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Re: Every spam is sacred



On Thu, 12 Jun 2003 20:21, Mathieu Roy wrote:
> This is called terrorism. You fight innocent people to make them
> support another ISP, by fear.

I think it's more like economic sanctions.  No-one changes ISP out of fear, 
they do so out of a practical desire to get their mail delivered.  Just as 
governments sometimes change their policy out of a practical desire to get 
their products exported when they face sanctions.

> Like a Ben Laden would kill 3000 innocent people to make the USA
> government change his policy in Africa.
> (indeed, I'm not saying that killing someone is equal to squish his
> mails)

Bin Laden's stated aim was to get the US bases removed from Saudi Arabia, I 
don't recall him making an issue out of Africa.  As the bases in question 
will apparently be moved to Iraq it seems that he is getting what he wants.

> We're definitely in the era of "collateral damage" (term invented
> during the Gulf War in 1999 about Iraqi citizens, if I'm correct) but
> I'm not sure we should be glad of it.

See the snippet from `dict "collateral damage"` below.  It seems that the term 
has been in use for a long time (it was also widely used in the cold war).

     {collateral damage}, (Mil.) damage caused by a military
        operation, such as a bombing, to objects or persons not
        themselves the intended target of the attack.
        [1913 Webster +PJC]

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