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There is nothing that a human can do in low Earth orbit, other than the study of other humans, that a robot cannot do better
Bah. I’d like to see a robot run this weblog.
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Enter stage right Noam Chomsky on his site:
Typically, military occupations are quite successful, even by the most horrendous conquerors. Take, say, Hitler’s occupation of Western Europe and Russia’s postwar occupation of Eastern Europe. In both cases, the countries were run by collaborators, security forces and civilian, with the troops of the conqueror in the background. There was courageous partisan resistance under Hitler, but without extensive foreign support, it would have been wiped out. In Eastern Europe, the US tried to support resistance (inside Russia as well) until the early 1950s, and of course Russia was in confrontation with the world dominant superpower. There are many other examples.
Some things to bear in mind before we get to the meat. It is estimated that 600,000 lost their lives during the invasion, occupation and liberation of France in WWII. The Vichy republic itself was responsible for around 135,000 deaths and nearly 80,000 French Jews were deported to concentration camps. Estimates of German/collaborator deaths at the hands of The Resistance (no quotes required here), stack up around the 10,000 mark.
That’s just France. One can only guess at the horrific human cost of the Soviet Union’s “quite successful” suppression of half a continent from the Baltic to the Adriatic.
Apparently Chomsky believes that there’s no relationship between the means and the ends of Nazi Germany’s and the USSR’s occupations of conquered countries. Read the entire article — it’s well worth the time even though it’s taking down the continental sized target that is Chomsky.
The Chicago Boyz comment on an NPR speaker who waxes lachymose over the travails of a cartoon character because it’s the only “person” he knows who is in Iraq.