Wirt Atmar wrote:

> Today was Memorial Day in the United States, a day that now primarily
> emphasizes the heroism of the American soldiers during World War II. In that
> war, 405,399 American military were killed, a terrible number.
>
> However, there are other, far worse numbers worth considering as well. An
> estimated 100 million men, women and children died during the 2,139 days of
> World War II, if the counting is to begin on September 1, 1939, the date of
> Hilter's invasion of Poland, and to end on September 2, 1945, with the
> Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay aboard the USS Missouri. When those two
> numbers are divided into one another, the result is that 45,599 people were
> methodically killed day after day, for every day of the war, for six years
> running.
>
> There's never been another period in human history that could match this
> level of murderous barbarity, although we came close in the 1960's and
> 1970's, a time when we gave serious thought to killing five billion people in
> a matter of days.
>
> It's possible to argue with some real force of logic that technology frees us
> to exploit the deepest evils of our nature and because of that, we are far
> less civilized than we believe ourselves to be. Nonetheless, I remain an
> optimist, and I deeply believe that what we are doing now with these
> computers is making us all more human and humane, and in the consequence,
> making us all safer.
>
> Wirt Atmar
>
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Wirt,


Although there was no systematically kill of races, the Great War was a barbaric
war too. How many civilians were victim of the nerve gasses in Nothern France? I
think historians did not even bordered to count?

40 millions died in that war, not all were soldiers I am sure of that. Europe,
Africa and the Middle East had that experience with mass distruction of human
and animal live before WWII.

And still a short Austrian Corporal (mr. Hitler) had not learned from it.


Regards,


Jan Gerrit Kootstra

--
Vriendelijk groeten, / Kind regrads, / Freundliche gruesse, / Salute,

Jan Gerrit Kootstra
email: [log in to unmask]

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