Philly the Kid wrote:

Phan In Phlorida wrote:

Philly the Kid wrote:Why are so many people not paying attention to a Ralph Nader and why couldn't he get even 12% of the popular vote? Why didn't every displaced auto-worker in the land vote for him over Kerry or Bush?

Nader's hatin' on the Corvair

Ah, I forgot - my aunt actually had one of those it got hit and it went on fire... truth....

cousin?

CrashburnAlley wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:You people calling for Bush to be tried in some international law court--what is the precedent for trying the leader of a sovereign nation in such a court?

Prominent indictees of war crimes.

I think your wikipedia list proves my point. Do you really think the comparison between Bush and Taylor or Milosevic (and remember, neither Liberian nor Serbia had anything even close to a legal system.

I'm sorry, but the people calling for international war crimes for the Bush administration are as clueless as the throngs of slack jawed morons crowding creation museums around this country.

Heck, while you're at it, why don't you call for the indictment by the 51% of Americans who voted for GWB in 2004.

Yes, US power is unaccountable to anyone other than US citizens. I really fail to see why anyone would have a problem with that.

the PtK/Werthless/dajafi confab summary:

PtK: US political/economic system is corrupt, and produces results that are corrupt, so not ok with me (and why ok with so many people?)

Werthless: US political/economic system is corrupt, and produces results that are, on balance, better than any other system for just about everyone, so ok with me (probably just my imagination, but guessing he enjoys savory pastries topped with love apples)

dajafi: US political/economic system is corrupt, and produces results that are corrupt, but revision may produce unintended & unwanted consequences, so waiting until I've finished writing my book to let you know if it's ok with me

drsmooth: US political/economic system is corrupt, and produces results that are, on balance, no better/worse than any other system for just about everyone, fit to be cursed almost daily for its corruption but not entirely torn down yet by me

All human institutions of 2 or more people are compromises (corruptions?) whose interpretation by any & all of the involved parties lead to interesting times. Any distribution of wealth is 'unfair'; where distribution is wildly skewed, most of the skew can sensibly be attributed to luck. Bill Gates for example may be smarter, more industrious, even sweeter smelling than you or me, but not billions of times more so.

No reasoning can attribute his entitlement to control the bulk of the wealth he in fact controls to his virtues (talents, brains, call 'them' what you will).

Rationalize the way things are (or how changing things would make them particularly better) however much you like, just please don't call it reasoning (the same applies to the haystack of compromises that in aggregate comprise property law, or for that matter any category of "non-natural" law).

ps for werthless: I know you were on about the average US worker being healthier, but as we all know, in America, nobody's average:

Life Expectancy Falls In Pockets of U.S. (WSJ 4/22)

drsmooth wrote:Any distribution of wealth is 'unfair'; where distribution is wildly skewed, most of the skew can sensibly be attributed to luck. Bill Gates for example may be smarter, more industrious, even sweeter smelling than you or me, but not billions of times more so.

What do you mean by unfair? Is the PGA unfair because I don't make a 10th of what Tiger Woods makes playing golf? The Phillies won the NL East last year by 1 game, after 162 game season--was it somehow unfair that the Phillies made post season, and the Mets, like the sorry ass nationals, did not, even though the Mets finished far closer to the Phils than they did to the Marlins?

TenuredVulture wrote:

drsmooth wrote:Any distribution of wealth is 'unfair'; where distribution is wildly skewed, most of the skew can sensibly be attributed to luck. Bill Gates for example may be smarter, more industrious, even sweeter smelling than you or me, but not billions of times more so.

What do you mean by unfair? Is the PGA unfair because I don't make a 10th of what Tiger Woods makes playing golf? The Phillies won the NL East last year by 1 game, after 162 game season--was it somehow unfair that the Phillies made post season, and the Mets, like the sorry ass nationals, did not, even though the Mets finished far closer to the Phils than they did to the Marlins?

Read more carefully, TV: I wrote 'unfair' not unfair.

Frankly I don't give a rat's ass what gates, or tiger, or the phils, or even you make - it's ALL unfair to me. That is, there's no social (political/economic) system involving more than 1 person that will ever be incontrovertibly 'fair'.

TenuredVulture wrote:I think your wikipedia list proves my point. Do you really think the comparison between Bush and Taylor or Milosevic (and remember, neither Liberian nor Serbia had anything even close to a legal system.

