--- Jorpho <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Not really. > > > > To answer your question, they did. Early studies showed some iritation, > but > > did not suggest long term affects. If they had then thousands of US > > servicemen could have and would have suied the US governemnt and won. All > of > > the suits that have gone through have been on lack of treatment BTW. > > > > We have done the same thing many times. Asbestose was widely used up > unitl > > 1980. > > > > Led until the mid 70s. > > > > Gasolen aditives that were in high use in California and were actualy > > required by law to reduce polution have been found to be high cancer > causing. > > > > Should the senators who voted for the use of these be tried for War > Crimes? > > > > There was a time that the tobaco industry did not know what harm cigarets > > cause. We now know that someone sitting next to you smoking a cigaret is > > poinsining you. > > > > Should we arest every smoker for a War Crime? > > > > This is exactly why the US is staying out of the ICC. The regulations are > not > > sufficient to guarentee that they will not be abused. > > Actually, there still aren't very many tobacco executives who would > willingly state that their product harms people, are there?
No, but that has nothing to do with the fact that at one point no one knew, and there is no basis for punishing them for something that no one even knew to test for. Moder execs are another matter. Still this is not a "war crime" > One might argue that the Vietnamese were not using herbicides so > extensively > at the time, and certainly never asked to have it forced upon them in such > quantities. Which Vietnamese would that be? > And aren't such chemicals now subjected to long-term studies > before being approved? Yea, guess why. > (It is tempting to ask who the US government was purchasing herbicides from > and what they got in exchange.) That's crazy talk and you know it. If you are going to see a conspiricy behind everything then we can really get into the European Union's plan to take over the whole world. ICC Personaly I see the ICC as a step twards European federalization. I think that is a good thing for Europe, but not for the States. It's too much too fast. Let Europe federalize first and learn what the difficulties of such a system are. We have had over 200 years of federalization. We know very well what it takes to keep it together, what workes and what does not work. It is very frightening to be asked to join a new type of federalization which suffers from some of the issues we have already fixed. Especialy when some of these took over 100 years. The Idea of one world governemnt is a good one, but Europe is behind the game in federalization. They have lessons to learn and solutions to find. The US, with some positive, some negative experience is here as a refernce. You guys may make simmilar choices, or different ones. Some day it may make sense to combine Europe and the US legal or otherwise, and this will probably just happen gradualy over time anyway. But in the mean time we are not yet prepared to join a fledgling federalization, chriminal system or otherwise. What you will learn is that federal chriminal law is a very fragile creature. The only reason that our system works is becouse we have seperate bodies of governemnt. Legislative making the laws, Executive inforcing the laws, and Judicial judging the law in practice. Each of these branches is equaly as powerful. Without such a system federalization of criminal (or other) law would have too many issues to be maintainable. There is a three sided system of checks and balances. Sure this makes things move slowly. We may know that one thing or another is broken, but we also know that slaping on a solution is going to break something else. It is a natural system (if your a proggrammer, spegetti code) and it has to be that way. Why? becouse if it were any other way it would resemble the facism or communism or totalitarianism that failed in the last century. It means that as a body we make some decisions that seem silly, or ill-informed, but it also means that we maintain personal freedom and national freedom. Very few are subjected to tyrany. We work out our issues in a peacefull and controled manner, we come to natural solutions, they may not allways be the best possible at the time, but over time they do work themseleves out. We make few quick decicsion, but when we do decide it generaly produces and improvement. If not, then it quickly perculates through one branch of the other (whichever is the most natural) and is corrected. Curently we are dealing with one issue which exemplifies this. Medicianl mariwana is legal in California, but it is illegal Federaly. We are dealing with issues of States rights and just how local we want laws to be determined. The State refuses to inforce the federal law. The inforcements that have happened are likely to go to the suppream court. As did row-wade (abortion) and several issues on raceism. Another thing is that our government today is not the same government we had 20 years ago. It changes. This is sometimes hard for others to understand. You may blame the US governement for some small decision made 30 or 40 years ago, and we will recognize it. It is nothing new. We are constantly metating our governemnt to make it better, it does not supprise us that the governement of the past did something we find distastefull today. But it doesn't bother us either if we have already fixed it. At the same time we know that the gerneral structure is sound becouse things do continue to get better. We get iritated whith the same critisims from the outside that we ourselves make from the inside. We hold this same iritation to chritsizm from the inside from individuals who don't vote. For the general average American to be satisfied with the ICC we would have to have a simmilar system with 3 equaly powerful branches. Further we would have to have equal (by population not by state) democratic control over who manned the positions of such a governement. We would also have to know that Europe (and others) had partaken in a federal system which had matured to a resonalble point. The ICC is not as mature as we beleive it needs to be, and many of us think that it is this distinct lack of experience in federalization which causes it. At this time none of this is being done. Therefore THE PEOPLE of american are not going to approve of our governement agreeing to something such as the ICC. Our government knowns this and they know that if they were to agree to it that the people would simply elect someone else. Don't think that we are insulting Europe or others by saying that they do not have the experience we do, it is not an insult. The countries of Europe and elsewhere have existed for longer, and we in fact come from all of these countries. Most of us still have pride in our origins and talk about the better parts of differnt cultures. We have a lot of respect and pride in other countires and peoples, but we have a lot of self respect and pride becouse we came from and ~are~ all of these peoples. And yes we think our way is better. And we also think that it is obvious. We are arogant becouse of what we have done. We are the outsiders, the lost, the shuned, the exiled, the escaped, the opressed, the tierd and hungry and we have risen to the top. Our ancestors were correct when they told your ancestors that their way was better, and now we have prooven that it is in fact better. Your ancestors shuned ours and now look what we have acomplished. I'm sure that does piss you off, but you know if you were smart it wouldn't. If you were smart you would recognize it for what it is. France did for a while. We don't expect every other country to be a carbon copy of the US, that would be a shame and it would be boring. But we do expect others to recognize when we have made some better decisions, some need to grow up and stop acting like children. In my tribe there is a folkeway that allows for a child to take a new name when they become an adult. After that, expression they are treated as an adult. Before that expression they are treated as children. I think the US is waiting for some countries to step up and be adults. This is probably cuase for much anti-americanism. But you know what, we as a people are use to it. That's why our ancestors left your countries in the first place. The ICC is a good idea. Just not for the US, not yet. ===== _________________________________________________ Jan William Coffey _________________________________________________ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com [Sponsored by:] _____________________________________________________________________________ The newest lyrics on the Net! http://lyrics.astraweb.com Click NOW!