[OT] Cr*ppy Belgium

[Thermodyne]

Let’s see how much you guys really know. Which 10 countries export the most arms? Not so quick, Aircraft sales are not to be counted, and costal patrol ships don’t count either. They are very big ticket items, and tend to distort the big picture.

Next, who are the five largest exporters of ballistic missiles?

Then let’s ask who are the five largest exporters of anti shipping missiles?

And just for fun, who manufactured the majority of the land mines that are responsible for the death toll in Asia? Bosnia?

[Puke]

i would be much happier in a world without cigarettes, than in a world without anti personnel mines. it just happens to be very popular at the moment, to disaprove of AP mines.

for a while it was popular to disaprove of DU tank rounds, because the uranium vaporizes as it sheers through tank hulls, and the particulate matter gets into the air, food, and water, causing cancer and radiation sickness in nearby villagers.

for a while, it was popular to disaprove of cluster bombs, because their submunitions dont always explode, and their paper packaging looks just like the packaging on air-dropped food supplies.

for a while, it was popular to disaprove of ethnic clea.. oh wait, thats still bad.

we have developed battlefield lasers that can shoot down missiles and planes, and attack targets on the ground. sounds slick, but the refracted energy from them tends to burn the corneas of happless civilians within a radius of a couple miles. while weapons designed to blind people are specifically prohibited by the Geneva Convention, lasers are not. we put that provision in there because we knew we were in the process of developing lasers that would BLIND BYSTANDARDS as far back as 60 years ago.

The basic truth of the matter, is that war is hell. and its in mankinds blood to wage war. these truths are not about to change. we have set up some basic rules of engagement regarding the kinds of things that are "foul play," and this may eventually extend to AP mines.

but even the things we Banned over half a century ago, are being stockpiled "just in case" and are being sold to "lesser" countries for their petty conflicts that fall outside of the jurisdiction of the "big boys" like civil war in South America. NATO does not give a ****. they dont give a **** about the Congo, either.

we will happily sell those guys whatever nasty stuff they want to buy, because their not in our little club. so we keep making the biological weapons. and the chemical weapons. and sometimes, we do the nasty things our selves. we were not attacking military targets in Dresden or Tokyo, but the firebombings had a strategic objective.

you can express your outrage, but you will only frustrate yourself unless you actually make an effort to understand the motives behind the things people do. no one is making weapons for the express purpose of being evil. there is a method to all of it. you can disagree, but you have to realize that its there.

[Puke]

Originally posted by Thermodyne:
Let’s see how much you guys really know.

You know, Thermodyne, I honestly dont know. I know that the US, Russia, and France all export alot, but the items from the US and Russia are probably more big ticket items. I know that France sells alot of missiles, and Fabrique Nationale exports alot of smallarms.

I also know that China is a HUGE arms producer and exporter, and I am pretty sure that the Ukraine is too. I know that ammunition is manufactured in all sorts of odd places, I bought some bulk lots of 7mm Mauser ammo from Columbia, a couple years ago. are you seperating Ammo from Munitions?

Germany and Austria both produce alot of arms, but I dont know how much they actually export. Japan has a very well armed "National Defense Force," but I dont think they are in the business of selling weapons.

I have some spanish swords, but I dont think those count. the UK builds some nice tanks, and their own fare share of smallarms, but again, I dont know how many actually get sold.

honestly, your question is far to specific to test anyones real knowledge of anything, and looking up statistics is not high on my list of things to do right now. but I would be interested in hearing the answer, and whatever conclusions you feel like drawing from that answer.

[DavidG]

Originally posted by Sinapus:
A guess. So I was wrong and you do have objections to the manufacture of automobiles? My sincere apologies.

Oooo aren't you clever. You got me. Give yourself a pat on the back. Yes land mines are just like automobiles.

I will now retreat from these politcal threads and go back to the game threads were people are actually friendly.

[Phoenix-D]

"Hmm, yes I see. The atombomb over Nagasaki and Hiroshima didn't kill people, it was the one dropping the bomb who killed people."

You're not following. Civilians tend to stay the hell -away- from warzones when possible, and anyone who is blindly running around one tends to have problems aside from mines.

EDIT: speaking of which, I have to ask again why it's always Hiroshima that pops up? Why not, oh, the firebombing of the other Japanease cities, or the bombings of various European cities?

Once the shooting stops, then you have the problem with the mines. Because unlike other weapons they just sit there.

"(In US many says " it's not guns whoo kill people, people kill people", yeah, five year olds who find's their dad's gun!)"

Total number of deaths in the US:
2,391,399
Deaths by firearms, all causes:
28663

One percent; the majority of people killed were in the 15-29 range for men and 30-44 for women. Not exactly an epidepmic of 5- year olds getting killed.

Phoenix-D

[ February 13, 2003, 22:57: Message edited by: Phoenix-D ]

[minipol]

Originally posted by Sinapus:
Unexploded shells from a past war are still being found in France, IIRC. That past war being the Great War. AKA World War I, or "The War to End all Wars"... (Of course, I could be mistaken and the supply of unexploded shells found in French fields for the past few years might now be solely from the 2nd World War, but I hope someone gets the point.)

France? What about Belgium? We still find almost 200 tons a year of shells both conventional and chemical shells. Imagine. We are 2003 yet our fields are still full of them. And shells are not all we find: guns, bunkers, trenches, shelters, grenades, shoes, bullets and so on.
A friend of mine collects stuff from wwi and he once found a pair of shoes, with the feet still in there (decayed).

Whenever they start a rather big construction in the region of Ypres (where a lot of English soldiers where stationed and full of graveyards), they almost always bump into some forgotten trench or some other find that dates back to WWI. I mean we find a lot more stuff from WWI than we do from WWII. Might be logical because the frontlines didn't move that much here in the 4 years the war Lasted.
Almost every year a farmer dies when plowing his field because of a shell that hits the plow and explodes.
When my wife was little she was playing with small artillery shells that she and her sister had dug up in the backyard of the garden of her grandmother. Unexploded ones. Of course they where too heavy to lift. Imagine that. If they would have exploded, nothing would have been left of her. So in that respect, they might be as leathal as mines.
We even needed to build a special factory to clean up all the bombs and shells.

From WWII what we find most of the time is big bombs that where dropped by planes.
So Belgium is nice but you might want to check where you walk.

[edit for yet another spelling mistake]

[ February 13, 2003, 23:03: Message edited by: minipol ]

[Sinapus]

Originally posted by Puke:
for a while, it was popular to disaprove of cluster bombs, because their submunitions dont always explode, and their paper packaging looks just like the packaging on air-dropped food supplies.

Actually, the packaging is shaped very differently. The color of the so-called identical items was the same. (Finally found an image comparison in one of the US is evil sites.) Either that was a training round, or someone decided to make the submunitions a bright color so they could be easier to find by EOD teams.

Which probably proves the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" cliche.