Bush's policies are responsible for the complete and utter collapse of Iraq, the deaths of upwards of a million Iraqis, the displacement of many others, a significant decrease in the quality of life for Iraqi citizens, aiding in the cultural cleansing of Iraq, forcing other neighboring nations to bear the burdens of the current state of Iraq including sheltering fleeing Iraqis, etc.

TenuredVulture wrote:I'm sorry, but the people calling for international war crimes for the Bush administration are as clueless as the throngs of slack jawed morons crowding creation museums around this country.

As an atheist, I take offense to any comparison made between myself (and/or atheists) and creationists.

TenuredVulture wrote:Heck, while you're at it, why don't you call for the indictment by the 51% of Americans who voted for GWB in 2004.

Fine by me.

TenuredVulture wrote:Yes, US power is unaccountable to anyone other than US citizens. I really fail to see why anyone would have a problem with that.

I really fail to see how this is a tenable position. If the U.S. is unaccountable to everyone else, then other nations also are unaccountable to everyone else. What this is, essentially, is worldwide anarchy.

And we all know how well anarchy works (hint: it doesn't, and never will).

1) I think TV's point was that America has a justice system, in a way Serbia and Liberia don't. You either missed that, or chose not to address it.

2) Iraq was not freaking Shangri-La before we invaded.

jerseyhoya wrote:1) I think TV's point was that America has a justice system, in a way Serbia and Liberia don't. You either missed that, or chose not to address it.

Oh, I understand it, it just doesn't matter. If you think the U.S. will objectively look at itself in its own court of law, you are living in a fantasy world. Our justice system is a crock as it is.

jerseyhoya wrote:2) Iraq was not freaking Shangri-La before we invaded.

It doesn't matter, we exponentially made things worse, something the U.S. should be held responsible for by the rest of the world.

drsmooth wrote:dajafi: US political/economic system is corrupt, and produces results that are corrupt, but revision may produce unintended & unwanted consequences, so waiting until I've finished writing my book to let you know if it's ok with me

Aside from the fact that (alas) there's no book coming that I'm aware of, this is pretty damn close to my take. The older I get, the more inclined I am toward the "conservatism of means": the idea that major wholesale changes produce enough friction and chaos and misery that the status quo has to be pretty freakin' awful, for a large majority, to justify them.

(This comes in part from Obama's comment about health care reform: that if he were starting from scratch, he'd do single-payer, but since he isn't, he won't. At first I thought this was crap and political cowardice; then I realized that it gets to something pretty profound, particularly within the context of a four- or eight-year window to do anything. The man is pretty sharp; the reason I keep going back to Lincoln and FDR with him is that they had the same innate grasp of politics as the place where ideals meet reality and you do what you can.)

Though I'm also not unsympathetic to your summary of Werthless (I do suspect our system is better than the alternatives) and your own (as I noted earlier in another context, obsessing on "fair" is a great way to go through life entirely pissed off).

CrashburnAlley wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:Heck, while you're at it, why don't you call for the indictment by the 51% of Americans who voted for GWB in 2004.

Fine by me.

For better or for worse, bad decisions aren't criminal. Bush isn't the first mistake we've made and probably (hopefully!) won't be the last... and it is "we." (So is Iraq; so is torture.) The question I find of interest is whether we still have the capacity for self-correction.

That goes for a lot of "we"s, actually: one easily could make an argument that it's more important the Republicans learned not to nominate moral/intellectual weaklings with no discernible talent or ethical center, than that the country, say, reject the Republicans en masse for 30 years. The fact that their best and least Bush-like candidate, faint praise though that might be, won the primary this year is an encouraging sign.

drsmooth wrote:the PtK/Werthless/dajafi confab summary:

PtK: US political/economic system is corrupt, and produces results that are corrupt, so not ok with me (and why ok with so many people?)

