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From: bill@persci.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Bombs as political weaponry
Message-ID: <325@persci.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 6-Aug-85 14:20:22 EDT
Article-I.D.: persci.325
Posted: Tue Aug  6 14:20:22 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 12-Aug-85 01:43:41 EDT
References: <13700006@orstcs.UUCP>
Reply-To: bill@persci.UUCP (William Swan)
Organization: Personal Scientific, Woodinville WA
Lines: 23

In article <13700006@orstcs.UUCP> richardt@orstcs.UUCP (richardt) writes:
>Within the past few weeks there have been a number of postings about the 
>Atomic bomb.  Several of these have been debating the morality of the first
>atomic bombs dropped on Japan.  One basic flaw runs through them all, and
>many other bomb related articles on the net. Most people are not aware of the
>following simple fact:
>
>*** A bomb is not a military weapon.  Rather, it is a political weapon. ***
>
>A bomb is not designed to take territory (the basic goal of all wars), but is
>intended to demoralize the population while *maybe* destroying installations
>useful to the enemy. [...]

"richardt" is right, generally, but I would like to point out that the bomb
is really just a tool, usable in many ways. I do not believe that Pearl
Harbor was just an attempt to demoralize a population, but rather an attempt
to gain a significant military advantage by destroying much of the opposing
weaponry. (Remember: Pearl Harbor was *not* intended to be a "sneak attack".)

Or, to put it another way, guns, tanks, airplanes, missiles, etc, all do not
take territory...
-- 
William Swan  {ihnp4,decvax,allegra,...}!uw-beaver!tikal!persci!bill