within a few hundred feet from
> the top of a mountain, you'll take the top right off (which will slide
> down and cover all cave entrances that weren't otherwise collapsed). If
> you have a sheer cliff face, go for the base, and you'll bring down the
> whole cliff.
Perhaps the problem here is that we have different definitions of what
"knocking down" a mountain means. I'm talking about reducing a peak
of several thousand feet down to its base, as in Mt St. Helens X 10.
Causing an avalanche that shears a few hundred feet or so of rock off
the surface falls considerably short of that, but if that's what you're
suggesting, then yes, it could be done.
GeneK
ToolPackinMama
>
> I'm going to follow the request of an earlier poster and drop this.
>
> I don't agree with your posts (in general). And could probably debate this
> with you for a while longer. However, as was stated, it's not Star Trek and
> most people here want to discuss Trek, not contempory politics.
>
> Besides, I tend to get a bit angry sometimes when people 'argue' with me and
> it's only a matter of time before I say something stupid and insult you. I
> would rather avoid that
>
> Thanks for the (mini) debate
::applause::
GeneK
"Ruediger LANDMANN" <zzrl...@fox.uq.net.au> wrote in message
news:avc4kg$q7e$1...@bunyip.cc.uq.edu.au...
> How many times did Kirk kill with the Enterprise weaponry? It's not really
> clear. The only occasion we can be absolutely sure of from TOS are the
> Romulans in "Balance of Terror". Note also that all the vessels that the
> Enterprise actually exchanged fire with had attacked her first, and each
> time in an unprovoked and surprise attack.
If you're talking about any action that resulted in someone's death, there's
"Balance of Terror," STIII, "Errand of Mercy," TWOK and STVI. If you
require the destruction of the enemy ship by Kirk (as opposed to by its own
crew), delete BoT and TWOK from that list. There's also the alien creatures
in "Operation Annihilate," "Obsession" and "The Immunity Syndrome," though
the final kills weren't exactly delivered with the ship's weapons systems.
GeneK
ToolPackinMama
> The problem with your plan is the "a" nuclear explosive. Unless you
> live in one of several parts of the country where they call hills that are
> only a few hundred feet tall "mountains,"
LOL There are such places. I useed to live in Denver Colorado where
the standards for "mountain" are impossibly high, but the standard for
"lake" is a joke. If a puddle stays on the ground for three days and
doesn't evaporate, they build condos by it and call them "Lakeside
towers". ;)
ToolPackinMama
> Untrue. A nuclear device of several hundred kilotons yield, planted a
> few hundred feet under rock, will make a crater a few hundred feet wide.
Mm hm. And what about a photon torpedo?
ToolPackinMama
> Sure that violence and bloodlust aren't popular in the US?
Hey! Everybody go see "Bowling for Columbine"!
> : Some people just need
> : killin'.
>
> As an absolute last resort, I *might* agree with you. It's when that
> option is first cab off the rank that I'm saddened.
Of course warfare and such is sometimes necessary, but IMHO all sane
people try everything they can to avoid it.
Short of just meekly allowing yourselves to be bloodlessly killed to
keep the war nice and tidy... I agree with Kirk. War should not be
tidy. If you can't let is all hang out in warfare, then when the hell
can you?
ToolPackinMama
Shoot, you could do that with a laser cannon, if you weren't in a rush.
Bring a lunch.
Scott Lowther
> So, if there were a murderer (let's say a serial killer) at large, and the
> police had a very good idea of who he was, would you condone the police
> apprehending his family and torturing them until the killer hands himself
> in?
If:
1) It was a time of war
2) The Family was in fact the enemy
3) The family knew where he was
4) The family wouldn't talk
I *MIGHT* consider it. What I would proabbly do would be to disappear
the family. Separate the kids from the folks, raise the kids to be
Britney Spears worshipping, Coke drinking airheads. Then plaster the
image all over the enemy lands and say, "If you mess with our people, we
will take your children from you and make them into THIS."
But that's just me.
> Sure that violence and bloodlust aren't popular in the US?
They are not. Were things otherwise, there would be a great many dead
Muslims in America... and very few livign ones.
>
> : What the hell is the point of being a superpower if you're so restrained
> : that you can't actually use your power? Bah. Western civ is doomed.
>
> If it's the kind of "civilization" that you just described, then good
> riddance to it.
>
> When educated, civilised, and generally enlightened societies are drawn
> down to the same level as barbarians and criminals, then...
... they survive.
>There is no more rule of law, there is no
> more justice, only eye-for-an-eye vigilantism and bullying.
Please. If what you suggest is true, then World War II saw the last days
of anything remotely like law and order in the western world.
Our species
> *started* to outgrow that around 4,000 years ago. Unfortunately, there's
> obviously still a long way to go, and it's especially unfortunate when
> societies that have learned these lessons suddenly forget them when it's
> expedient to do so.
it is important to know when to do what to whom. The US marches into
Japan and kicks ass... and then builds the place up... we show mercy on
an enemy that we were within rights to meke culturally extinct. We march
into the Middle East, kick as and then show mercy... we are seen as weak
and decadent, and the problems keep on a bubblin'.
Know your enemy. Deal accordingly.
>
> :> Indeed - but not by the Federation. In the story you recounted above,
> :> would it have been an acceptable solution for the Soviets to have just
> :> nuked Lebanon and killed every last man, woman, and child in the country,
> :> regardless of *which* faction they (nominally) belonged to?
>
> : No. For that to be acceptable, there woudl ahve had to ahve been
> : somethign far worse than a single embassy staffer kidnapped:
>
> Yes you seem to be saying wiping out a whole continent or two (at least)
> would be appropriate payback for killing five Starfleet Officers.
Where did I say that? I simply pointed out that the Federation has some
Kick Ass clauses in it's charter.
> So what do you reckon an appropriate exchange rate should be? How many
> Lebanese lives are worth one Soviet life?
That would be for the Soviets to decide.
> Or how many Afghans, Iraqis, or North Koreans are worth one US life?
If they launch a war against us? A great many. Kill them until they
stop.
Look at it this way: A guy zapped out on PCP breaks into your home,
wielding a shotgun, a knife, a rope and a copy of "Al Gore Weekly." Your
family (assume wife+2 kids) is in immediate mortal peril. Nobody, except
pansy-assed European gubmints, would hold it against you if you plugged
him, if there was simply no other way to save the lives of
yourself/family.
