The New York Times Missile
Defense forum was a serious effort – and one of its most serious times was
September 11-15, 2001. Postings from
that period are collected below so they may be read as a body. The links just below are particularly
important, I believe, because they are posts by Gisterme, http://www.mrshowalter.net/LINKS_to_Gisterme_NYT_MD_.htm
. I believe that the person who posted as Gisterme set out, clearly
and authoritatively, ideas at or near the top of the Bush administration – and those
willing to consider that possibility will find his postings interesting. I also
think that both the quantity and the quality of the postings below show an
unusual degree of support by the New York Times during that most stressful of
periods in our recent history. There are 92 pages of these postings.
8832-3 8835 8837
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8827.htm
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8833.htm
8866 8870
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8866.htm
8878
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8872.htm
8894 8895 8896
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8888.htm
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8895.htm
8901 8902
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8900.htm
8938
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8934.htm
8961
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8956.htm
8969
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8969.htm
8975
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8975.htm
8994 8995
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8994.htm
9005
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md9000s/md9004.htm
9020
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md9000s/md9014.htm
9028
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md9000s/md9024.htm
9031 9033
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md9000s/md9031.htm
9058
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md9000s/md9058.htm
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8762.htm
lunarchick
- 10:03am Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8763
of 8787)
lunarchick@www.com
Showalter - did you know your country was currently under attack?
Not Missiles.
Small planes.
Two suicide pilots have hit the twin towers of NY's landmark world trade center - (have you heard of it?) and the PENTAGON is on fire and has been evacuated!
Palestine has claimed responsibility.
Wonder if the guys flying the planes were over twelve?
lunarchick
- 10:08am Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8764
of 8787)
lunarchick@www.com
Time for Daughter of Mohammed to take a descending cloud landing at Mecca (March) and give the whole of the Muslim world a new message on truth, love, and leadership.
lunarchick
- 10:09am Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8765
of 8787)
lunarchick@www.com
Wonder if the small planes were picked up on any city radar systems re their route ?
lunarchick
- 10:19am Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8766
of 8787)
lunarchick@www.com
lunarchick
- 10:26am Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8767
of 8787)
lunarchick@www.com
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1537000/1537469.stm
lunarchick
- 10:31am Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8768
of 8787)
lunarchick@www.com
Nero fiddles while Rome burns ..
The quote may relate to Bwsh - that's what comes of having a president who doesn't understand the need to get out into the world and work at negotiating.
Clinton speaking this week in Australia made the point that he was in continual negotiation re the ME throughout his presidency and tried his hardest working for peace.
The current Bwsh admin is falling over for all the reasons, mentioned over the past weeks .. with an overall general lack of direction.
Peace is about the small things, from latrines up, and in that order.
---
In relation to the pentagon - isn't it supposed to be a fortress with the important aspects underground?
lunarchick
- 11:22am Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8769
of 8787)
lunarchick@www.com
Guardian Talk Threads on Tragedy: http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?50@@.ee8b554/0 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?50@@.ee8b535/0 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?50@@.ee8b575/0
lunarchick
- 11:24am Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8770
of 8787)
lunarchick@www.com
A plane has been placed on standby for President Clinton - we still call him that - at Cairns Airport.
lunarchick
- 11:27am Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8771
of 8787)
lunarchick@www.com
Palestine/Israeli talk thread - Guardian: http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?50@@.ee84fa7/0
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8772.htm
lunarchick
- 11:29am Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8772
of 8787)
lunarchick@www.com
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest
lunarchick
- 11:35am Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8773
of 8787)
lunarchick@www.com
Thread header: Missile Defense Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?
The above looks like the BIG question, but, today's reality is that regular stuff has been turned around on a home population.
The Monroe Doctrine of non-involvement with world affairs .. seems to be outdated by today's events. Seems that the people of the world have to work together, live together, play together, build and strengthen their economies together - interlinked .. so that people are too busy looking forward to get into terror situations.
---
rshowalter
- 11:36am Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8774
of 8787) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.S052aMcHu20^529631@.f0ce57b/9838
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.S052aMcHu20^529631@.f0ce57b/9838
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu
It would be a very good idea for people to work hard to reduce the number of nuclear weapons --- toward zero, ideally, to zero.
They could end the world. They are not as stably controlled as people say.
People are too crazy for them.
. . . . .
Militaries have plenty to do, and that will always be true. But control of hatred, and building of mutually protecting communities, is very important in a world where no one, and no nation, can be "fully defended." There are just too many vulnerabilities that people living livable lives, and nations offering livable societies, have. We are all vulnerable, in more ways than we can take the time to imagine. But we should have sense enough to count enough of them, to learn to be careful, and learn not to provoke hatred when it can be avoided.
People with religious feelings might find this a good time to pray . . . and think.
We should all think . . . with anger only one of our emotions . . . . and think what we do so that the world can go on, and so that things can be less ugly than they are now.
This outrage was able to happen, because there was a large enough, coordinated enough community that "thought it right".
We have to think, practically, about making the world safer, for people as they actually are.
Unlimited threat doesn't work.
That's a checkable fact.
Threaten people too much, make them too angry, make them too desperate, and they fight. Even if it means suicide.
