At 04:33 PM 10/8/2001 -0700, you wrote:
> > -----Original Message----- > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On > > Behalf Of Gautam Mukunda > >[snip] > > > It is, of course, impossible to provide. One of the basic rules > > of logic is > > that it is impossible to prove a negative. It is literally impossible to > > prove that no US weapons hit _any_ civilian targets. > >Let me preface the following by saying that I would hope that I would >respond thus no matter *who* wrote that... It is *logically* possible, >though difficult, to account for every bomb and the damage it did. I >suspect you are thinking of the principle that it is impossible to prove the >non-existence of a thing. The bombs exist and their effects are measurable. >I pick a nit mostly because of the story it reminded me of. > >My friend Dan Ryder (call sign "Mad Dog" or "Pazzo Cane," when he was based >in Italy), who, when I said we were working on a library for Sarajevo that >"couldn't be bombed," corrected me by saying, no, it would just be very >difficult. This was during the Bosnian conflict, when I was involved >creating a digital library that would reside on servers in various parts of >the world, after Sarajevo's library was destroyed. Dan, who was vp of my >company, was a former Navy attack pilot with more than 1,000 carrier >arrests, which fewer than 100 guys had ever done at the time. <snipped> > >Nick your friend is absolutely right; anything can be bombed if the attackers are willing to pay the price. btw, just to nitpick a bit ;-), when a Naval Aviator (please don't call them pilots) lands aboard a carrier, that is called a "trap", not an arrest. however, the cables stretched across the after part of the flight deck are called "arresting gear". john (flight deck troubleshooter, VAW-121 aboard USS Eisenhower, 1979-1980)