You have jsut made the calculation that one life is not too high a price
to save four.
Well... the following night, it happens again. And then the next. And
the next. And the next...
Pretty soon you're looking for a new house. But at what point do you
decide, "You know, the price is too high... tonight I'll just let the
guy come in and kill us all. Then my hands will be clean."
> How many times did Kirk kill with the Enterprise weaponry? It's not really
> clear.
Fine. Add Picard and Janeway and Sisco to that list. The death toll due
to the actions of Starfleet officers, operating in the percieved best
interests of their ships, their crews, their Federation is high. But
presumably less than the death tool due to NOT putting up a fight.
> : Some people just need
> : killin'.
>
> As an absolute last resort, I *might* agree with you. It's when that
> option is first cab off the rank that I'm saddened.
[What the frel is "first cab off the rank?"]
Scott Lowther
> Perhaps the problem here is that we have different definitions of what
> "knocking down" a mountain means.
Perhaps also a difference of opinion on what constitutes a "mountain."
>I'm talking about reducing a peak
> of several thousand feet down to its base, as in Mt St. Helens X 10.
A quick Google search using "Mt. St. Helens" and megaton yielded a
number of websites, showing a wide variation in yield... between 10 and
50 megatons for the blast. 100 to 500 megatons is certainly a doable
Proposition, though a tad expensive... but it'd be a mere trifle for the
Federation.
It is, however, pretty clear that anyone living in a cave in a mountain
with a sudden Mt. St. helens blast, or even a very small fraction of
such a blast, won't be living for very long. And the mountain will not
only look different, it will also have a different "feel." Not
superstitious claptrap, mind you... the same change in "feel" that the
NYC skyline underwent.
ToolPackinMama
>
> GeneK wrote:
>
> > Perhaps the problem here is that we have different definitions of what
> > "knocking down" a mountain means.
>
> Perhaps also a difference of opinion on what constitutes a "mountain."
Not to mention what constitutes a Star Trek related topic.
Scott Lowther
What, there are no mountains in Star Trek?
If you've got a beef with threads that do not meet up with your
standards of Trekkishness... feel free not to read them.
Cory C. Albrecht
>MistWing SilverTail wrote:
>> And if they acted
>> intelligently as well as vindictively, they could do considerable damage,
>> despite our increased security
>If they were intelligent, they'd be on our side.
Be on the same side as a country which they see as being hypocritical
for supporting Israel which has contravened as many UN resolutions as
has Iraq? Would you call it intelligent to be in the same side as a
country that you thought was trying to eradicate you and yours? From
what you've said, it seems like you'd be more likely to support things
like hijacking planes to fly into skyscrapers.
--
Cory C. Albrecht
Cory C. Albrecht
>Look at it this way: A guy zapped out on PCP breaks into your home,
>wielding a shotgun, a knife, a rope and a copy of "Al Gore Weekly." Your
>family (assume wife+2 kids) is in immediate mortal peril. Nobody, except
>pansy-assed European gubmints, would hold it against you if you plugged
>him, if there was simply no other way to save the lives of
>yourself/family.
It is one thing to to act in self defense likat, but what you seem to be
supporting is rounding up all PCP addicts before they even get violent
and then executing them all simply because they _might_ break into your
home and threaten your family.
You seem like quite major warhawk, so how about this: I pay a local
organised crime member in your area to whack you because I believe that
getting rid of your vote means that less warhawks will be elected to
government, thus saving the lives of many innocent people in some stupid
war. This would seem to me to be right in line with your opinions.
--
Cory C. Albrecht
Ruediger LANDMANN
:> So, if there were a murderer (let's say a serial killer) at large, and the
:> police had a very good idea of who he was, would you condone the police
:> apprehending his family and torturing them until the killer hands himself
:> in?
: If:
: 1) It was a time of war
: 2) The Family was in fact the enemy
: 3) The family knew where he was
: 4) The family wouldn't talk
In your original example, where you feel that the Soviets had the right
idea,
1) the USSR and Lebanon were not at war
2) therefore the family were not "the enemy"
3) there was nothing in the story implying that the relatives tortured by
the Soviets had any idea of the kidnappers' whereabouts
4) and therefore the family members had nothing to "talk" about
So I'm still not sure how you see the Soviets' actions as defensible, let
alone desirable.
: the family. Separate the kids from the folks, raise the kids to be
: Britney Spears worshipping, Coke drinking airheads. Then plaster the
: image all over the enemy lands and say, "If you mess with our people, we
: will take your children from you and make them into THIS."
Heh. Isn't this what a lot of the world feels that US cultural imperialism
is doing to their kids anyway?
: They are not. Were things otherwise, there would be a great many dead
: Muslims in America... and very few livign ones.
Aren't there many Americans very much in favour of exactly this scenario
in Iraq? You've even said that you wish this had happened in Afghanistan.
:> When educated, civilised, and generally enlightened societies are drawn
:> down to the same level as barbarians and criminals, then...
: ... they survive.
Only by mutating into something else.
:>There is no more rule of law, there is no
:> more justice, only eye-for-an-eye vigilantism and bullying.
: Please. If what you suggest is true, then World War II saw the last days
: of anything remotely like law and order in the western world.
Not at all. There are few, if any, straight lines in history. Human
development seems to be very often "two steps forward, one step back". But
one horrendous and barbaric act does not justify horrendous and barbaric
retaliation.
:> Yes you seem to be saying wiping out a whole continent or two (at least)
:> would be appropriate payback for killing five Starfleet Officers.
: Where did I say that?
I asked "can there be any justification for using it (General Order
24) which you under *these* circumstances?"
To which you replied, "Yes. 'Don't fuck with the Federation.'"
When I pointed out that the Eminiens' ability to "fuck with the
Federation" was clearly limited to capturing the landing party, which is
the point at which you told the story from Lebanon, finishing with
"Massive over-reaction is in the eye of the beholders".
: I simply pointed out that the Federation has some
: Kick Ass clauses in it's charter.
FWIW, it's a Starfleet General Order we're discussing here, not the
Federation Charter.
: You have jsut made the calculation that one life is not too high a price
: to save four.
