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December 20, 2006
Comment on todays post
For the first time since I started writing this blog I am declining to post a comment. It is a comment posted against the post I put up this morning and it is so clearly driven by the propagandists vision of the Middle East that I cannot, in conscience, publish it. I hold to the position that Israel has the right to exist and to defend itself against aggression. That is the basic right of any nation state. I do not agree with some of the actions the Israeli government has taken, but I can well understand the provocation that underlies it.
By the same token I cannot and will not support the fundamentalist approach espoused by Hamas, Hizbollah and al Qaeda. I therefore apologise to any reader who feels that I should support the Palestinian "victims" in their war of terror and attrition. I will not support any state funded terrorist organisation since this is merely to endorse the fighting of wars of territory by proxy. Iran, Syria, Saudi and the other states sponsoring the purchase of bombs guns and bullets for Hamas and Hizbollah terrorists to use are fighting an undeclared war through their proxy dupes and victims, the Palestinian people, in the hope that this will hand them greater power and a 'victory' over the hated West.
I do not support the funding of terror groups by any state, my own, the US, the USSR or anyone else, and I will not support the war in the Middle East currently being fought by terror groups on behalf of the Islamic dictatorships and their ambitions of world domination.
Yes, I am practicing censorship - but it is my Blog, and I will not be used to spread vicious propaganda on behalf of anyone's cause.
Posted by The Gray Monk at December 20, 2006 02:21 PM
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Comments
Re lead clogging rifling: military bullets are generally jacketed. IIRC, the Geneva Convention says they have to be fully jacketed. Of course guerillas and terrorists, plus many nations, aren't legally bound by that, but still....
Re trajectory: I don't know for sure, but would ass-u-me that the substitute materials have a roughly similar, if not greater, density, so as to preserve ballistic performance.
Agreed on pretty much everything else.
(Disclaimer: I work for BAE, albeit in a completely different line.)
Posted by: Dave Aronson at December 20, 2006 02:54 PM
I have deleted comments since I do not have a moderation on them. It is your blog. Feel free to do as you wish.
Posted by: vw bug at December 21, 2006 12:12 AM
You are correct, and most munitions are jacketed - except as you rightly point out, where they have been modified to provide a "soft" point. My reference to the lead exposure is a rather facetious one I confess, since the lead is hardly the killer in most cases. Its the damage done by high velocity rounds tearing the target's innards apart that generally does it.
Interestingly, it has long been recognised that killing an enemy is far less efficient as a means of attrition, than wounding. Wounded soldiers have to be retrieved and treated, using up valuable assets and tying down a lot of resources. They are also very much worse for morale than dead ones.
War is not clinical or clean - as anyone who has ever been confronted with the need to kill or be killed knows. And all the conventions, treaties and campaigns for disarmament will never stop it. Sad, but then that seems to be an inbuilt factor of the human race.
Posted by: The Gray Monk at December 21, 2006 01:17 PM