Werthless: US political/economic system is corrupt, and produces results that are, on balance, better than any other system for just about everyone, so ok with me (probably just my imagination, but guessing he enjoys savory pastries topped with love apples)

dajafi: US political/economic system is corrupt, and produces results that are corrupt, but revision may produce unintended & unwanted consequences, so waiting until I've finished writing my book to let you know if it's ok with me

drsmooth: US political/economic system is corrupt, and produces results that are, on balance, no better/worse than any other system for just about everyone, fit to be cursed almost daily for its corruption but not entirely torn down yet by me

All human institutions of 2 or more people are compromises (corruptions?) whose interpretation by any & all of the involved parties lead to interesting times. Any distribution of wealth is 'unfair'; where distribution is wildly skewed, most of the skew can sensibly be attributed to luck. Bill Gates for example may be smarter, more industrious, even sweeter smelling than you or me, but not billions of times more so.

No reasoning can attribute his entitlement to control the bulk of the wealth he in fact controls to his virtues (talents, brains, call 'them' what you will).

Rationalize the way things are (or how changing things would make them particularly better) however much you like, just please don't call it reasoning (the same applies to the haystack of compromises that in aggregate comprise property law, or for that matter any category of "non-natural" law).

ps for werthless: I know you were on about the average US worker being healthier, but as we all know, in America, nobody's average:

Life Expectancy Falls In Pockets of U.S. (WSJ 4/22)

Nice summation -- however I think you are being too curt and abstractly philosophical about the inability to have 'fairness'. I find it cynical to beleive that mankind cannot live in a way that is more egalitarian and for people to resolve issues locally with a sense of fairness. I think in fact, in our culture that is so me-oriented where we lack a natural sense of communal-ness with the earth or others -- is part of the problem.

The problem is the stakes are very high. It isn't just whether or not I get to have the dream job I always wanted, our system is leaving many people of the globe in squalor and victims of violence.

Bush is a War criminal. But put it this way -- the only thing insulating him ins the military might. The rest of the world is pretty clear on the matter, and could easily make the case in a world court. The only thing protecting him is NORAD et al.

Philly the Kid wrote:Nice summation -- however I think you are being too curt and abstractly philosophical about the inability to have 'fairness'. I find it cynical to beleive that mankind cannot live in a way that is more egalitarian and for people to resolve issues locally with a sense of fairness. I think in fact, in our culture that is so me-oriented where we lack a natural sense of communal-ness with the earth or others -- is part of the problem.

The problem is the stakes are very high. It isn't just whether or not I get to have the dream job I always wanted, our system is leaving many people of the globe in squalor and victims of violence.

Bush is a War criminal. But put it this way -- the only thing insulating him ins the military might. The rest of the world is pretty clear on the matter, and could easily make the case in a world court. The only thing protecting him is NORAD et al.

The whole post is spot-on, but I really liked your comment about American culture (bolded).

I quoted George Carlin on here a few times before (he is kind of my hero), and I think even this exact quote, but (to paraphrase) Carlin said that Americans have been bought off by distractions: TV's, video games, cell phones, computers, iPods, etc. Everyone's content with their meaningless possessions so they don't want to rock the boat.

I'm in no way anti-technology -- quite the opposite -- but it's sickening to watch people compete with each other over who has the bigger TV, the iPod with the bigger capacity, the more expensive cell phone, etc. And I'm not just making this up, a couple friends of mine in particular compete with each other technologically and I just want to throw up.

Didn't they find that more people vote on American Idol than voted in the 2004 Presidential elections, or something like that? Not that that's an admission that the voting process means anything, it's just a prime example of the American mindset.

CrashburnAlley wrote:

Philly the Kid wrote:Nice summation -- however I think you are being too curt and abstractly philosophical about the inability to have 'fairness'. I find it cynical to beleive that mankind cannot live in a way that is more egalitarian and for people to resolve issues locally with a sense of fairness. I think in fact, in our culture that is so me-oriented where we lack a natural sense of communal-ness with the earth or others -- is part of the problem.

The problem is the stakes are very high. It isn't just whether or not I get to have the dream job I always wanted, our system is leaving many people of the globe in squalor and victims of violence.

Bush is a War criminal. But put it this way -- the only thing insulating him ins the military might. The rest of the world is pretty clear on the matter, and could easily make the case in a world court. The only thing protecting him is NORAD et al.

The whole post is spot-on, but I really liked your comment about American culture (bolded).

I quoted George Carlin on here a few times before (he is kind of my hero), and I think even this exact quote, but (to paraphrase) Carlin said that Americans have been bought off by distractions: TV's, video games, cell phones, computers, iPods, etc. Everyone's content with their meaningless possessions so they don't want to rock the boat.