That's a very specific set of circumstances. I would agree with you that
if there were *no* other way to save a group of people from one particular
individual who presented the *immediate* and *certain* threat to life and
limb, then there would be no problem with killing him, or with taking
action that would be likely to kill him. Most legal codes include some
concept of "reasonable force". It's different from slaughtering people en
masse who have no ability to fight back and whose "crime" is nothing more
than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
: Fine. Add Picard and Janeway and Sisco to that list. The death toll due
: to the actions of Starfleet officers, operating in the percieved best
: interests of their ships, their crews, their Federation is high. But
: presumably less than the death tool due to NOT putting up a fight.
I can't "chapter and verse" later series as confidently as TOS, and like I
said, didn't watch much of DS9 or VOY at all. But I'd be surprised if the
track records of at least Picard and maybe Janeway were far different from
Kirk's. DS9 was a very different show, one of the reasons I didn't care
for it much.
:> As an absolute last resort, I *might* agree with you. It's when that
:> option is first cab off the rank that I'm saddened.
: [What the frel is "first cab off the rank?"]
Sorry - must be an Australian expression. It simply means to be first.
Timo S Saloniemi
>Ruediger LANDMANN wrote:
>
>> The problem is reconciling this part of the story with everything else we
>> know about Kirk, his officers, and the Federation, none of which points to
>> them being the sort of genocidal maniacs that this part of this episode
>> seems to suggest at face value.
>Oh, please. One does not need to be a "genocidal maniac" to call for
>massive retaliation.
Does, too.
>While we might debate the morality of
>> having such a General Order on the books at all, or under what
>> circumstances it might be appropriate to use it, can there be any
>> justification for using it under *these* circumstances?
>
>Yes.
>
>"Don't fuck with the Federation."
Why drive this point home to people who *present no threat*?
The weapons of the Eminians and the Vendikans were fictional.
The worst they could do was point hand sonics at landing parties.
And apparently, manned spaceflight between the warring worlds had
not taken place for aeons.
Now that Kirk knew what the name of the game was, the fate of the
Valiant would never be repeated. Or actually, that ship need not even
have been offed by the Eminians - since we have so little data on what
really happened to her, we need not claim that her captain was an idiot
who couldn't save the ship from the make-believe of the warring
planets.
>It's all nice and wonderful to be seen as the Good Guys. But as both
>Star trek AND the real world show, if you project the image of "nice"
>too much, to soem types that's the equivalent of projecting the image of
>"weak, decadent and easy meat."
This is no justification to growling to preteens in polka-dot skirts,
much less threatening them with a knife or a gun. They won't "treat
you with greater respect" as the result. At most, they (and their
more powerful parents) will begin to view you as a dangerously
unstable lunatic.
Posturing to the parents might be productive, of course. But that's
a different issue.
>Listen to the lyrics of "Star Trekkin'." There's a reason why they have
>Kirk singing, "We come in peace, shoot to kill."
Perhaps Kirk's morals were dependent on the availability of a subspace
hot line to Starfleet Command? Perhaps his killing instincts were kept
at bay in cases like "Mirror, Mirror" only because there was somebody
breathing in his neck? While there's no clear correlation evident in
the episodes, we could postulate something like this to account for
the lack of consistency in the writing.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo S Saloniemi
>Cory C. Albrecht wrote:
>> In article <3E1644...@ix.netcom.com>, lex...@ix.netcom.com wrote:
>> >Ruediger LANDMANN wrote:
>> >Listen to the lyrics of "Star Trekkin'." There's a reason why they have
>> >Kirk singing, "We come in peace, shoot to kill."
>> hypocritical about being the pillar of democracy and morality in the
>> Trek universe just like same criticisms directed at he USA in this
>> universe?
>And just as with the USA, those ciriticisms are usually laid by their
>enemies.
Doesn't that follow from the definition?
Timo Saloniemi
CaptJosh
news:3E19A550...@lauragoodwin.org...
"War is hell. And 'tis a good thing, or else men should grow too fond of
it." I wish I could remember to whom that quote is attributed. I'm not even
sure I got it exactly right.
CaptJosh
---
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Timo S Saloniemi
>Back to my original point... if, after Sept. 11, the US had responded
>the way *I* wanted us to, the world would be a very different place.
>There would be changed landscapes in Afghanistan... mountains would be
>knocked down. Al Queda would be vapor.
Umm, what the USAF did there was just about the maximum extent of
destructive force it could ever hope to wield. Aside from dropping
nuclear weapons, that is. As for ground forces, I doubt they could have
been more destructive than they were, either, given the lack of suitable
targets. Moving in some civilian de-construction companies and their
bulldozers would naturally have helped finish a truly genocidal operation
(and literally "change the landscape", as you hoped), though.
>The world would be so sufficiently terrified of the wrath of the
>Americans that even the freakin FRENCH would get off their butts and do
>something about the situation...
Like nuke the Yankees back? I'm very glad that there is some nuclear
capacity outside the US nowadays, just for the deterrence value.
And despite my comments earlier on, I wouldn't be all that opposed to
a few carefully aimed preemptive strikes, either.
>...of growing anti-western Islamists, just to make sure that they
>didn't become targets.
Oh. You meant they should hit Algeria? Or Paris suburbs? They've tried
that before, and the results weren't encouraging. OTOH, after they
stopped doing that, so did the terrorists.
>Five millenia from now, after world civilization
>collapses, rises again, collapses again and rises again, people would
>still tell the tales of how some evil people did something terribly
>wrong, and as a result the gods came from the heavens and smote them.
>Instead, we've gone the "friendly idiot" route. Trying to build
>coalitions amongst people who really don't care, and as a result, the
>enemy slips away and continues to grow.
>What the hell is the point of being a superpower if you're so restrained
>that you can't actually use your power? Bah. Western civ is doomed.
Hopefully so. Good riddance. When you have finished dying, be sure not
to let your foul corpses float to the shores of the Old World.
>So? Many soldiers in war kill few people. Yet... there the guy is,
>weapon in hand. He's trained, he's equipped, he's pissed, he's killed
>before. Don't fuck with him.
>Kirk killed MANY times by using the Enterprise weaponry. I remember more
>than one enemy ship blown into clouds of technicolor vapor. And I don't
>recall Kirk ever agonizing over any of them. Some people just need
>killin'.
Actually, again there's some bias to the popular image. Kirk never destroyed
a manned space vessel in his entire TOS career, although fire from the
Enterprise did prompt one Romulan and one possibly Orion vessel to
engage self-destruct. And there was prolonged agonizing over the Romulan
one.
Or was a Klingon vessel destroyed at the beginning of "Errand of Mercy"?
Or simply driven off?
