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From: jmt@ecsvax.UUCP (Jerry M. Trott)
Newsgroups: net.followup,net.flame
Subject: Re: Terrorism and TWA 847
Message-ID: <1536@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 27-Jun-85 13:41:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: ecsvax.1536
Posted: Thu Jun 27 13:41:52 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 29-Jun-85 01:08:19 EDT
References: <600003@ur-univax.UUCP> <518@hou2g.UUCP> <1072@ihuxb.UUCP> <925@houxf.UUCP>
Reply-To: jmt@ecsvax.UUCP (Jerry M. Trott)
Organization: NC Educational Computing Service
Lines: 19
Xref: watmath net.followup:5030 net.flame:10845

>->   Actually, the Adolph Hitler principle states that you should kill
>->ten of "their" people for each one of "ours".  It didn't work for him
>->(and believe me he did enough experimentation to find out), but maybe
>->we can improve on his mistakes.
>->
>->H. Reza Taheri
>->
>
>Don't credit Hitler with this policy, the Romans instituted it much earlier
>and that's how we got the word "decimate".
  
Actually the word decimate means 'one in ten', not 'ten for one'.
If a Roman military unit broke or ran, they would later be lined up and
every tenth man killed.  While I imagine the Romans had their own
unique ways of dealing with problems with the local population,
decimation was reserved for the military.  
  
                          Jerry Trott
                          jmt@ecsvax