Re: [dvd-discuss] Re: Sen. Hollings plans tointroduceDMCAsequel :The SSSCA

[Jeme A Brelin <jeme(at)brelin.net>]

On Wed, 12 Sep 2001, John Zulauf wrote:
> Understanding that I may be misunderstanding you utterly I must
> dissent.

I'm pretty sure you understood me correctly.

> The implication of that statement is that if a nation were to attack
> the United States and can get back across their border before we react
> then we have no right to pursue them as that would involve entering a
> foreign nation.

That's an intentional implication.

> So, would you have stopped WWII at the German border and Iwo Jima?  

Absolutely.  The destruction of those nation's infrastructure and the
long-standing occupation forces thereafter were the basis for modern US
hegemony abroad.

> What if Iraq were to buy surplus nuclear/biological/chemical armed
> SS-19's and fire one of them at New York.

Hopefully, our newly concentrated defensive forces would stop such
missiles in flight.  At that point, we can change our diplomatic stance
toward that country.

But such diplomatic changes should be necessarily once-removed.  That is
to say, we shouldn't change our diplomatic stance with every nation that
doesn't cotton to our way of treating Iraq.

> Your statement would preclude any action to destroy any unfired
> missles in Iraqi territory.

There's no end to that kind of thinking.  They're factories could be used
to build more weapons.  Their farms could grow food for soldiers.  Their
schools could be training commandos.  That's not our call to make.

This is the thinking that makes us ban software instead of criminalizing
the USE of said software.

Those unfired missiles are the property of a foreign, sovereign nation and
it is not our right to destroy them.  While we may have a very good idea
what they are going to be used for, we are not the judge and jury of
foreigners and their property.

Once they are launched and clear Iraqi airspace, it's a different story.

> Might doesn't make right, but self defense is moral.

Self-defense doesn't involve agression.  I'm not going to stop you from
taking boxing lessons just because I know you want to beat me up.

J.
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     Jeme A Brelin
    jeme@brelin.net
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