Nuclear weapons should come down , and militaries should do possible things that lead to stable outcomes.
rshowalter
- 11:43am Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8775
of 8787) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.S052aMcHu20^529631@.f0ce57b/9839
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.S052aMcHu20^529631@.f0ce57b/9839
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu
Things that lead, if at all possible, to outcomes that seem reasonable and just to the great majority of the people involved, from all sorts of perspectives, and from the points of view of the great majority of nations.
Bombing -- indiscriminant killing, is ugly.
It is ugly today.
It was ugly in WWII. It was ugly in Kosovo.
And American policies, based on bombing, and bombing to the point that the whole world may be ended, is ugly.
We should find better ways. That isn't to ask for universal peace and love. Just less murder, and less indiscriminant murder.
lunarchick
- 11:44am Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8776
of 8787)
lunarchick@www.com
Oz reporter says 'car bomb has gone off outside the state dept'
lunarchick
- 11:46am Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8777
of 8787)
lunarchick@www.com
Oz PM is literally 'bunkered down' outside/below our embassy. He was 4 blocks from Pentagon, now 9 blocks away.
rshowalter
- 11:50am Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8778
of 8787) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.S052aMcHu20^529631@.f0ce57b/9842
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.S052aMcHu20^529631@.f0ce57b/9842
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu
Considering what terrible weapons commercial airplanes can be, in desperate, disciplined and angry enough hands . . . how many other ways are there to do damage to Americans, or other nations ?
It would be fatiguing to count them all -- and impossible -- because there are too many possibilities to imagine --- no matter how a team worked constructing lethal possibilities - - there would always be more than could be constructed.
The "missile defense" proposals of this administration are a bad joke. Worse. The risks and military needs of the world are too serious to waste time and energy on that fraud.
Even if it was technically viable, and it is far from being so - - it would protect only one (awkward) way to get at us - - when there are so many others.
rshowalter
- 11:53am Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8779
of 8787) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.S052aMcHu20^529631@.f0ce57b/9843
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.S052aMcHu20^529631@.f0ce57b/9843
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu
Almarst has made that point many times.
lunarchick
- 11:53am Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8780
of 8787)
lunarchick@www.com
This thread has been about 'Taking Nuclear Missiles DOWN'
If there are thousands of them set ready to fire - every day - and they WRONG people, or an ACCIDENT happened ..
Then this injury and devastation - seen now - and still happening - would be nothing by comparison.
----
On the international talk threads it has been pointed out time and time that 'everywhere' is vulnerable to attack by conventional means.
That Bwsh has made such play regarding the Shield - and increases in spending - begs the question of whether he has indirectly illustrated to the world there is NO SUCH THING AS SECURITY?
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8781.htm
lunarchick
- 11:57am Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8781
of 8796)
lunarchick@www.com
Seems the USA will have to fund rebuilding, replacing airplanes, additionally the cost of helping the injured back to functionality.
[No reports of chemicals - thankfully]
lunarchick
- 12:02pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8782
of 8796)
lunarchick@www.com
Says there's a move to get the President back to the Whitehouse - to show that he's ON THE JOB ... Symbolic Reason to get the President back is to say to attackers - they haven't shut down the USA government ... the oval office, the desk, the flag ...
Wouldn't it be better to send Bwsh to an unkown Studio?
lunarchick
- 12:04pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8783
of 8796)
lunarchick@www.com
Makes one think how terrible something like the firestorm bombing of Dresden WWII must have been - where there was no escape.
lunarchick
- 12:06pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8784
of 8796)
lunarchick@www.com
Secretary Powell has spoken of the 'Terrible Tragedy' -
Here we go again - the USA journalists are theatre critiquing Powell re his demeanor ... why do they do this??
lunarchick
- 12:16pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8785
of 8796)
lunarchick@www.com
Terrible events in the USA. War is terrible where everit happens.
Two Australians (on exchange) were in the Pentagon - unaccounted for when plane hit. Tourists and Tower dweller Australians. Comes down to individuals, to families, to communities .. re waste of life, injuries and losses.
lunarchick
- 12:27pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8786
of 8796)
lunarchick@www.com
lunarchick
- 12:28pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8787
of 8796)
lunarchick@www.com
"We want to tell the American Children that Afghanistan feels your pain" says Talibhan Muller.
These are the guys who shoot women in the head as a public stadium event, mass kill the non-Talibans, prohibit women from earning money to feed their childen - who starve and die.
Seems the Talibhan don't want the USA thinking they were involved - re retaliation.
rshowalter
- 12:59pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8788
of 8796) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.r1KkaPGUupj^0@.f0ce57b/9853
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.r1KkaPGUupj^0@.f0ce57b/9853
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu
MD8217 rshowalter 8/28/01 9:34pm
People need to exercise judgement (and that includes a willingness to doubt) in senses that I feel were eloquently explained in a sermon that I've posted here a number of times. http://www.wisc.edu/rshowalt/sermon.html .
The point is made in the whole 20 minute sermon, and the sermon is largely secular after the first 9 minutes. The key point about judgement -- and that means judgement enough to check things, and make sure that we're right about what matters, is made especially in the last minute of the sermon, after minute 19.
When the consequences matter, technical answers matter. Right answers about the behavior of people and groups matter. Checking matters. A willingness to doubt pat answers, and make sure matters.