Timo Saloniemi
Timo S Saloniemi
>> didn't become targets. Five millenia from now, after world civilization
>> collapses, rises again, collapses again and rises again, people would
>> still tell the tales of how some evil people did something terribly
>> wrong, and as a result the gods came from the heavens and smote them.
>
>Or, the various countries of the world would have been so scared of the
>madness of the Americans that they would have banded together and
>annihilated us. Remember, even though the ex-Soviet countries are in
>various states of difficulty, they still have the nukes and can still use
>them if they feel they must
Probably not too many of the ex-satellites truly retain nuclear
capability. The weapons weren't all that forward-deployed at the time
of the collapse. Ukraine certainly has some weapons and the required
know-how to operate them, but places like Poland or DDR had nothing
working left behind from the evacuation.
No need to go to the east, though. France and Great Britain have
nukes, too. :)
Timo Saloniemi
Timo S Saloniemi
>And as subsequent events have shown... the world would have been better
>off if the US had stuffed tactical nukes (SADM type) down a few holes in
>Tora Bora.
Huh?
That would have made it impossible to assess whether anybody of importance
had been killed. Meaning, nobody was killed, or that's how the claims
would go. And be believed. By those who matter.
At the very best, eastern Afghanistan would have become a radiation
hazard and thus an unlikely haven for further groups of counterinsurgents,
terrorists, freedom fighters, what-have-you. But then again, who needs
such havens? The answer doesn't seem to be "Al Quaeda".
Timo Saloniemi
Timo S Saloniemi
>Gee, did we bomb France after them cowardly cheese-eating surrender
>monkeys refused overflight for the F-111's heading toward Libya?
You never know. France did bomb Gibraltar after the British bombarded
French ships after the French didn't agree to sinking their own ships
to applease Churchill, some sixty years ago. These things do tend to
escalate. Luckily, that one died out without much fuss. Would have been
hard to invade Europe without French non-resistance. (Except for the
Russians, that is.)
>> Yes, I know I'm going a bit far afield. But the point is, whether we
>> were attacked back would depend entirely on how we acted to get at the bad
>> guys.
>Not "entirely." Not even close. If after a massive travesty like Sept 11
>the US had gone nuclear... but on specific targets, not bombs at
>random... then the rest of the world woudl know that they've nothing in
>particular to fear from the US... unless they are our enemies.
But the official, presidential policy has been stated to be "If you
are not with us, you are against us". Meaning that everybody is a
potential enemy. It's not up to your actions whose side you are on,
it's soilely up to the judgement of the nutcase in the White House.
>Wish what he'd REALLY said was: "We're going to drop a nuclear weapon
>everywhere we think that bin Laden might be living."
A target set that incidentally includes plenty of mainland US, as well
as most of the closest US allies. Remember, bin Laden used to be one
of the good guys, back when Islamists were the best thing that had
ever happened to Afghanistan.
>Bring 'em on. It would be a battle between modern western civilization
>and the superstitious thirteenth century. I know what side my betting
>money's on.
Uh, until and unless you get Star Wars up and working, the US remains a
soft target to ballistic nuclear retaliation. Which the 13th century team
is still perfectly capable of. All US military power is on the offensive
side, really.
>What survivors there were woudl ahve been profoundly unwelcome pretty
>much anywhere. Right now most of the turd-world governments don;t seem
>to give a damn whetehr Al Queda is there or not... and many are happy to
>have 'em. if they knew that liquid-hot radioactive death follows those
>who dare murder American citizens... those government just might start
>thinking differently.
Then again, Americans *cannot* strike at places like Saudi Arabia or
Russia. And acting in seeming protection of certain "turd-world"
countries is very much in the interest of these nations.
>> And if they acted
>> intelligently as well as vindictively, they could do considerable damage,
>> despite our increased security
>If they were intelligent, they'd be on our side.
Isn't this entire discussion standing proof of the falsehood of that
statement?
Timo Saloniemi
ToolPackinMama
> >Listen to the lyrics of "Star Trekkin'." There's a reason why they have
> >Kirk singing, "We come in peace, shoot to kill."
Yes, the reason why is because the song is a parody.
The only time I know of where Kirk actually said "Shoot to kill" was in
Devil In The Dark. What he was talking about was for his guys to use
maximum force against the silicon beast if it was a matter of
self-defense. The creature had already killed many humans without
mercy.
In the end he rescinded that order, and pled very eloquently for the
life of the beast. That's Captain Kirk.
ToolPackinMama
>
> In article <3E185F...@ix.netcom.com> Scott Lowther <lex...@ix.netcom.com> writes:
>
> >Kirk killed MANY times by using the Enterprise weaponry. I remember more
> >than one enemy ship blown into clouds of technicolor vapor. And I don't
> >recall Kirk ever agonizing over any of them. Some people just need
> >killin'.
>
> Actually, again there's some bias to the popular image.
It's a myth. Kirk was not trigger-happy at all.
Scott Lowther
>
> In article <3E1A3B...@ix.netcom.com>, lex...@ix.netcom.com wrote:
> >Look at it this way: A guy zapped out on PCP breaks into your home,
> >wielding a shotgun, a knife, a rope and a copy of "Al Gore Weekly." Your
> >family (assume wife+2 kids) is in immediate mortal peril. Nobody, except
> >pansy-assed European gubmints, would hold it against you if you plugged
> >him, if there was simply no other way to save the lives of
> >yourself/family.
>
> It is one thing to to act in self defense likat, but what you seem to be
You sounds way to much like the guy referenced in my .sig. You, like
him, are incapable of rational conclusions.
Scott Lowther
>
> In rec.arts.startrek.tech Scott Lowther <lex...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> :> So, if there were a murderer (let's say a serial killer) at large, and the
> :> police had a very good idea of who he was, would you condone the police
> :> apprehending his family and torturing them until the killer hands himself
> :> in?
>
> : If:
> : 1) It was a time of war
> : 2) The Family was in fact the enemy
> : 3) The family knew where he was
> : 4) The family wouldn't talk
>
> In your original example, where you feel that the Soviets had the right
> idea,
>
> 1) the USSR and Lebanon were not at war
> 2) therefore the family were not "the enemy"
> 3) there was nothing in the story implying that the relatives tortured by
> the Soviets had any idea of the kidnappers' whereabouts
> 4) and therefore the family members had nothing to "talk" about
That's nice. I'm not the Soviets. And we had moved on to serial killers.
