Comments interspersed below.....

> -----Original Message-----
> From: piclist-bounces@mit.edu 
> [mailto:piclist-bounces@mit.edu] On Behalf Of Russell McMahon
> Sent: 31 May 2006 15:22
> To: Microcontroller discussion list - Public.
> Subject: Re: Re: What is evil ? was: [OT] Who would you choose ?
> 
> 
> > The air photo "evidence" link is particularly offensive to me.
> 
> I too looked at the links page and didn't like the "air evidence" 
> material. That said, the site should arguably largely be judged on 
> it's own content rather than links, although I'm also not certain how 
> good the rest is. It seems a shame that they have provided exerpts 
> from speeches and addresses rather than full text of everything 
> available. While they may be seeking to do what they claim 
> they do not 
> seem to be a scholarly site per se. Worth knowing about though.

I'd disagree and take the view that the links a web page owner includes in
his site are included because he/she feel they are worthy of inclusion. If
you accept that argument, then surely, given the sort of stuff he links to,
does that not call into question his stated aims?

> 
> I pesonally suspect, based on what *seemed* to be very good material 
> by a reputable researcher, that the figures for jewish war dead from 
> all causes was somewhat lower than the traditional figure. It doesn't 
> bother me too much whether it was 1, 2 or 6 million dead Jews - it's 
> still absolutely beyond conception or any shade of justification. 
> Arguably if a nation 'exterminated' people in the hundreds to say a 
> few thousands range then it *MIGHT* be explained away by the excesses 
> of the day - such things happen in war, ugly as it may be. The US has 
> eg My Lai and a smaller scale recent incident (jury still out) and no 
> doubt various others where civilians have been totally improperly 
> killed. It happens. War is ugly. War is often (if not always) 
> illegally carried out. The strictest possible steps should be 
> taken to 
> ensure that such things are prevented, but they will always happen 
> regardless. BUT,when you get to say 10,000 civilian dead, let alone 
> 100,000 or 1,000,000 or 6,000,000 there has been a total systems 
> failure by the nation concerned. Rwanda, Cambodia, Sudan, Ex 
> Yugoslavian states, ... . And many more alas.
> 
> Conversely, I believe that the figure for Russian war dead is 
> probably 
> higher than traditionally published. A figure of up to 30 
> million dead 
> (civilian and military)(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)  is oft 
> enough given BUT I think a figure of more like 50 million is 
> liable to 
> be closeer to reality. The communists wished to place a better 
> impression on things post war and reality tended to take a rear seat. 
> Not ata all uncommon in most regimes of course. The behaviour of the 
> Russians when they finally over-ran Germany was utterly 
> appalling. But 
> at least understandable if not able to be condoned if the 
> figure of 50 
> million dead is true - about 1/4 to 1/3 of all Russians at the time.
> 
> > ... Don't the Germans & Austrians have a law against Holocaust
> > denial?
> > Maybe every country should
> 
> They do. I feel that the Germans are if anything too keen to enforce 
> this - but I can certainly understand why they would be.
> 

I don't see anything *too* bad about this. If one tries to rationalise the
State sponsered mass murder (as opposed to combat deaths) of millions of
people, or worse deny it happened, then surely you are setting the stage for
it to happen again. Is it not better to nip it in the bud & educate people
as the Germans are trying to do? You are still going to get extremists in
any country, but the ideas will not take root & flourish in the bulk of the
population as they did back then.

Anyway enough about this & back to PICS.

Joe


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