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Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a
nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a
"Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed
considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense
initiatives more successful? Can such an application of
science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable,
necessary or impossible?
Read Debates, a new
Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published
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(10871 previous messages)
mazza9
- 11:18pm Mar 31, 2003 EST (#
10872 of 10879) "Quae cum ita sunt" Caesar's Gallic
Commentaries
...and Buck showalter won his first game as the Rangers
Skipper!
almarst2003
- 11:21pm Mar 31, 2003 EST (#
10873 of 10879)
mazza - "I never realized how easy it was to make
meaningless posts." ... "Th th th th dots all folks!"
Don't be so shy of your success. You deserve it!
almarst2003
- 11:42pm Mar 31, 2003 EST (#
10874 of 10879)
US troops accused of excess force - http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,926999,00.html
Steven Morris Tuesday April 1, 2003 The Guardian
Correspondents in Iraq have come upon a number of incidents
in which the US military, especially the marines, have
appeared to act with excessive force. Here are some examples.
The bridge at Nassiriya After suffering heavy losses in the
southern city of Nassiriya, US marines were ordered to fire at
any vehicle which drove at American positions, Sunday Times
reporter Mark Franchetti reported. He described how one night
"we listened a dozen times as the machine guns opened fire,
cutting through cars and trucks like paper".
Next morning he said he saw 15 vehicles, including a
mini-van and two lorries, riddled with bullet holes. He said
he counted 12 dead civilians lying in the road or in nearby
ditches.
One man's body was still on fire. A girl aged no more than
five lay dead in a ditch beside the body of a man who may have
been her father. On the bridge an Iraqi civilian lay next to
the carcass of a donkey. A father, baby girl and boy had been
buried in a shallow grave. Franchetti said the civilians had
been trying to leave the town, probably for fear of being
killed by US helicopter attacks or heavy artillery. He wrote:
"Their mistake had been to flee over a bridge that is crucial
to the coalition's supply lines and to run into a group of
shell-shocked young American marines with orders to shoot
anything that moved."
Cluster bombs A surgical assistant at the Saddam hospital
in Nassiriya, Mustafa Mohammed Ali, told the Guardian's James
Meek that US aircraft had dropped three or four cluster bombs
on civilian areas in the city, killing 10 and wounding 200.
He said he understood the US forces going straight to
Baghdad to get rid of Saddam Hussein, but added: "I don't want
forces to come into [this] city. They have an objective, they
go straight to the target. There's no room in the hospital
because of the wounded." When he saw the bodies of two dead
marines, he revealed that he cheered silently.
Meek also told the story of a 50-year-old businessman and
farmer, Said Yagur, who said marines searched his house and
took his son, Nathen, his Kalashnikov rifle and 3m dinars
(about £500). The marines argued the money was probably
destined for terrorist activities. After protests by the
father, who rose up against Saddam Hussein after the last Gulf
War and had his house shelled by the dictator's artillery,
they let the son go and returned the gun and money.
The road to Baghdad Reporters have seen more than a dozen
burnt-out buses and trucks and the bodies of at least 60 Iraqi
men on the road north of Nassiriya. A photograph carried in
the Guardian last week showed a bus which had been attacked by
US troops. Bloodstained corpses lay nearby.
Reuters journalist Sean Maguire said there were four bodies
outside the bus and - according to the marines - 16 more
inside. The Americans told him the dead men wore a mix of
civilian and military clothing and were in possession of
papers "that appeared to identify them as Republican Guard".
But Brigadier General John Kelly admitted to Maguire: "We have
very little time to decide if a truck or bus is going to be
hostile." The reporter described the bullet-ridden bus and the
bodies as "evidence of the ruthless efficiency with which lead
marine units are clearing the road north of Nassiriya to make
way for a military convoy".
Exuberance A British officer was alarmed when the American
marines who were escorting him through the port of Umm Qasr
let loose a volley of rifle fire at a house on the outskirts
of town.
The officer told Reuters reporter David Fox: "They said
they had been sniped out from there a few days ago so they
like to give them a warning every now and then. That is
something we [the British] would never condone." A US special
forces officer said it was sometimes diffi
almarst2003
- 12:09am Apr 1, 2003 EST (#
10875 of 10879)
A HEAVY-DIRTY "LIBERATORS"
Devastation on Road to Baghdad - http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/01/international/worldspecial/01AIRB.html
By JIM DWYER
ITH THE 101ST AIRBORNE DIVISION, near Hilla, in central
Iraq, March 31 — It was possible today to drive 30 miles north
from Najaf toward Baghdad and not see a single living person
other than American soldiers.
The roads were littered with the hulks of pickup trucks and
taxi cabs that had been fired on by Americans forces. As for
the occupants of several of those cars — singled out as
members paramilitary forces loyal to President Saddam Hussein
— their bodies were sprawled on the ground nearby.
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