Please try to keep up.
> : the family. Separate the kids from the folks, raise the kids to be
> : Britney Spears worshipping, Coke drinking airheads. Then plaster the
> : image all over the enemy lands and say, "If you mess with our people, we
> : will take your children from you and make them into THIS."
>
> Heh. Isn't this what a lot of the world feels that US cultural imperialism
> is doing to their kids anyway?
Exactly. Bring their worst fears hoem to them. But do it forcibly in the
case of those nations that attack the US, not through the marketplace as
is currently done.
> : They are not. Were things otherwise, there would be a great many dead
> : Muslims in America... and very few livign ones.
>
> Aren't there many Americans very much in favour of exactly this scenario
> in Iraq?
Not that I've seen.
> You've even said that you wish this had happened in Afghanistan.
No, I didn't.
>
> :> When educated, civilised, and generally enlightened societies are drawn
> :> down to the same level as barbarians and criminals, then...
>
> : ... they survive.
>
> Only by mutating into something else.
Yep. A civilized nation that knows when it is time to behave uncivilized
to survive.
> But
> one horrendous and barbaric act does not justify horrendous and barbaric
> retaliation.
Sometimes it does. there are no straight lines in history.
Justin Broderick
> > Short of just meekly allowing yourselves to be bloodlessly killed to
> > keep the war nice and tidy... I agree with Kirk. War should not be
> > tidy. If you can't let is all hang out in warfare, then when the hell
> > can you?
>
> "War is hell. And 'tis a good thing, or else men should grow too fond of
> it." I wish I could remember to whom that quote is attributed. I'm not even
> sure I got it exactly right.
>
The first sentence is William T. Sherman. The second sentence,
prefaced with "It is well that war is terrible," IIRC, is usually
attributed to Robert E. Lee.
--Justin
ToolPackinMama
> > "War is hell. And 'tis a good thing, or else men should grow too fond of
> > it." I wish I could remember to whom that quote is attributed. I'm not even
> > sure I got it exactly right.
> >
>
> The first sentence is William T. Sherman. The second sentence,
> prefaced with "It is well that war is terrible," IIRC, is usually
> attributed to Robert E. Lee.
In any case, I believe that was the point of Taste Of Armageddon.
Boris Badenov
|It is, however, pretty clear that anyone living in a cave in a mountain
|with a sudden Mt. St. helens blast, or even a very small fraction of
|such a blast, won't be living for very long. And the mountain will not
|only look different, it will also have a different "feel." Not
|superstitious claptrap, mind you... the same change in "feel" that the
|NYC skyline underwent.
And, the surrounding countryside will look a lot different, too. I've not seen before and
after pictures, but I am told Mt. St. Helens and vicinity look much different since the
blast ..
____
Faith is about believing in something, and letting it change you ..
You don't fix faith; faith fixes you. -- Book, Firefly
Ruediger LANDMANN
: The weapons of the Eminians and the Vendikans were fictional.
: The worst they could do was point hand sonics at landing parties.
: And apparently, manned spaceflight between the warring worlds had
: not taken place for aeons.
Actually, they had real surface batteries that could target orbiting
vessels, and when Kirk refused to have his crew beam down for
extermination, Anan 7 ordered those batteries ("Planetary Defense
System") to fire on the ship. However, the reply came back "I'm sorry,
councilman, the target has moved out of range."
They must also have had real weapons (or the ability to produce them
fairly quickly) for Kirk's whole point in destroying the disintegration
machines to have any effect.
Also, all we were told about their spaceflight capabilities was: "They've
had spaceflight for several centuries but they have never ventured beyond
their own solar system."
The bottom line, however, is still the same - there was no indication
whatsoever that these people posed a threat to anyone else but each other.
MistWing SilverTail
> : The worst they could do was point hand sonics at landing parties.
> : And apparently, manned spaceflight between the warring worlds had
> : not taken place for aeons.
>
> Actually, they had real surface batteries that could target orbiting
> vessels, and when Kirk refused to have his crew beam down for
> extermination, Anan 7 ordered those batteries ("Planetary Defense
> System") to fire on the ship. However, the reply came back "I'm sorry,
> councilman, the target has moved out of range."
One wonders at their effectiveness though. They were sonic weapons firing
outside of an atmosphere.
Question: Was this the episode where the power was 1 to some-ought power? I
always thought that was amusing
--
MistWing SilverTail
Dragon Code
DC2.Dw Gf L6m3t5w W- T Phfwlt Sks,wl Cau+,bau,bl' Bfl/pl/zz A- Fr+++ Nn
M O/ H--- $ Fo R- Ac+ J+ S+ U! I--# V+++![Power] V---[Control] V++[Food
Fight Magic ++] Q+++[tk] Tc+++[sw] Tc+[other]
Furry Code
FMSmpsw3r A-- C- D H+ M- P R+ T+++ W- Z+ S- RLCT ca++$ d-- e+ f- h- i+
j+ p-- sx--
Ruediger LANDMANN
: One wonders at their effectiveness though. They were sonic weapons firing
: outside of an atmosphere.
Yes, but de Paul reports to Scotty:
"Extremely powerful sonic vibrations.
Decibels-- 18 to the 12th power.
If those screens weren't up,
we'd be totally disrupted by now."
So (questionably physics aside) the weapons *did* apparently have the
ability to harm the Enterprise. But shifting to a higher orbit (maximum
phaser range) put her out of harm's way.
: Question: Was this the episode where the power was 1 to some-ought power? I
: always thought that was amusing
See above :)
Scott Lowther
>
> In article <3E185F...@ix.netcom.com> Scott Lowther <lex...@ix.netcom.com> writes:
>
> >Back to my original point... if, after Sept. 11, the US had responded
> >the way *I* wanted us to, the world would be a very different place.
> >There would be changed landscapes in Afghanistan... mountains would be
> >knocked down. Al Queda would be vapor.
>
> Umm, what the USAF did there was just about the maximum extent of
> destructive force it could ever hope to wield.
Not true. Look at the Tora Bora travesty: even without going nuclear...
wave after wave after wave of B-52's dumpings thousands of tons of bombs
into the hills, pummelling the region into gravel.
> Moving in some civilian de-construction companies and their
> bulldozers would naturally have helped finish a truly genocidal operation
What "genocide?"
> >The world would be so sufficiently terrified of the wrath of the
> >Americans that even the freakin FRENCH would get off their butts and do
> >something about the situation...
