Nick: 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.
Me: But it isn't. The only way to _prove_ the negative (that not a single civilian was harmed by the attacks) is to track every single civilian _in the entire world_ until the end of time, and find out (with certainty) the exact cause of their deaths, taking into account second and third and nth order effects. That would be a proof, but it's clearly impossible. Now, what you mean is, can we demonstrate to a reasonable level of certainty that no civilians were injured. Even that is exceptionally difficult - a civilian might have been in the building, for example. How do you know that he or she wasn't? How can you demonstrate that with total certainty? Can you track every single piece of shrapnel from the bomb? Every shock wave? Every person distracted who got into a car crash? That's why it's not possible to prove that no civilians were killed by the bombings, while it certainly is possible to prove that a civilian _was_ killed, if one was. Just show us the body. Gautam