I'm in no way anti-technology -- quite the opposite -- but it's sickening to watch people compete with each other over who has the bigger TV, the iPod with the bigger capacity, the more expensive cell phone, etc. And I'm not just making this up, a couple friends of mine in particular compete with each other technologically and I just want to throw up.

Didn't they find that more people vote on American Idol than voted in the 2004 Presidential elections, or something like that? Not that that's an admission that the voting process means anything, it's just a prime example of the American mindset.

When you think about the sugar, alcohol consumption -- and that TV itself is a drug as can be video games and internet... and with people so misinformed and de-motivated to give a darn... as long as i get mine... don't come down on Bill Gates, because I might be him one day and I don't want anyone impeding my shot... People have been divided deluded doped -- and ultimately conquered. And if they know better, they don't act that way often -- or Rush Limbaugh couldn't thrive and Bush couldn't get elected by poor white folk. Or worse, they feel helpless or that its useless to protest ... becuase then the bad guys have truly won.

Philly the Kid wrote:I find it cynical to beleive that mankind cannot live in a way that is more egalitarian and for people to resolve issues locally with a sense of fairness.

The entire history of mankind would make me think that this viewpoint isn't really cynical so much as realistic.

TenuredVulture wrote:
I'm sorry, but the people calling for international war crimes for the Bush administration are as clueless as the throngs of slack jawed morons crowding creation museums around this country.

The article I cited, quoted your own supreme court making the ruling on compliance or non-compliance of the genevan convention. You want to get all strict and hobbsian, your own political system agreed that it's own subjects who didn't comply with it's own legal agreements were thus subject to internatonal law. Effectively, in making that ruling, they allow other people to bring charges against people involved. I'll quote it again:

"By Act of Congress," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote pointedly, "violations of Common Article 3 are considered 'war crimes', punishable as federal offences, when committed by or against United States nationals and military personnel."

Justice Kennedy's remark put the issue of war crimes on the American political agenda. Individuals who had contributed to a violation of Common Article 3 would know that they were at risk of criminal investigation and prosecution. Even more ominously, it underscored the risk of being investigated outside the US.

That's Justice Anthony Kennedy. American, not some damn foreigner. He didn't say 'it's okay for us to sue 'em, but not foreigners'. He said, these acts are in breach of the genevan convention, which you signed up to.

Is it important that Bush (or perhaps more to the point, Rumsfeld, who signed on the orders surrounding the practices in Guantanamo)? Yeah, it'd be nice. But further down the chain, I'd say it verges on the essential. The one reason I'm keen to read that book is the brief impression I got from the excerpts is that a sense of moral confusion stemmed from the decisions made about what was or wasn't permitted in terms of interrogation.

Whatever about the top execs who signed off on it, the people drafting the legislation were not clear on what was legal and what wasn't. Granted they may have been under political pressure to strech definitions, but without the kind of clear legal directive (as put forward in the supreme court ruling) they had no way to rebut that pressure. It's a lot harder to say to someone in a reasonable democracy 'do this, or I'll fire you' when in following orders, you risk being tried and found guilty. So following up on charges would be the best and most sensible thing.

With regard to bringing charges against national leaders through international, I believe the best example was Pinochet, and Spain's attempt to bring charges against him under the UN torture convention in 1984. The law lords in the UK ruled that he was culpable to be charged, but only on crimes committeed under it after 1998 - the date on which the convention came into force on the three countries which were involved (chile, where crimes were alleged to have been committed, spain who was pressing the crimes and the UK, where pinochet was claiming immunity).

Again, it's down to the agreements your own sovereign power made. You would argue that they count for nothing if you as a country withdraw from said agreements and tell the rest of the world to go screw themselves, because you're bigger and tougher than most of them. It's that kind of thing which really, really pisses me off. You want to know why americans piss everyone else off, it comes down to that.

On the one hand you attempt to dictate international policy, and on the other you say 'screw you, we do what we want'. You're not always particularly successful at the first, and you're frequently very good at the second. I've already cited the Non Proliferation Treaty and the mess surrounding Pakistan, which has now lead to greater proliferation of nuclear devices in the middle and far east. Thanks a bunch. Now you're happy with being entirely arbitrary about matters concerning civil and human rights within your own sovereign territory (camp x-ray is american territory, as I recall). That's a fine example to set everyone else. It diminishes any negiotiating power you may have, and means you end up resorting to the rule of force every time. This is not a sensible course of action. Brilliant. But it's okay, because the American government are the only people who get to try american perpatrators of crimes. When they bother. Or, like dajafi, you just shrug and say that's the way it goes. Neither is a really sensible long term solution.