>
> Like nuke the Yankees back?
They might. There'd be zero reason or rationale for doing so. But they
are, after all, the French.
> >Five millenia from now, after world civilization
> >collapses, rises again, collapses again and rises again, people would
> >still tell the tales of how some evil people did something terribly
> >wrong, and as a result the gods came from the heavens and smote them.
> >Instead, we've gone the "friendly idiot" route. Trying to build
> >coalitions amongst people who really don't care, and as a result, the
> >enemy slips away and continues to grow.
> >What the hell is the point of being a superpower if you're so restrained
> >that you can't actually use your power? Bah. Western civ is doomed.
>
> Hopefully so. Good riddance. When you have finished dying, be sure not
> to let your foul corpses float to the shores of the Old World.
Which will be even more dead. Thirteenth century religious superstition
married to modern bioweapons potential does not speak well for the
future of, say, Europe. Unless , fo course, they bow peacefully to the
inevitable and accept Sharia laws. I wonder at the future of the French
Riviera, when all the hotties gotta wear Burkhas.
Scott Lowther
>
> In article <3E18C3...@ix.netcom.com> Scott Lowther <lex...@ix.netcom.com> writes:
>
> >And as subsequent events have shown... the world would have been better
> >off if the US had stuffed tactical nukes (SADM type) down a few holes in
> >Tora Bora.
>
> Huh?
>
> That would have made it impossible to assess whether anybody of importance
> had been killed. Meaning, nobody was killed, or that's how the claims
> would go. And be believed. By those who matter.
The alternative, that we got, was confirmation that nobody of
consequence was killed or caputured. Plus, we came off like idiots and
pussies. Nuking the joint would have been a Macho, Manly, He-Man thing
to do. Horribly politically Incorrect... but a gesture that would be
recognized and appreciated in that particular region.
> At the very best, eastern Afghanistan would have become a radiation
> hazard
Waht, you mean like Hiroshima or Nagasaki?
People have no understanding of nuclear power.
Scott Lowther
> But the official, presidential policy has been stated to be "If you
> are not with us, you are against us". Meaning that everybody is a
> potential enemy.
Everybody IS a potential enemy. IIRC, Disraeli: "We ahve no permanent
friends; we have permanent interests." You yourself have suggested that
you'd like to see the US full of dead corpses, and you'd be interested
in seeing the French and Brits do it.
No: in a war between the United States and Al Queda, is it REALLY that
hard to decide which side you're on?
> >> And if they acted
> >> intelligently as well as vindictively, they could do considerable damage,
> >> despite our increased security
>
> >If they were intelligent, they'd be on our side.
>
> Isn't this entire discussion standing proof of the falsehood of that
> statement?
That remains to be seen.
Timo S Saloniemi
>> Actually, they had real surface batteries that could target orbiting
>> vessels, and when Kirk refused to have his crew beam down for
>> extermination, Anan 7 ordered those batteries ("Planetary Defense
>> System") to fire on the ship. However, the reply came back "I'm sorry,
>> councilman, the target has moved out of range."
>
>One wonders at their effectiveness though. They were sonic weapons firing
>outside of an atmosphere.
Then again, they fired at "thousands of decibels" or somesuch, which is
*way* beyond the noise one could observe by detonating a nuclear bomb on
one's lap. Perhaps the lack of a medium doesn't matter much at such intensity
levels. A nice chunk of atmosphere might leap up at you when such sonics
were fired...
IIRC, the loudest noise mankind has ever produced was about 300 decibels,
deliberately created in a laboratory using a hypersonic jet of hot gas.
Even Krakatau at her very best was in the low three digits, too.
>Question: Was this the episode where the power was 1 to some-ought power? I
>always thought that was amusing
That was "Court Martial", and definitely worth a chuckle.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo S Saloniemi
>In rec.arts.startrek.tech MistWing SilverTail <Mist...@erols.com> wrote:
>: One wonders at their effectiveness though. They were sonic weapons firing
>: outside of an atmosphere.
>Yes, but de Paul reports to Scotty:
>
>"Extremely powerful sonic vibrations.
>Decibels-- 18 to the 12th power.
>If those screens weren't up,
>we'd be totally disrupted by now."
Interesting. Is Scotty really saying the intensity level was 18^12 dB? That
goes so far beyond the realm of known physics that *anything* is possible.
I bet somebody over at Andromeda would look up and wonder if a gigantic
DJ had just done that annoying back-and-forth wank on the galactic disk
of the Milky Way.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo S Saloniemi
>Timo S Saloniemi wrote:
>>
>> In article <3E185F...@ix.netcom.com> Scott Lowther <lex...@ix.netcom.com> writes:
>>
>> >Back to my original point... if, after Sept. 11, the US had responded
>> >the way *I* wanted us to, the world would be a very different place.
>> >There would be changed landscapes in Afghanistan... mountains would be
>> >knocked down. Al Queda would be vapor.
>> Umm, what the USAF did there was just about the maximum extent of
>> destructive force it could ever hope to wield.
>Not true. Look at the Tora Bora travesty: even without going nuclear...
>wave after wave after wave of B-52's dumpings thousands of tons of bombs
>into the hills, pummelling the region into gravel.
...is what took place. Except that naturally, only the regions where
actual targets could be spotted were subjected to this treatment. But
the USAF almost went bankrupt with the campaign already - wasting bombs
on non-targets would have made the taxpayer even less elated.
A lion's share of the budgetary increases in preparation for the Iraq
invasion goes to air-to-surface ammunition and its delivery paraphernalia.
Admittedly, the campaign could indeed see the return of carpet-bombing,
since the costs of iron bomb B-52 operations or even B-1B conventional
sorties are well below those of fighter-bomber precision raids, per
pound of explosive dropped or per target bombed. And the B-1B lobby has
a lot riding on the next war, and will do its utmost to give the
bomber a visible role in the campaign. In any case, costs of overseas
deployment of ground troops, their close air support and assorted
logistics pale in comparison with what the USAF and the USN need for
the air campaign.
>> Moving in some civilian de-construction companies and their
>> bulldozers would naturally have helped finish a truly genocidal operation
>What "genocide?"
The one you were hoping for. Rearranging the landscape and all that.
If you intended to advocate something like "killing of terrorists and
saving of innocents", you certainly had a strange way of saying it.
Geomorphic bombing campaigns do not differentiate.