Things are not only dangerous, they are complicated.
. . . "What would constitute the end of the world FOR YOU? "
It may be a good day to think about that.
lunarchick
- 04:25pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8789
of 8796)
lunarchick@www.com
Knowing nothing of the WTbuilding, i didn't realise the scale of the building, size of plane .. when seening televised footage .. initally i was thinking the plane was just a light aircraft.
.....
There is no such thing as 'security' - as has been shown.
It's just sad that so many countries in the world didn't make the Twentieth Century wrt their development - and are a mess.
.......
Seems an Aussie company 'managed' the world trade buildings - and will probably fold.
lunarchick
- 04:32pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8790
of 8796)
lunarchick@www.com
The apocalyptic scenes in the US left the world financial markets in disarray, and the outlook for the already-fragile world economy substantially worsened.
"Economies don't do well when things like this happen," said the London-based strategist. "Consumers, investors, everybody is stunned and there will be a halt in global growth, " he added. see
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8791.htm
lunarchick
- 04:34pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8791
of 8804)
lunarchick@www.com
http://www.nytimes.com/images/2001/09/11/nyregion/11CND-CRASH_lapse_sm.jpg
lunarchick
- 04:42pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8792
of 8804)
lunarchick@www.com
What will be America’s response? If US officials can identify the perpetrators, or even make a plausible guess, the response is likely to be swift and severe. Like the Israeli government, America’s will be anxious to demonstrate that any such attack will be met with a tough military reply. But who to attack? The Taliban, the Islamic fundamentalists who rule Afghanistan and shelter Mr bin Laden, quickly issued a denial that they were involved. Even if the US finds evidence, or persuades itself, that Mr bin Laden and his followers are the culprits, bombing that country is unlikely to be very satisfying, or effective.
War-torn Afghanistan is already a ruin, one of the poorest countries on earth. America bombed Mr bin Laden’s camps in Afghanistan after the East African bombings—as well as a pharmaceuticals factory in Sudan that it said was manufacturing and storing chemical weapons for terrorists—but such actions seem to have had little effect. American military planners may also be debating whether to put American troops into Afghanistan temporarily to hunt down Mr bin Laden and his cronies. But such a move has enormous risks, not only of casualties, but also of tipping neighbouring Pakistan into chaos.
In the longer term, American investigators stand a good chance of tracking down at least some of those responsible. Starting with no more evidence than a fragment of the van used as a car bomb in the previous World Trade Centre bombing, the FBI eventually traced an entire terrorist ring based in New Jersey. A similar forensic trail led police to the bombers of the US embassies in East Africa. Four now languish in American prisons. (comprehensive article http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=779127 )
ledzeppelin - 04:44pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8793 of 8804)
Firstly I have just watched the most awful and tragic events in New York and Washington unfold on my television set and my heartfelt condolences and sympathies go out to all in the US especially those whom have lost family members and friends. I can but pray that those whom have brought about these most monstrous of atrocities be brought swiftly to justice without delay or mercy.
Secondly for several months now it has been oft reported in the Middle East that the likes of Osama bin Laden have been attending meetings in the likes of Sharjah and Pakistan and the Yemen? In addition, it is often forgotten that the bin Laden family had substantial financial interests in US airports, therefore Bin Laden would have unprecedented access to priviledged information about the airports and their operations? Indeed Salem, Osama’s elder brother died in a micro light accident at a US airshow at a US airport a decade ago now! Whilst it is self evidently far too early to point fingers at potential suspects. Given the level of sophistication and the training required for suicide bombers whom can also pilot commercial aircraft whatismore the substantive funding required to achieve this most evil of terrorist acts. One finds it hard not to draw conclusions even at this stage, as to whom could be responsible for this ungodly carnage. Indeed the Taliban government spokesperson in Pakistan would not be telling lies by stating as they did no one currently in Afghanistan was responsible, because bin Laden is not currently there?
almarst-2001 - 05:28pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8794 of 8804)
A very sad day indeed.
This is the first time the US citizens experienced the effects of a bombing a civilian population on a least possible scale - somthing they cheared during 78 days and nights just a short time ago.
What lesson wil be learned?
rshowalter
- 05:33pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8795
of 8804) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.K1XaaS9zubJ^589286@.f0ce57b/9860
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.K1XaaS9zubJ^589286@.f0ce57b/9860
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu
We have to hope that the right lesson can be learned. That bombing is terrible -- that death of innocents is bad - - and to be avoided.
That is a lesson that need to be sensibly discussed, among Americans, and internationally, as well.
armel7
- 05:48pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8796
of 8804)
Science/Health Forums Host
Hi, all. I, like you, can think of nothing else beside the tragedy today. There has been a forum established for discussion of the WTC/pentagon attacks: rebecca_nyt "Thousands Feared Dead in U.S. Attacks" 9/11/01 5:16pm
Let's please try to maintain order here and keep this on MD issues.
Your host,
Michael Scott Armel
lunarchick
- 07:33pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8797
of 8804)
lunarchick@www.com
Maintain order! Yes. That's what this thread had been attempting to do for a year, to look at MD issues and ask why haven't those COLD WAR nukes been taken down. Why are they dressed for war each and every night at a total cost of $30billion p.a. year in, year out.