P.S. Yes, I've edited bits of this post from the first time I posted it this morning. but I'm a bit calmer now. Not much, but a bit.

Wiz, as I read Kennedy's decision, any charges would have to be prosecuted in a US court. I don't have a problem with that.

I also want to say two things about Pinochet--first, I don't think Bush comes close to Pinochet in terms of committing atrocities, though Pinochet is perhaps a better comparison than Charles Taylor or Milosevic. Second, Pinochet was ultimately indicted in Chile. Thus, Chile's sovereignty is intact.

The point that no one seems to get is that national sovereignty trumps just about everything. The international courts only come into play when that no longer works.

Without nation states, the entire international system collapses. This would be a very bad thing. Consider the number of bad people still allowed to rule their countries, and consider how often deals are made to allow bad people to live in a comfortable exile in exchange for peace and stability.

The best model here is South Africa.

It isn't just winners who escape justice, lots of times losers do as well.

TenuredVulture wrote:
I also want to say two things about Pinochet--first, I don't think Bush comes close to Pinochet in terms of committing atrocities, though Pinochet is perhaps a better comparison than Charles Taylor or Milosevic. Second, Pinochet was ultimately indicted in Chile. Thus, Chile's sovereignty is intact.

Sigh. I am not comparing pinochet out of some need to compare bush to pinochet for emotional effect. I'm citing it as a case where charges were brought by one country vs the leader of another. In the case of this ruling by the english law lords, Pinochet wouldn't have been indicted in Chile if he'd committed these crimes after 1998. He'd have been charged in spain, following extradition from england.

Regarding sovereignty - you execute your sovereign power when you agree to sign up to one of these covenants. Generally speaking, really big countries sign up after they've successfully lobbied and changed the wording of the legislature to the extent that they're happy with how the covenant will apply to their own nation.

I am not disputing the sovereign right of nations. But you explicitly said:

TenuredVulture wrote:I think the very term international law is an oxymoron. Maybe I'm too deep into Hobbes, but as the good book says, covenants without the sword are but pieces of paper.

suggesting to me that you are of the opinion that an international agreement, once entered into, can be withdrawn from if the other side does not back it up with military force. My argument remains that when you consistently back out of complying with international agreements that you have voluntarily entered into, or ignore selfsame agreements for your own purposes (and let's be honest, I've yet to see a majority of nations succeed in pressing the USA into signing an agreement when they don't want to), you make the world as a whole a more lawless place.

It's interesting that sands notes in his article in vanity fair that when the White House signed into law the Military Commissions Act,

a new legal defense against lawsuits for misconduct arising from the “detention and interrogation of aliens” between September 11, 2001, and December 30, 2005.

This apparently acted as a warning sign and eased the path of international prosecutions:

“That is very stupid,” said the prosecutor, explaining that it would make it much easier for investigators outside the United States to argue that possible war crimes would never be addressed by the justice system in the home country—one of the trip wires enabling foreign courts to intervene. For some of those involved in the Guantánamo decisions, prudence may well dictate a more cautious approach to international travel. And for some the future may hold a tap on the shoulder.

The American Government signed up to all this stuff a long time ago. Your current administration tried to get out of having to comply with these agreements. Your judiciary said you cannot. You tell me how your sovereign powers have been challenged.

drsmooth wrote:the PtK/Werthless/dajafi confab summary:

Werthless: US political/economic system is corrupt, and produces results that are, on balance, better than any other system for just about everyone, so ok with me (probably just my imagination, but guessing he enjoys savory pastries topped with love apples)

Actually, I'm not a big pastries fan, nor do I think the US economic system is very corrupt at all. A rise in cultural consumerism is lamentable, but hardly a criticism of any problem with the system (just some of the citizens:roll:).