Frankly, your eloquent defense of "greater use of force" comes across
as nothing but fetishism. Not even the military-industrial complex
that daily prays for maximum expenditure of ammunition would agree
with you on your fantasies.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo S Saloniemi
>Timo S Saloniemi wrote:
>> In article <3E18C3...@ix.netcom.com> Scott Lowther <lex...@ix.netcom.com> writes:
>The alternative, that we got, was confirmation that nobody of
>consequence was killed or caputured. Plus, we came off like idiots and
>pussies. Nuking the joint would have been a Macho, Manly, He-Man thing
>to do. Horribly politically Incorrect... but a gesture that would be
>recognized and appreciated in that particular region.
This discussion started on the issue of Kirk vs. Eminians. The
parallels to the US vs. Afghanistan are striking. Why on earth would
anybody be interested in "impressing" the latter party, or making it
"appreciate" something? This party is of no consequence to any issue at
hand, as it lacks the means of striking back or otherwise interacting
with the former party when the former party doesn't want to be interacted
with.
If anything, nuclear mayhem would serve to lower the threshold for
the major powers in that particular region to commit nuclear (or
conventional) mayhem on each other.
>> At the very best, eastern Afghanistan would have become a radiation
>> hazard
>Waht, you mean like Hiroshima or Nagasaki?
"At the very best", I said. Assuming that somebody as crazy as you was
in charge of the campaign, poured every W-whatever in his possession
on the mountains, and sprinkled radioisotopes on top of the rubble. That
*was* what you were hoping for, right? A monument to remember.
>People have no understanding of nuclear power.
The scary thing is, this apparently includes those in possession of it.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo S Saloniemi
>> But the official, presidential policy has been stated to be "If you
>> are not with us, you are against us". Meaning that everybody is a
>> potential enemy.
>Everybody IS a potential enemy. IIRC, Disraeli: "We ahve no permanent
>friends; we have permanent interests." You yourself have suggested that
>you'd like to see the US full of dead corpses, and you'd be interested
>in seeing the French and Brits do it.
Perhaps not quite as literally as you read it... You don't seem to be
familiar with the concept of giving back one's own medicine. Threatening
you with nukes is simply a nice way to show the darker side of such threats.
You hear harsher language in the House sometimes.
Factually, there are about three powers that could hit the US with
ballistic nukes. The French, the Russians, and the Chinese. The British
don't count, for obvious reasons. Politically, the likelihood of
such an attack is the reverse of the order given above. The technical
success of such an attack is probably in the order given above, though.
>No: in a war between the United States and Al Queda, is it REALLY that
>hard to decide which side you're on?
Read back on what you write. Is it so hard to believe that you are making
that a very difficult decision indeed?
The facts of the matter are these: a terrorist, be he a member of the
oft-advertised "organization" or an independent entrepreneur, can hope
to kill perhaps ten thousand people per year at the very best. For the
likes of you, this is breakfast. And you have recently admitted you like
breakfast...
Timo Saloniemi
Joseph Nebus
>In article <avg05k$c0h$1...@bunyip.cc.uq.edu.au> Ruediger LANDMANN <zzrl...@fox.uq.net.au> writes:
>>In rec.arts.startrek.tech MistWing SilverTail <Mist...@erols.com> wrote:
>>Yes, but de Paul reports to Scotty:
>>
>>"Extremely powerful sonic vibrations.
>>Decibels-- 18 to the 12th power.
>>If those screens weren't up,
>>we'd be totally disrupted by now."
>Interesting. Is Scotty really saying the intensity level was 18^12 dB? That
>goes so far beyond the realm of known physics that *anything* is possible.
In this case '18 to the 12th power' is such an odd number for any
kind of reading -- I daresay even Spock would say that number instead as
1.1568 times ten to the fifteenth power, even if the number *was* by odd
coincidence exactly 18^{12}, and most normal people would say something
like 10^{15} instead -- that it seems fair to say it has to be shorthand
for some more physically plausible number.
I'm not sure what would be a reasonable way of parsing that phrase
to pick out meaningful parts, though. That's part of why I don't care for
supposing we have (effectively) an "unreliable narrator" and supposing the
stuff we see isn't literally what we see. But either Scotty isn't quite
saying what we think we heard or Eminiar can blow up the universe ... it's
a tough call.
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scott Lowther
>
> The one you were hoping for. Rearranging the landscape and all that.
... thus demonstrating that you're clueless as to what the actual
definition of "genocide" is.
Words mean things. In order to have a meaningful discussion, the words
used must not be re-defined at a whim.
> If you intended to advocate something like "killing of terrorists and
> saving of innocents", you certainly had a strange way of saying it.
> Geomorphic bombing campaigns do not differentiate.
They also do not lead to the extermination of an entire race.
Scott Lowther
> This discussion started on the issue of Kirk vs. Eminians. The
> parallels to the US vs. Afghanistan are striking. Why on earth would
> anybody be interested in "impressing" the latter party, or making it
> "appreciate" something? This party is of no consequence to any issue at
> hand, as it lacks the means of striking back or otherwise interacting
> with the former party when the former party doesn't want to be interacted
> with.
Clearly not true, as 9-11 saw. And more than just Afghanistan would be
"impressed."
Scott Lowther
> >No: in a war between the United States and Al Queda, is it REALLY that
> >hard to decide which side you're on?
>
> Read back on what you write. Is it so hard to believe that you are making
> that a very difficult decision indeed?
Not for a rational person, no. What you suggest is that in a world where
Nation A launches a terror attack against Nation B, and Nation B
responds... you support Nation A.
Basically, you see the use of Nukes and other WoMD against tthe United
States as a Not Nice Thing, but for the United States to use them...
GASP! That's horrible!
Double standard.
ToolPackinMama
>
> > >What "genocide?"
> >
> > The one you were hoping for. Rearranging the landscape and all that.
>
> ... thus demonstrating that you're clueless as to what the actual
> definition of "genocide" is.
>
> Words mean things. In order to have a meaningful discussion, the words
> used must not be re-defined at a whim.
>
> > If you intended to advocate something like "killing of terrorists and
> > saving of innocents", you certainly had a strange way of saying it.
> > Geomorphic bombing campaigns do not differentiate.
>
> They also do not lead to the extermination of an entire race.
Actually, that's true. A few of them are likely to be out of the
country at the time. They could just straggle back to the blighted
landscape whenever the "fighting" stops and, you know, start over!
