h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"oh I understood that...the only reason I put the definition is because there seemed to be confusion of what actually constituted different races...and I think someone put a partial definition down instead of the full thing so I figured I would put it in there for clarification"


The thing about racism, and sexism etc., is that it's defined by the person on the receiving end. And some people are just more sensitive then others.

"The thing about racism, and sexism etc., is that it's defined by the person on the receiving end. And some people are just more sensitive then others."

I didn't mind it at first, what bothered me was that it got to the stage where my Scottishness got mentioned in every second reply from some people (ie Della) and it was getting increasingly nasty. Ironically, Frogbit had barely mentioned it, but what bothered me was that I asked him to stop and then he defended it and insisted racism is only about skin colour and any abuse based on nationality is fair game. Sorry, but I don't subscribe to that. I'm glad to see a few researchers here agree with me.

"A letter in the guardian today points out that the phoine conversations presented by Colin powell sound like nothing so much as a Iraqi version of the Navy Lark - 'This super truck I've got...' 'You mean that supertruck you haven't got...' 'Yes I have.' 'No, I think you'll find you haven't.' 'It's parked outside. I can see it through the window...'

Try it with Jon Pertwee/Kenneth Williams voices... "



Of course, the Americans might simply have tuned into "Round the Gulf"

I *still* haven't taken a look at Powell's "evidence", but I think the reaction to it was summed up beautifully by Britain's top two tabloid newspapers - The Mirror (anti war) "This Evidence Is Not Good Enough", The Sun (pro-war) (Cute picture of Saddam and Osama side by side) "The Evidence We Need". Let's face it, a lot of people decided whether the evidence was true or not before they even saw it .

On the subject of Al-Quaida, it seems British intelligence has found no link. Give that our Secret Service is a) apparently more honest and b) ten times better than the Cretin Intelligence Agency, we can assume that this link looks pretty bleak.

"Again you miss the item that singles out North Korea for attention; they welched on a deal. Mr Clinton brokered a deal whereby North Korea would dump its weapons programs for a ton of cold hard cash. The cash was delivered (US or UN, I don’t know), and the Koreans have said "Thanks... start up the reactors again.""

Something to remember, though, is that NK only started up it's program again after Bush and mad-dog Rumsfeld had started piling on the pressure. Given that 1) North Korea has never been known to sponsor terrorism (it's done kidnapping of Japanese civilians, mind) and as a communist state, certainly not islamic fundamentalist terrorism and 2) The North and South were entering dialogue for the first time in ages, the Americans "diplomacy" was as irresponsible as it was stupid. If the North had restarted it's program, say, two years ago then you'd have had a point.

oh on the question of if the US were to pull out and wash our hands of the mess would the PM press on or would he back off...I don't think he would really have a choice...from what I heard he sent 38000 troops to the area and that was 1/4th of the British Military...no matter if he wanted to or not the UK just doesn't have enough military might to do it on it's own


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"...NK only started up it's program again after Bush and mad-dog Rumsfeld had started piling on the pressure..." - where did you get that from?

As I understand, in Oct 2002 the US revealed the NK had restarted its program. How long that program has been in place is unclear, at least to me and my amateur web-searches. NK signed the non-proliferation treaty in 1994, and has welched on that deal.

What pressure was Bush applying that changed this?

"would the PM press on or would he back off...I don't think he would really have a choice...from what I heard he sent 38000 troops to the area and that was 1/4th of the British Military...no matter if he wanted to or not the UK just doesn't have enough military might to do it on it's own"

I raised this point with Geoff. Is Blair really committed or just obeying Washington? The crunch would come, of course, if Bush suddenly changed his mind. Since this is very unlikely to happen we won't know.

Incidentally, I see "against the war" France have sent an aircraft carrier and warplanes down to the Gulf. Presumably, M. Chirac is going to U-turn once more.

well the opinon that I saw in today's morning paper was that France will wait to the last posible moment to change it's mind


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"As I understand, in Oct 2002 the US revealed the NK had restarted its program. How long that program has been in place is unclear, at least to me and my amateur web-searches. NK signed the non-proliferation treaty in 1994, and has welched on that deal."

I didn't know NK had signed a non-proliferation treaty . I can see this is a complicated point, but my instinct is that the US is dealing with this the wrong way. NK is a stalinist joke-state run by a bunch of jumped-up idiots, but it's not Iraq. It's not used WMD, not attacked anyone since the 1950s, and as far as I know it's only major humanitarian crisis is hunger, due to the failure of the governments agricultural policy.

"What pressure was Bush applying that changed this?"

He named NK as a member of the "axis of evil" that he claimed supported terrorism. This was an indication that his policy towards NK would become more hostile.

"In short, the more information the US hands over now, the less they'll be able to gather in the future, and not merely from Iraq, but from anyone else who gets a better idea of what the CIA and NSA are capable of."

I see the old weak excuses have come back. I'm surprised it wasn't used sooner.

app as you say weak but it does make sense


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Apparition, if it's so weak, then you'll doubtless have no trouble dashing off a perfectly reasoned explanation of the flaws in such a doctrine which will have the world's entire intelligence community slapping their foreheads in disbelief at their stupidity. Or not, if you prefer: I've no idea how smart you are, but my money's on Turing et al to beat you hands down on this one.

Mycroft,
Ouch. Such a brutal rebuttal. Heh
The problem is that the "revelation of sources & methods is bad" argument does as much to help the conspiracy theorists as anyone else.

There's a balance to be struck between presenting the known evidence and witholding it to preserve the source. This balance is at the heart of the problem... either present the evidence and thus reveal the source, or preserve the source for the future and fail to take advantage of the information now.

