Did The Chinese Violate Any Treaties?

In article ,
Rand Simberg wrote:
They wouldn't be any more liable than the U.S. for the two Delta
stages that fragmented and created clouds of debris in LEO last
year. Or Japan for its H-2A upper stage that blew up last year.
Or Russia, which blew up a Kosmos satellite in LEO late last year.
Did any of those incidents result in damage to a third party?
Not yet, but then neither has the broken up Chinese satellite.

That's why I wrote "if any of the bits strike someone's satellite, or
ISS." We know that's not going to occur with any of the other cases
you mentioned.

Actually, we don't, given that the long-term effect of air drag in
particular on their orbits is somewhat unpredictable, and that we can't
track or catalog the smaller items of debris very well.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

On Sat, 20 Jan 2007 06:22:20 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(Henry Spencer) made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

In article ,
Rand Simberg wrote:
They wouldn't be any more liable than the U.S. for the two Delta
stages that fragmented and created clouds of debris in LEO last
year. Or Japan for its H-2A upper stage that blew up last year.
Or Russia, which blew up a Kosmos satellite in LEO late last year.
Did any of those incidents result in damage to a third party?
Not yet, but then neither has the broken up Chinese satellite.

That's why I wrote "if any of the bits strike someone's satellite, or
ISS." We know that's not going to occur with any of the other cases
you mentioned.

Actually, we don't, given that the long-term effect of air drag in
particular on their orbits is somewhat unpredictable, and that we can't
track or catalog the smaller items of debris very well.

Well, we know that it's not going to occur with any certainty that it
can be traced to any particular event. Of course, that's true with
this one as well, unless it's one of the thirty-odd pieces large
enough to be tracked.

On Fri, 19 Jan 2007 23:39:44 -0600, in a place far, far away, Pat
Flannery made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:



wrote:

In any case, the real concern with this is how China is a menace to
world peace. Even if we accept the verdict of the optimists, that the
only country China might commit aggression against is Taiwan, why
should the U.S. tolerate the enslavement of free men anywhere?


We tried that stunt.
It was called Iraq.
They gave up dictatorship for a genocidal war between Shia and Sunnis.

A "genocidal war"?

They're all Arabs.

I am not saying what GW did was "right" but your logic is stupid. If
something is "wrong" it is "wrong" and should be pointed out.

wrote:
In this evil regime of George W Bush, you better keep your mouth
shut about international treaties. Many more finger will point at
you if you even point one finger at others.

www.st911.org
www.nkusa.org
www.counterpunch.org

Rand Simberg wrote:
On not making messes in space? My dim understanding is that this
remains unsettled in the Liability Convention, due to an inability to
agree on a definition of the word "debris." Any space lawyers out
there more up to date?

I'd think that, at a minimum, if any of the bits strike someone's
satellite, or ISS, that the Chinese could be held liable under the
OST. If it could be proven that it resulted from this event, that is
(probably a difficult thing to do).

Robert Hicks wrote:
I am not saying what GW did was "right" but your logic is stupid. If
something is "wrong" it is "wrong" and should be pointed out.

YOU FORGOT TO ADD, YOUR ESSENTIAL CONDITION:

ONLY IF IT IN YOUR EVIL INTEREST

wrote:
In this evil regime of George W Bush, you better keep your mouth
shut about international treaties. Many more finger will point at
you if you even point one finger at others.

www.st911.org
www.nkusa.org
www.counterpunch.org

Rand Simberg wrote:
On not making messes in space? My dim understanding is that this
remains unsettled in the Liability Convention, due to an inability to
agree on a definition of the word "debris." Any space lawyers out
there more up to date?

I'd think that, at a minimum, if any of the bits strike someone's
satellite, or ISS, that the Chinese could be held liable under the
OST. If it could be proven that it resulted from this event, that is
(probably a difficult thing to do).

Rand Simberg wrote:

A "genocidal war"?

They're all Arabs.

Exterminating a minority identified by religious faith is also included
in the U. N. genocide convention. Surely you knew that.

John Savard

Pat Flannery wrote:

We tried that stunt.
It was called Iraq.
They gave up dictatorship for a genocidal war between Shia and Sunnis.

When they really want democracy, they'll do it all on their own.

The U.S. invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein was playing games with
U.N. weapons inspectors.

Those were dangerous games, because the prospect of al-Qaeda getting
its hands on weapons of mass destruction was *absolutely intolerable*.

Unfortunately, as it turned out, Saddam Hussein was just playing a game
to save face, and didn't really have much in the way of WMDs. So, yes,
G. W. Bush made a mistake. Because he made the right choice - to err on
the safe side, rather than risk an error with fatal consequences.

But the terrorist attacks on the Shi'ite majority in Iraq - and the
revenge attacks on innocent Sunnis by Shi'a warlords who are anti-US,
being supporters of Iran and Hezbollah - are a terrible suffering
endured by the Iraqi people which has, unfortunately, been triggered by
a U.S. intervention in its own national interest.

The U.S. must solve the problem of the Iraqi people, and let them live
in peace and safety, because it triggered the problem, even though it
is not truly to blame. If it does not, their sufferings will be twisted
by enemies of the U.S. in both the Sunni and Shi'a portions of the
Islamic world to promote hatred of the U.S. and increase terrorism.