Ruediger LANDMANN
: Define "wrong someone who had wronged you." Some societies today feel
: it's okay to stone a woman to death who had committed the unforgivable
: sin of being raped.
Sure - but remember (1) the women in question have not generally (ever?)
been part of the legislative process that has come up with the laws they
are being punished under and (2) Even the barbarians you're talking about
still generally (though by no means always) have some concept of due
process. There would still be a trial, a judgement, and a sentence. And
officially, at least, anyone who by-passed that process would be doing a
Bad Thing (not that they'd likely be punished - or even disapproved of -
for it). Small steps towards something better, and really, in the big
scheme of things, not too far behind the modern world in the march of
history.
:> So to whom would you say they were responsible?
: Their descendants, the universe at large, themselves. If you're going
: down, go down fighting.
We can only agree to differ there. If you're going to go down, go down
with integrity.
Seriously, though, what were their options? They could have continued
passive resistance to the Empire - and been toasted. They could have
fought back - and been toasted. Either way, it makes no difference to
themselves, their non-existent descendants, nor the universe at large.
Or do you think their best course of action was to simply capitulate and
co-operate with the Empire?
Ruediger LANDMANN
: Perhaps. Of course, War IS Hell, and involves the use of terror. The
: difference being, a "moral" war would try to avoid killing civvies where
: feasible; a terrorist woudl TARGET civvies first thing. Consequently, Al
: Queda are terrorists, the Enola Gay is not (it not being feasible to
: destroy Japan's warfighting infrastructure without killing civilians).
I'd say that there's a difference between the incidental killing of
civillians in the pursuit of military-industrial-infrastructure targets
and raids that will kill mostly civilians but also damage
military-industrial-infrastructure. The Allies in WWII seemed to
gradually slip from the former to the latter.
By the end of the Pacific War, the US had the technology, the expertise,
and the air superiority to take out what little was left of Japan's
ability to produce weapons and project force without the wholesale
slaughter of civilians. Unfortunately, the wholesale slaughter of
civilians was chosen as being more expedient. War may well be hell, but it
is only as hellish as the various belligerents make it.
And to bring us back on-topic, if a "moral" war would try to avoid killing
civillians, where does that leave Kirk ordering General Order 24?
Ruediger LANDMANN
: Timo S Saloniemi wrote:
:> Genocide, OTOH, is not necessarily a minority operation.
: Nobody has discussed genocide.
Seems like wiping out the entire inhabited surface of Eminiar would have
qualified.
Scott Lowther
> Sure - but remember (1) the women in question have not generally (ever?)
> been part of the legislative process that has come up with the laws they
> are being punished under
Very few people ahve ever been part of ANY legislative process.
> :> So to whom would you say they were responsible?
>
> : Their descendants, the universe at large, themselves. If you're going
> : down, go down fighting.
>
> We can only agree to differ there. If you're going to go down, go down
> with integrity.
And that means fighting.
> Seriously, though, what were their options? They could have continued
> passive resistance to the Empire - and been toasted. They could have
> fought back - and been toasted. Either way, it makes no difference to
> themselves, their non-existent descendants, nor the universe at large.
Perhaps. But they might take a few Imperials out with them, thus
improvign the universe ever so slightly.
> Or do you think their best course of action was to simply capitulate and
> co-operate with the Empire?
If they were devious and patient, sure. Machiavellie probably would have
suggested playign lapdog, then stabbing them in the back.
Scott Lowther
> I'd say that there's a difference between the incidental killing of
> civillians in the pursuit of military-industrial-infrastructure targets
> and raids that will kill mostly civilians but also damage
> military-industrial-infrastructure. The Allies in WWII seemed to
> gradually slip from the former to the latter.
Not so gradually. Churchill started it in Europe with a vengeance.
> By the end of the Pacific War, the US had the technology, the expertise,
> and the air superiority to take out what little was left of Japan's
> ability to produce weapons and project force without the wholesale
> slaughter of civilians. Unfortunately, the wholesale slaughter of
> civilians was chosen as being more expedient.
Incorrect. The US had the ability to stand the US NAvy off the shore of
Japan and not let them come or go, but unconditional surrender woudl
have required the landing of millions of US Marines and Army soliders on
Japan. The death toll on the Japanese side would have been quite
astounding. They were lucky to get nuked.
Read up on "Operation Downfall."
> And to bring us back on-topic, if a "moral" war would try to avoid killing
> civillians, where does that leave Kirk ordering General Order 24?
Again... those civilians can be argued to be already dead.
1) they were marching off to get disintegrated
2) Could be argued (I don't recall if it was) that since the planet was
advanced enough so that the PD didn't apply, that their society was sick
and thus needed a good spanking.
Scott Lowther
> > > Geomorphic bombing campaigns do not differentiate.
> >
> > They also do not lead to the extermination of an entire race.
>
> Actually, that's true. A few of them are likely to be out of the
> country at the time.
A few of "them?" Afghanis? I was unaware that the vast bulk of the
Afghan people were located on a single targetted mountaintop in the Tora
Bora region...
ToolPackinMama
> And to bring us back on-topic, if a "moral" war would try to avoid killing
> civillians, where does that leave Kirk ordering General Order 24?
First explain the exact wording of General Order 24. We are arguing in
a void. What exactly is General Order 24, precisely?
What they told their enemies could be disinformation. What does General
Order 24 say, exactly?
ToolPackinMama
Did they actually do that?
ToolPackinMama
>
> ToolPackinMama wrote:
>
> > > > Geomorphic bombing campaigns do not differentiate.
> > >
> > > They also do not lead to the extermination of an entire race.
> >
> > Actually, that's true. A few of them are likely to be out of the
> > country at the time.
>
> A few of "them?" Afghanis? I was unaware that the vast bulk of the
> Afghan people were located on a single targetted mountaintop in the Tora
> Bora region...
::shrug::
ToolPackinMama
>
> ToolPackinMama wrote:
>
> > > > Geomorphic bombing campaigns do not differentiate.
> > >
> > > They also do not lead to the extermination of an entire race.
> >
> > Actually, that's true. A few of them are likely to be out of the
> > country at the time.
>
> A few of "them?" Afghanis? I was unaware that the vast bulk of the
> Afghan people were located on a single targetted mountaintop in the Tora
> Bora region...
Don't misunderstand me. I agree it's ridiculous. I think the whole
argument is ridiculous.