It's a real dilemma. What I will say is that anyone who doesn't acknowledge this dilemma isn't dealing with the real world.

Mycroft,
As has been pointed out elsewhere, the information could be given to Hans Blix in confidence. This would apply to information gleaned from informers or secret surveillance. In the case of data from spy satellites, there is no reason to hide the source as the Iraqis are well aware of this.

As to whether we should apply the principle of assumption of innocence, I think it's a bit draconian to say that the Iraqi people were, after Desert Storm, sentenced to the threat of renewed bombing attacks for perpetuity. If you accept this draconian view, as I'm sure GW Bush does, your logic may be valid, but it's morally indefensible. The defendent is threatened with a new sentence, so I think he and, more to the point, the Iraqi people are entitled to a new trial.

I am an atheist myself, but I believe GW Bush and Tony Blair claim to be Christians. I wish they would comply with the message, that I think is hard to improve upon, attributed to Jesus of Nazareth, that can be found summarised in Romans 12:9-21, especially the last verse: "Do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good" (New International Version). Unfortunately, Bush & Blair won't follow this advice, because they are hypocrites.

If the West is to claim the moral high ground, it should comply with these standards. The rest of the world sees us accuse Saddam of low moral standards, sees that our own standards are themselves rock-bottom, and concludes that we are not people to be trusted.

Dry.

That's exactly the situation as I understood it. In fact, the US welched on the deal.

Geoff Taylor, if you ask MS Word to save the file as text, then copy from the text version, the characters should appear OK.

Dry.

"Incidentally, I see "against the war" France have sent an aircraft carrier and warplanes down to the Gulf. Presumably, M. Chirac is going to U-turn once more."


I know what I would like to see the French do with their fire power, but I doubt they'll do it: invade Iraq under the pretext of protecting their national, commercial interests, before the US does. The US have used this excuse to send troops to Honduras, Nicaragua etc.

"Something to remember, though, is that NK only started up it's program again after Bush and mad-dog Rumsfeld had started piling on the pressure. Given that 1) North Korea has never been known to sponsor terrorism (it's done kidnapping of Japanese civilians, mind) and as a communist state, certainly not islamic fundamentalist terrorism and 2) The North and South were entering dialogue for the first time in ages, the Americans "diplomacy" was as irresponsible as it was stupid. If the North had restarted it's program, say, two years ago then you'd have had a point."


The claim by the US of terrorism links with NK is because NK supplies weapons to countries the US doesn't like. The recent interception of SCUD missiles in the middle east is one example. As with everything else, it's a one-way argument.

"On the subject of Al-Quaida, it seems British intelligence has found no link. Give that our Secret Service is a) apparently more honest and b) ten times better than the Cretin Intelligence Agency, we can assume that this link looks pretty bleak."


Zagreb, we seem to be in agreement. What are the chances of that!? Better buy a lottery ticket....


Talking of the CIA, and remembering Reagan's reaction to the Iran-Contra affair (denying all knowledge), do you think Saddam could try the same ploy? It hasn't worked for Milosevic, but Reagan got away with it. But then again, Reagan wasn't ever tried in the Hague....

North Korea signed the treaty to disarm and refrain from developing nuclear technology with the promise that the U.S. would help them with the building of nuclear reactors in the future. This has not happened... and they signed it in 1994, right? It's been nine years and nobody's done squat. If North Korea gets most of its electricity from burning oil, then they're in big trouble because of the hiked up prices... and don't forget that Bush Sr. with the Carlyle group has met with South Korea, probably as a mediator to negotiate an oil deal with the bin Laden family. North Korea just wants a little slice of the pie. They want independence from foreign oil! I don't blame them, personally.

Dryopithecus... Now, just because the Net says it's true, doesn't mean it is. Many of the facts I've read in the past week are echoed in different sources, and some of those sources are pretty reliable. One of the pages I listed as a link mentioned Prescott Bush, who in the 1940's worked for a company that was owned by a company... etc... that supplied iron and other materials to Nazi Germany. While the information about the company is accurate, we shouldn't blame Prescott Bush for the selling of these materials to Germany - there's no evidence. But the page mentioned it as a 'war crime.' I think that a lot of these things are true, but I wouldn't go believing ME just because. Look it up for yourself and make your own decisions.

As for the bin Laden family, they regard Osama as the black sheep. This is why I said it's a festival for conspiracy theorists - on one side, we have Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, which forbids any sort of drug production, and on the other side we have the United States and the bin Laden family, supporting the Afghans (who get much of their revenue from drug production.) Does Osama harbor enmity against the U.S. because his family condones U.S. involvement in foreign affairs, and he has broken away from his family and all it stands for? Is this his secret motivation? Or is it really all based on ideals?

Oh, and as for racism/ethnocentrism. I will not tolerate any origin-based insults. I'm Scotch-Irish, Norman-French-English, and a little bit of Cherokee, so lay off. Resorting to insults to make a point destroys your credibility.

"In short, the more information the US hands over now, the less they'll be able to gather in the future, and not merely from Iraq, but from anyone else who gets a better idea of what the CIA and NSA are capable of."

It's a matter of boundaries. Nobody seems to realize that this isn't the U.S.'s problem - or it wasn't until Bush Jr. decided it was. It's the UN's problem, and it's up to the UN to decide whether to share it with the rest of the world. Telling Hans Blix was the U.S.'s responsibility.

Yeah, it's a weak excuse. It worked for LBJ, but it's gotten more flaccid over the years.