FYI: I think people are using "corrupt" to refer to a general malfunction, but I tend to use it to refer to a deliberate abuse of laws, or use of bribery to skirt regulations. See Transparency International's CPI[/url]

Wizlah wrote:
The American Government signed up to all this stuff a long time ago. Your current administration tried to get out of having to comply with these agreements. Your judiciary said you cannot. You tell me how your sovereign powers have been challenged.

Up to this point, they have not. I don't think they will be anyway. All I'm suggesting that it would be unprecedented if say Bush were extradited to face charges in some international law court. We would be on new and I think very dangerous ground.

I think our disagreement has more to do with the status of international law than what should happen to Bush. I will confess that legal philosophy is not an area of expertise.

Your point on whether nations should simply back out of inconvenient international obligations is important. Even if you reject the strong argument that there is no such thing as international law because there is no enforcement mechanism, there remain critical differences between statutes and treaty obligations. There is an international framework for resolving disputes--a hodgepodge of organizations and institutions from ICANN to the UN. This system is flexible, and at its best, pragmatic, solving problems as they emerge, often with ad hoc rather than legal solutions.

In this system, leaders of nations are rarely called to account for their misdeeds in international forums. And lots and lots of stuff largely goes unpunished. Should Mitterand been held to account for French actions in Algeria? Edward Heath? Not to mention people like Qaddafi.

Sometimes there are good reasons to engage in things like South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation commission rather than insist on just punishment.

TenuredVulture wrote:

Wizlah wrote:
The American Government signed up to all this stuff a long time ago. Your current administration tried to get out of having to comply with these agreements. Your judiciary said you cannot. You tell me how your sovereign powers have been challenged.

Up to this point, they have not. I don't think they will be anyway. All I'm suggesting that it would be unprecedented if say Bush were extradited to face charges in some international law court. We would be on new and I think very dangerous ground.

I think our disagreement has more to do with the status of international law than what should happen to Bush. I will confess that legal philosophy is not an area of expertise.

Your point on whether nations should simply back out of inconvenient international obligations is important. Even if you reject the strong argument that there is no such thing as international law because there is no enforcement mechanism, there remain critical differences between statutes and treaty obligations. There is an international framework for resolving disputes--a hodgepodge of organizations and institutions from ICANN to the UN. This system is flexible, and at its best, pragmatic, solving problems as they emerge, often with ad hoc rather than legal solutions.

In this system, leaders of nations are rarely called to account for their misdeeds in international forums. And lots and lots of stuff largely goes unpunished. Should Mitterand been held to account for French actions in Algeria? Edward Heath? Not to mention people like Qaddafi.

Sometimes there are good reasons to engage in things like South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation commission rather than insist on just punishment.

Simple question --

On what moral authority did Bush derive the "ok" to invade Iraq and cause death and destruction to many -- those many having had no say in the matter?

What will happen and what should happen are two different matters.

You see, if you believe as I do, that Bush/Cheney intended to go in to Iraq all along, and manufactured lies to justify it, then it is in fact a criminal act on a large scale. And as such, deserving of punishment commensurate with that. If Saddam was hung for offing the Kurds with gas, and other crimes... if the "buck stops with the commander in chief" then all that happens in his name is his responsibility. Being president isn't a celebrity gig, it's a responsibility. When people are tortured, when you lie to the public all the while spearheading a variety of things from Guantanamo to Rendition, torture and more... I think that at least, outsiders in the world, could make their case in a world court. Have other leaders of Western Nations committed such crimes? Surely.

There is deep hypocrisy and it's a lot clearer to others in the world, than to those of us here on US soil.

There's a difference between protecting your shores, and invading a country. The embargo on Iraq that preceded the invasion also caused much poverty and illness, with an obscene death rate for infants over there.

The world is filled with leaders who have commited crimes against humanity. Bush rises to the top because he has wielded some of the greatest might, and greatest lies and greates hypocrisy. How do you execute an uneducated 40 year old man, who was abused as a child in a trailer park by his alcoholic father who beat his prostitute mother for killing 3 people at a Mini-Mart when he was high.... but not men/women responsible for 1000's of death, illness and the ruinous destruction of infrastructure? That's called hypocrisy for starters... the stickup man was ripping off a few 20's, the Haliburton's and Black Waters profited far greater...

This entire nation and its mythology of 'greatness', is founded on genocide and slavery. I don't think we have any moral authority. We merely have guns and missles and satellites.