The WHAT IF ? this board has been concerned with it. What if Missiles had been used. Would there be an evening, night and tomorrow?
On an international basis the long haul flights from the USA are just in .. landing in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, people are told before getting off the plane ... they don't take it in .. a resident of down town NY engages a reporter .. "What exactly has happened. My family work in the world trade building." The reporter spells out the events "Is there a casualty list - are there names?" .. the enormity of events begins to register. The man starts to cry, he break down. "There's no one to help me he says" .. he needs to make a call. / The flight crews make their way to their hotels .. they huddle round tv monitors - feeling very afraid.
In New York and Washington civil organisations will have orphans to tend to, children waiting for parents to put a key in the lock and open the door.
-----
Alex you're saying that for 78 days the Americans bombed Kosova. The enormity of events affecting people on the ground, loss of life, loss of infrastructure .. wasn't then fully comprehended by USA nighttime news voyeurs.
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8798.htm
rshowalter
- 07:45pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8798
of 8804) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.K1XaaS9zubJ^589331@.f0ce57b/9864
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.K1XaaS9zubJ^589331@.f0ce57b/9864
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu
We need to widen our sympathies, and our understanding of both the good we show (with respect to people in our own group) and the nastiness we can and sometimes do show to "others."
rshowalter
- 07:47pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8799
of 8804) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.K1XaaS9zubJ^589331@.f0ce57b/9865
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.K1XaaS9zubJ^589331@.f0ce57b/9865
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu
Since September, I've been working hard on this thread, and with a sense of urgency. In my view, the risks of nuclear destruction of the world have been large and the risks have seemed vividly real to me. I've been willing to work hard, because of my concern.
For most others, the notion of nuclear weapons has seemed menacing, and perhaps associated with a sense of menace below the surface, yet abstract. Not real enough for action, somehow. Even the action required, which would seem easy in context, involved in checking basic facts.
MD8753 rshowalter 9/11/01 8:26am
Something horrible has happened today. Still, in terms of casualties, not such a big day of bombing, compared to many in this last century. A tiny day of bombing death compared to days our military has been practicing for for decades. And threatening many times.
But unexpected by Americans.
lunarchick
- 07:49pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8800
of 8804)
lunarchick@www.com
The USA is a very religious country. One recalls that Bwsh is said to have old_timer Billy Graham to tea on a Southern monthly basis. Bwsh is said to have turned to God - whatever that means, whatever the concept of 'god' is.
The first response here has been to zap the fuel depot in Kabul. The power of the Talibhan is reduced. (A question from the world, as Afghan refugees have flooded out of the wreck of Afghanistan, has been - when is something going to be done here to restore normality?)
The concept of the muslem mind has been subject of discussion. How can these power hungry guys treat others without humanity - when will it stop.
The reality re the 11Sept happening is that no one really knows who did it, or why. As god fearing Bwsh talks about the enemy and retribution - he seemingly doesn't know who or what that enemy really is.
Looking at the world, the gap between the haves and have_nots. The first and third world. The gap isn't closing. Issues re globalisation have been of concern. Globalisation and trade and world trade have associations. The forcing of planes into twin tower buildings - Jordon 76, Holland recently, and now again - leaving Malaysia with the notable standing twin.
---
The mind of the muslem is perplexing. If death is the route to heaven - then their value system is certainly 'different'.
A question is 'how does the talking begin' ?
---
The god fearing Bwsh - caught between upholding the material values of his earthly father, and the spiritual values of his heavenly father ... which route will he take ?
Has he seen that his sophisticated country has no security? None of us have that, on a day-by-day basis, fate and chance can strike.
Looking at RISK, CHANCE, FATE .. the question is .. how to come throught the 11Sept in a humaine manner that ultimately leads to a better world!?
rshowalter
- 07:50pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8801
of 8804) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.K1XaaS9zubJ^589331@.f0ce57b/9867
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.K1XaaS9zubJ^589331@.f0ce57b/9867
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu
I had a physical today (did fine) and the nurse taking my blood pressure was upset -- the events of the day made her afraid. I was a little surprised: I thought she should have been afraid all along. I have been.
Something horrible has happened today. Something that is also vivid, and clear, and has the world's attention.
My own view, for some time, has been that there was about a 10% chance of the world ending/ per year, by nuclear explosion. That, in insurance terms
" A "statistical expected value" of a hundred Jewish holocausts, per year or one point six million "expected deaths" per day.
An "expected value" of senseless murders hundreds of times the number of people murdered senselessly today.
Maybe I've dropped a decimal pont. But even with the dropping of one decimal place, or even two, the concern is still wrenching if only it is taken seriously. My concerns have made me drop other things, and try to effect action. Dawn Riley's brilliant and hard work has been motivated for the same reasons. rshowalter "Science News Poetry" 3/1/01 2:07pm
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8802.htm
rshowalter
- 07:54pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8802
of 8813) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.51hca7LbuOa^0@.f0ce57b/9868
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.51hca7LbuOa^0@.f0ce57b/9868
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu
Today was a tragedy. A travesty.
I happened to go on an errand that took me on a bridge across a divided highway. There was a guy on the bridge, with an American flag, and a sign, that ongoing traffic could see.
. God Bless America .
