The above reading makes me think about a world where we would not need all that weaponry. Wow! It will be nice.

Kaiser Willhelm
Hitler
Stalin
Mao
Tojo
Kim IL Sung
Terrorists

What no Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot, Ghenghis Khan, Attilla the Hun, Alexander the Great Bully, the Saracen Hordes, the Rwandan Genocide, etc -- all probably responsible for large massacres too. My point: a lot of weaponry of specific eras were required to both accomplish these massacres and to stop them. The existence of such weapons adds the means of accomplishing such atrocities.

Ugh Carol, and to think that's only the US tally of ocean dumping. The old Soviet Union no doubt has time bombs ticking who knows where, I believe it was standard practice to scuttle old nuke reactor subs out at sea. This is only the military, can't imagine what private industry has dumped in the oceans during the chemical revolution. Cheap, quick, quiet, well hidden.

I'm not real surprised. Until environmental management was made part of the official mission, no one in the military cared about such things. No one did any planning for it, no one required it, no one was held accountable, it was real easy to dump crap and not worry about it.

Years ago, I was sent to do wetlands evaluation at a Texas NAS (Naval Air Station) that had been inherited from the Air Force a few years before. This is one that dated to WWII. The environmental folks told me the place was toxic and none of it had been documented - stuff was just dumped and buried all over the place and no one had kept track - no one cared back then. Worrying over trash would get you in trouble faster than just following orders.

They were doing extensive remediation to remove PCB's, fuel, and worse which was creeping into the nearby residential watertable. They were literally afraid to move a spade of dirt - had to have hazmat suits when excavating simple waterlines and ditches. They couldn't afford to BRAC the place due to the cleanup costs.

This is unfortunately the tip of the iceberg of don't ask don't tell contamination.

Also I remember that not too many years back some European nation/s required the dumping at sea of vehicules 5 years old or older. I wonder if they drained fluids first and removed batteries at least.

This situation reminds me of today's CO2/GH gas problem. Seems most people really don't care about it since it's invisible and really won't hurt the ones old enough to be in charge of the situation right now. I'm old and don't have any kids myself so it won't matter to me much one way or the other except that it would be nice to see mankind's struggle to survive be a bit easier. Must be a gene of complacency built-in to us? Would hope to think that folks would care more about theie kid's future rather than just college tuition or other immediate things.

There are a lot of ships down there in Davy's locker too. As the 2000th American military death in Iraq happened, I read an account of WWII deaths. As American forces were closing in on the Philippines, the Japanese loaded up POWs into old unmarked ships. They were piled in filthy holds. Well some of these ships were sunk by our forces unknowingly as to their cargo. 1800 died in one sinking and about 20,000 in all like that.

Yes, each of our 2,000 Iraqi deaths are an individual tragedy for their families and friends.

I guess today's generation would not be able to handle WWII.

That's very unfair Wayne. The Iraq War is not WWII. Many patriotic Americans who would be willing to lay their lives down to protect country and family in an unavoidable defensive war like WWII are not willing to throw their lives away needlessly in an aggressive illegal war based on lies that serves no purpose and actually makes their country less safe.

Maybe so, KT. But I notice how quickly the initial fortitude dries up in today's "instant gratification" generations.

WW IIs losers accepted their defeat, but today's guerillas don't. So we are likely in more perilous times than ever before.

"Many patriotic Americans who would be willing to lay their lives down to protect country and family in an unavoidable defensive war like WWII are not willing to throw their lives away needlessly in an aggressive illegal war based on lies that serves no purpose and actually makes their country less safe."

The thing is, 2,000 dead is a scandalous number now. The fact that they died in a crappy war makes it worse, but all the same, numbers of dead, both in war and otherwise, that wouldn't've made us flinch a couple generations ago are now our great tragedies. What we consider a major tragedy and how it affects us has changed dramatically, and it's a bit worrying.

Patrick Alexander