If multiplying the number of U.S. soldiers in Iraq by three will, as
many military experts such as generals in the U.S. army suggest, only
give the enemy more targets to shoot at, then what to do? The common
sense that suggests that undesired activity in Iraq is the result of
insufficient U.S. manpower to suppress it conclusively is not wrong -
either.

The problem is that the Democrat-controlled Congress will refuse
(although would a Republican-controlled Congress do any different?)
what is really needed. Draft and train Americans so as to send a
contingent into Iraq the size of what was sent out to fight in the
Second World War. Then, once we have suppressed the violence, Iraqis
can stand in line to join the Iraqi army without getting blown up or
kidnapped and tortured by terrorists, and Iraq under our protection can
build up its own forces to defend itself, and then the American boys
can come home.

And, if differences between the Sunni and Shi'a Iraqis prove
intractable, with all those troops in the area, we *could* divide the
new Iraq between Iran and Syria. Except, of course, it would be divided
between the new Iran and the new Syria - not the current old ones that
are anti-U.S..

But maybe things will just fall apart anyways. If so: if Kim Jong Il
can prevent resistance movements in North Korea from engaging in
terrorist activities to overthrow his rule, surely we can pacify the
Islamic world to the same extent if we put our minds to it. Perhaps 200
years down the road, we can safely end the occupation.

Osama bin Laden wants a clash of civilizations, it is said. We are
currently trying to prevent it, because most Muslims are not
terrorists, even if the terrorists are hiding among them. But if we
can't avoid him getting what he wants, we should at least be prepared
to see that he doesn't like it when he gets it.

John Savard

Henry Spencer wrote:

The idea that dictators are always warlike and democracies peaceful is...
naive. There's a bias that way, but also a good supply of exceptions. To
say nothing of the way a number of warlike dictators -- notably Hitler and
Mussolini -- first achieved high office by winning elections.

Basically, I am somewhat nostalgic for the world order that existed in
the nineteenth century. Here, there was peace between all the advanced
democracies, and instead of the Third World being under cruel local
dictatorships, it was under the enlightened colonial tutelage of the
advanced democracies.

Well, if you don't count the Belgian Congo... and, of course, there
wasn't peace _within_ one particular advanced democracy in all of that
century.

Presumably, in a world where all the nations sing the praises of the
glorious United States of America, we would spend less money on
armaments, and we would work more effectively to solve problems of
international development. Every penny donated to charities working
overseas would be spent well, not a cent taken by any corrupt
government, nothing destroyed later by a civil war or anything like
that.

But my vision of world justice is not hegemony by anyone. Once the
Basque people were cleansed of the ETA infestation, they would become a
sovereign state. So would the Hawaiian people. And the Inuit. And the
speakers of Southern Min, and Hakka, and Wu, and so on. And the Coptic
Christians of Egypt and the Maronite Christians of Lebanon too. Nobody
but an immigrant would ever be *forced* to learn a foreign language
just to go to University or become the President or Prime Minister of
his native land.

In this way, the question of minorities being persecuted would not
exist. Everybody would be a member of the majority in the country he
lives in. Well, maybe a *little* ethnic rearrangement would take place,
but it would be done in a humane and orderly fashion, not even hasty,
let alone brutal.

And all the nations of the world would live side by side in peace and
mutual respect.

They would have enough to feed themselves, because first thorium
breeder reactors, and then later fusion power, when and if that is
perfected, would supply abundant energy resources. So production of
abundant food and housing, and reasonable quantities of luxuries, for
everyone would be possible.

We will need a cure for cancer, though. Because to cure old age
involves turning off telomere loss, and that eliminates one mechanism
of defence against cancer. The people who grew old during the age of
misery and war ought to have the time to rebuild their lives once this
is abolished.

And, as well, even with abundant energy, the population cannot increase
indefinitely. How, then, can we achieve the contentment that the rising
population of the leading edge of the baby boom brought, when people at
a given age were outnumbered by the people two years younger (the
average age gap for marriage)?

With a cure for cancer, we can release PCBs into the environment,
adjusting the human sex ratio, so as to eliminate the tensions and
frustrations that might lead nations into rivalry and war once again!

John Savard

On 20 Jan 2007 13:20:52 -0800, in a place far, far away,
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way
as to indicate that:

Rand Simberg wrote:

A "genocidal war"?

They're all Arabs.

Exterminating a minority identified by religious faith is also included
in the U. N. genocide convention. Surely you knew that.

I didn't, but if so, it's just one more example of watering down the
meaning of the word (hint: where does the "gen" part come from?). And
no minority is being exterminated in Iraq. Even if all the Sunnis or
Shia there were killed (unlikely), there'd be millions of others
elsewhere.

On 20 Jan 2007 13:37:38 -0800, in a place far, far away,
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way
as to indicate that:


Osama bin Laden wants a clash of civilizations, it is said.

Yes, a misnomer. It's a clash of cultures, certainly, but radical
Islam hardly represents a "civilization." It's more of a clash
between civilization and barbarity.