God bless America. It is good for us to feel, all together, the weight of loss, and vulnerability that this tragedy had produced. It is good for us to give blood, and be generous in other ways.
But we need to do something we generally have not done. We need to also have sympathy for the fear, and the agony, of other people, who have been hurt by us , who have been threatened, and terrified, by us.
We need to do everything we reasonably can to reduce terror in the world. Things that we can actually do.
One of the ways for us to get safety for ourselves, is to find a way to assure safety to others , too.
It seems to me, still today, where so much of human concern, and human hatred is on view, that the concerns in Mankind's Inhumanity to Man and Woman - As natural as human goodness? http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b085/0 make sense.
I think missile defense is an important ideal.
The highest ideal is to minimize the chance of missiles harming us.
To do that, we may have to seriously consider reducing the harm we're prepared to do to others.
On this thread, the idea of full nuclear disarmament, with or without a "missile defense" stage, has been much discussed. Almarst , our "Putin stand-in" has been prepared to consider it, if "interdependent" issues can be adressed.
We need to find "Win - Win" situations, where the whole world is safer. As ugly as things are, and as dangerous as things are, it ought not to be beyond the wit of man to do better than we've done.
lunarchick
- 07:56pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8803
of 8813)
lunarchick@www.com
In comparison to war zones, the USA cities might reflect that their utilities, and communication arteries are in tact. Additionally they have wealth to make povision for the medical and social needs of the afflicted.
rshowalter
- 08:02pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8804
of 8813) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.51hca7LbuOa^0@.f0ce57b/9870
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.51hca7LbuOa^0@.f0ce57b/9870
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu
Out. I'll watch television for a while. This is a sad day.
But perhaps, if it gets people to pay attention, it may help avert a much
sadder day, when the world may be reduced to nothing but a dead ball with no
humans remaining, except, for a short while, some rotting
unburied corpses.
lunarchick
- 08:07pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8805
of 8813)
lunarchick@www.com
After the 'what if?' comes the
W H A T N O W ?
rshowalter
- 08:28pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8806
of 8813) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.51hca7LbuOa^0@.f0ce57b/9872
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.51hca7LbuOa^0@.f0ce57b/9872
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu
Thousands Feared Dead as World Trade Center Is Toppled by JAMES BARRON http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/11/national/11WIRE-PLAN.html
Horror, Alarm and Chaos Grip Downtown Manhattan by JULIAN E. BARNES http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/11/national/11CND-SCENE.html
Blasts Deal Blow to Northeast Phone Services by SETH SCHIESEL and SIMON ROMERO http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/11/national/11CND-COMM.html
We ought to give just a little thought to the bravery, the competence, the discipline, and the hatred, of the people who did this to us. Fear can be a very reasonable response. And a hopeful one. MD269 rshowalt 9/25/00 7:36am
lunarchick
- 08:52pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8807
of 8813)
lunarchick@www.com
Clinton is looking to leave Queensland to get back to the USA.
There'll be a need for people with good interpersonal relations to meet with the people, when the rolls are called the grief will outpour.
lunarchick
- 08:54pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8808
of 8813)
lunarchick@www.com
KNIVES common in the days of Solomn, common on the kitchen bench, were the simplistic weapons used by the hi-jackers.
rgbrasel
- 09:07pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8809
of 8813)
RGBrasel@hotmail.com
My God. . . I don't know what to say, but for those of you who are in New York, my prayers are with you. This is not a time for speculation or placing blame, but for unity. We will prevail.
rshowalter
- 09:11pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8810
of 8813) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.51hca7LbuOa^0@.f0ce57b/9876
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.51hca7LbuOa^0@.f0ce57b/9876
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu
Dad:
I said I'd call, to say I was all right, but somehow I can't get a phone call through to you. I'm all right now.
Since I've neglected to call you and Mom, so often, just wanted to have a record that, this time, I did try.
Bob
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8811.htm
lunarchick
- 09:11pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8811
of 8822)
lunarchick@www.com
rshowalt 9/25/00 7:36am - seems right.
rshowalter
- 09:12pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8812
of 8822) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.12mJaZZbuRc^633992@.f0ce57b/9878
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.12mJaZZbuRc^633992@.f0ce57b/9878
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu
rgbrasel 9/11/01 9:07pm Surviving, in addition to prevailing, would be nice.
logician3
- 09:16pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8813
of 8822)
Bush is an idiot.
NMD would not have prevented this attack - terrorist attacks are the highest probability ones, and the ones we must protect against.
rshowalter
- 10:08pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8814
of 8822) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.12mJaZZbuRc^633992@.f0ce57b/9880
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.12mJaZZbuRc^633992@.f0ce57b/9880
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu
MD8788 rshowalter 9/11/01 12:59pm
Things are not only dangerous, they are complicated.
. . . "What would constitute the end of the world FOR YOU? "
It may be a good day to think about that. http://www.wisc.edu/rshowalt/sermon.html .
almarst-2001 - 10:42pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8815 of 8822)
ADVENTURES OF AMERICAN RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT R-3. NOW IN RUSSIAN AIRSPACE - http://english.pravda.ru/main/2001/09/11/14837.html
Today scandal caused the day before by ‘Washington Times’ had its further development. The newspaper referring to informed sources in Pentagon announced Russian Air Forces had almost brought down American reconnaissance aircraft R-3, which was flying over the Pacific not far from zone of Russian Pacific Fleet’s manoeuvres. According to the edition, Russian MiG-31 planes based on sea shore flew at least near to the American aircraft, and one of Russian pilots even caught R-3 with his radar system of fire control. Today Russian side strongly denied this information. Spokesman for Russian Air Forces said the planes flying over the Pacific in framework of the manoeuvres were not equipped with battle weapon. “US side’s announcement that Russian pilot was aiming his system of fire control at American aircraft is absurd”, he said. According to Russian militaries, R-3 was at a distance of 48 kilometres from Russian frontier, in zone of Russian artillery firing. The militaries stressed, any threatening activities towards the American were out of the question. On other hand, the American was in the manoeuvres zone with very understandable aims: NATO pilots have become too impudent. Recent incident in China is one more confirmation to it. Moreover, not long ago, a reconnaissance aircraft of Norwegian Air Forces flying in airspace over Barents sea has almost rammed Russian helicopter with vice-admiral Motsak on board. The R-3 very possibly also decided to probe Russian pilots. And they scared him. They should probably make him land on Sakhalin peninsula?
almarst-2001 - 11:03pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8816 of 8822)
"A new pact between Russia and China begs more scrutiny" - http://msnbc.com/news/616634.asp?0si=-&cp1=1
THE KOSOVO LEGACY But in a more global sense, it would be foolish to write these two agreements as mere diplomatic niceties — like some sister-city agreement between Osh Kosh and Omsk. Regardless of the motives one ascribes to American foreign policy since 1989, for much of the rest of the planet, it looks pushy at best, and imperialist or downright threatening to many. The Kosovo war — even without the accidental missile strike that destroyed China’s embassy in Belgrade — did more than strike fear into the hearts of potential American rivals. It also set them to thinking: ‘I certainly can’t beat ‘em, so who can I join?’
From the archive: The Moscow-Beijing axis Theorists and writers of the past decade rightly have identified the United States as the only player capable of making or breaking an issue on the international stage by virtue of its enormous economic power and its military superiority. But this caution can’t be stated frequently enough: in historical terms, this is a temporary phenomenon.
almarst-2001 - 11:41pm Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8817 of 8822)
Attacks Show That Political Courage Is the Only Real Defense - http://www.iht.com/articles/32239.html
lunarchick
- 12:45am Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8818
of 8822)
lunarchick@www.com
Alex: Hard to open almarst-2001 9/11/01 11:41pm
lunarchick
- 12:53am Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8819
of 8822)
lunarchick@www.com
The American President might take a leaf from the book of a race relations rep., speaking in Canberra today he said that leaders should emphasis over and over the difference between Crime/Criminal and ethnicity. Crimes are committed by people from ALL backgrounds, because someone is of a specific background it is wrong for a country to let them be labelled criminal. A nation is made up of people invited in to be citizens - from many countries.
National Press Club Address: Stephan Kerkyasharian, community relations commision
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8820.htm
lunarchick
- 01:19am Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8820
of 8829)
lunarchick@www.com
Here in Australia the free to air tv channels have linked directly into USA commentary.
To help the enormity and complexity of this event 'get into the heads' of Americans and the world, the matter is delivered over and over, a new aspect added, and back to the original story, over and over.
The strategy of the attack, then image of the attack, have given way to personal survivor stories.
America is shifting the Paradigm from being a Nation isolated from war, to a Nation afflicted by war, lets hope it 'thinks' carefully, to ensure that innocents aren't stigmatised by political jingoism.
lunarchick
- 01:28am Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8821
of 8829)
lunarchick@www.com
NY as it usually presents itself - through drama.
ledzeppelin - 03:47am Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8822 of 8829)
In reply to my posting of 12:23pm Aug 10, 2001 EST (#7841 of 8821) Wherein I said the Missile defence project was, not going to deter or stop terrorists like bin Laden? We were informed by den 345 that no terrorist would do such a thing..... How many more dead do we need before the civilised world defends itself from terrorists? Sadly the missile defence project talks a good game but defends no one! As even a rogue state would not use a missile if a suitcase will do?
den345 - 04:07pm Aug 10, 2001 EST (#7842 of 8821)
suitcase nukes are an urban legend. people are under the mistaken impression that they are easy to produce. they are not. you cannot simply buy the parts from radio shack. plutonium is not the only component of a nuclear weapon that is difficult to get.
the second problem is, well, agenda. in the very unlikely event that someone manages to cobble together a portable nuclear device, and then musters the courage to use it, that person will have no friends left. their agenda will disappear. one does not vaporize a city and get off scott free. in the case of bin laden, i'd guess that afghanistan would be immediately invaded and occupied, and he would be captured or killed in short order. when world opinion no longer matters, steamrolling over third world countries is easy. end quote!
No point den345 now invading Afganistan as the lights are on but no one is home! Oh what happened to the short order capture.....
If the money to be spent on the MD project was spent ridding the world of the means of terrorists producing weapons of mass destruction moreover negating the terrorists ability to commit acts such as we have just witnessed by debilitating the terrorists by whatever means are required this would be a better way of spending the billions than that now proposed because all the MD project has done is make the world less stable and furthermore encouraged the terrorists, such as bin Laden, as the missile defence project has given him a captive audience when he used MD as his example of the US's desire for global domination!
lunarchick
- 08:06am Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8823
of 8829)
lunarchick@www.com
Clinton is winging back looking for a useful role.
Checking - seems not to have been happening at airports in US that lack a Federal standard.
The list of lost will include young workers from around the globe who worked in the building.
lunarchick
- 08:09am Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8824
of 8829)
lunarchick@www.com
Showalter has put forward the factual argument that Missile Defense ... the hitting of a target in flight (that doesn't have a homing beacon) is very difficult.
In this instance we note FOUR LARGE planes - hijacked - moving onto new flight paths .... without detection.
I believe Showalter, Postal et al when they say the facts related to MD targeting require a truthful investigation.
rshowalter
- 08:34am Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8825
of 8829) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.g4CJaln5uxN^679559@.f0ce57b/9892
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.g4CJaln5uxN^679559@.f0ce57b/9892
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu
In MOST difficult situations, truth is the only real hope for significant progress because things are so complex that it is very hard to come to workable answers, and avoid disasters.
We are now confronted with a situation where openness and support from the community of nations is crucial for our realistic, long term defense.
We've been doing some things very wrong, and need to fix some problems. Which means that some things about America need to change.
The things on this thread, if checked , would make the United States, and the whole world, much safer.
Not because I'm right about anything in particular, or any single thing. Or that anybody else posting on this thread is right about anything in particular. But the patterns of connection are important - - and the need for making decisions on the basis of things that are reasonably complete and workably true is now, has been, and will continue to be, a matter of life and death.
I wish the search function for this thread were reinstated. I'll try, today, to show how staffed organizations, if they take an interest (as I believe they should) can use it.
The thread has gotten some interest from some technically competent people. I think some sense of "deterrance" in the new web world can be gotten from considering the following exemplary posting, MD7769 drew____lang 8/7/01 5:43pm , which wasn't easy to do, and which must give the webmasters here pause.
The reasons these people wanted to make the threat are good reasons that this thread should continue to be, as it has been, a forum for detailed discussion, with some deniability, between staffed organizations, on difficult issues.
lunarchick
- 08:45am Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8826
of 8829)
lunarchick@www.com
Saw the band of nations rally for the US re WTC event.
Night here, had a day of watching events unfold.
The 'mental tragedy' is said to be due to strike hard tomorrow. Tomorrow is peoples_day.
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8827.htm
rshowalter
- 09:08am Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8827
of 8869) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752244@.f0ce57b/9894
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752244@.f0ce57b/9894
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu
It seems to me, still today, where so much of human concern, and human hatred is on view, that the concerns in Mankind's Inhumanity to Man and Woman - As natural as human goodness? 1-3 , http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b085/0 make sense.
We need to be able to think about our enemies as people -- either to defeat them, or to make the people who support them less likely to remain active enemies. To do this, we have to be able to understand how they think -- and how they feel.
The terrorists who did so much damage yesterday did something that was, to them, a beautiful thing.
. Detail, and the Golden Rule 16-19 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee8b441/15
By my standards, and I believe the standards of most people in the world, what they did was wrenchingly ugly . But it is worth seeing that on the basis of their assumptions, and their beliefs , what they did was heroic, and beautiful -- something they willingly gave their lives for.
We need to find ways to adress, and change, the bases of those assumptions. Which may require that we understand, communicate, and perhaps modify some of our own.
There are plenty of things about our society, and its connection to other societies, that need to be thought through more carefully. Almarst , Dawn Riley, and I have been involved in extensive discussions of these, involving both journalism and the performance of intelligence agencies. MD8754 rshowalter 9/11/01 8:30am
wrcooper - 10:20am Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8828 of 8869)
Yesterday's attacks point up the wrongheadedness of Bush's NMD plan. Terrorist groups or rogue nations won't use nuclear-tipped ICBMs to strike at the U.S. They'll use what one commentator called "low-tech, high concept" weapons, such as commandeered commercial airliners loaded with jet fuel to kill Americans. If they obtain nukes, they'll carry them on their backs and land on our shores in the dead of night on a remote beach; they won't launchan easily trackable missile from their homeland, inviting retaliation. These horrifying events show the madness and futility of bush's plan.
rshowalter
- 11:51am Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8829
of 8869) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752244@.f0ce57b/9896
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752244@.f0ce57b/9896
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu
I made some references to this Missile Defense forum on some Guardian Talk threads, including this one in Psychwarfare, Casablanca -- and terror http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/237
logician3
- 12:03pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8830
of 8869)
Bush is an idiot.
Quite true, only a large country with a significant nuclear presence could hope to have any success in a traditional nuclear strike scenario - "rogue" states just don't have the wherewithall to pull something like that off.
Nontraditional modes of delivery, however, could be tried by a rogue state.
fructidor_18
- 12:03pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8831
of 8869)
``The cause of the Arab people… has never been worse served than by
terrorism against civilians, now practiced systematically by Arab movements.
Terrorism delays, perhaps irremediably, the solution of justice that will
eventually come''. –Albert Camus, circa 1950s
DISASTER RELIEF LINKS
American Tragedy -
Find out how you can help the victims.
America
Under Attack--GOVERNMENT GUIDE
gisterme - 01:48pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8832 of 8869)
logician3 wrote (WRT the possibility of a terrorist nuclear missile attack, logician3 9/12/01 12:03pm ): Quite true, only a large country with a significant nuclear presence could hope to have any success in a traditional nuclear strike scenario - "rogue" states just don't have the wherewithall to pull something like that off.
Those sound like famous last words, logician3. Before yesterday, few thought a horror like the one we witnessed was possible either. That attack scenario is now used-up. It's obvious that these folks are attacking as much for symbolic impact as to do real damage...and few things evoke greater symobolic visions of grandure than nuclear missiles. They were the Cold War phallic symbols of the superpowers. What these animals don't seem to comprehend is that, like Pearl Harbor, the WTC murders will be the symbol that focuses the entire western world against their cause and leads to their ultimate destruction.
No amount of negotiating or "understanding", as Robert puts it, would have prevented yesterday's tragedy. These mass-murderers are no more interested in those things than Hitler was. They want to kill Jews just like Hitler did. Same spirit. They hate the US because it has prevented them from doing that. It's as simple as that. They are not rational...and in an irrational enviornment, conventional wisdom does not apply.
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8833.htm
gisterme - 01:49pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8833 of 8869)
Yesterday's attacks were intended to provoke even more bloodshed, bloodshed that would amplify hatered among Arabs against all the western democracies. The perpatrators expect the US to start whacking heads off the hydra. I hope that doesn't happen because there would be lots of bloodshed indeed and with little effect. That has been proven by both the US and Russia in Iraq, Afghanistan and Chechinya. Yes, these folks all belong to the same club; they're just different heads on the same beast. I hope the US and its allies can afford to wait until they can cut the heart out of that many-headed beast in a single stroke...to kill it once and for all. If that can be done, then a lot of innocent lives will be spared and the invitation to blood-lust of yesterday's attack refused. That alone would render yesterday's attack a strategic failure.
I'm certain that the motiviation for whatever the US and it's many friends world-wide do about this atrocity will be prevention of future recurrences rather than revenge. Self defense is a righteous motiviation. Revenge is not.
Whatever turns out to be the case, the world changed yesterday...WW III began. It won't end until all terrorist organizations and their benefactors are either destroyed or western civilization is destroyed. The worst is yet to come, both here and aborad. Personally, I think yesterday's "attack card" was played because the terrorists feel that they have an even more powerful trump-card still in their hand. Alas, Babylon, you are mistaken.
The sleeping giant has been re-awakened. We've taken punches before and lost good people before...and as before, all that has been accomplished is to focus our resolve.
almarst-2001 - 02:01pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8834 of 8869)
Excelent statement.
Except I don't think it will be easy to "cut the heart out of that many-headed beast". Because, in my oppinion, the heart most likely is located in the "Arabic Oil Kingdoms".
gisterme - 02:23pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8835 of 8869)
I believe that's the truth almarst . Didn't mean to imply that anything would be easy. There will be nothing easy or pleasant about any of this. It's a sad situation; but, whatever it takes must be done. The world will be a better place for everybody afterwords. In the meantime, I wouldn't want to be anywhere near the location that evil pump, wherever it may be found. The die has been cast and it has turned up a loser for that beast.
logician3
- 02:30pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8836
of 8869)
Bush is an idiot.
I'm not saying it's impossible, just not the most likely scenario, and we need to put our resources where they will do the most good.
gisterme - 03:16pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8837 of 8869)
I'll repeat, logician3 that in irrational circumstances, conventional wisdom does not apply.
Would you expect that the perpetrators of yesterday's atrocity are going to stick to the "most likely scenario" from now on? I wouldn't. We must prepare for all scenarios, likely or not. The cost of not doing so was demonstrated yesterday and is far greater than the cost of all preparation combined. Would you spend a hundred billion to undo the events of yesterday? I certainly would. Unfortunately, it's just too late for that. If the last president hadn't disbanded so much of our intelligence gathering capability, this attack might have been prevented; but, there's no sense in crying over spilled milk. We've no choice but to move forward from here. We are no longer at peace.
If these creatures can get their hands on a nuclear missile the results will be far worse than yesterday's horror. After witnessing the events of yesterday, do you doubt that they would use such a missile?
I expect that we'll see some new alliances arise from this whole situation especially between Russia and the other western democracies. I believe the world has been rudely awakened to the fact that we have a common enemy. There's no longer any doubt about the reality of the threat or the nature of the perpatrators.
rshowalter
- 03:18pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8838
of 8869) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752509@.f0ce57b/9905
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752509@.f0ce57b/9905
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Good to see you both here.
gisterme 9/12/01 1:48pm , I think the situation is ugly, but not ugly in quite the way you express:
" No amount of negotiating or "understanding", as Robert puts it, would have prevented yesterday's tragedy. These mass-murderers are no more interested in those things than Hitler was. They want to kill Jews just like Hitler did. Same spirit. They hate the US because it has prevented them from doing that. It's as simple as that. They are not rational...and in an irrational enviornment, conventional wisdom does not apply."
I'd have no objection to punishing the perpetrators of these horrors, and even seeing it happen in memorable ways. And the people who directly support them.
All the same -- they have a LOT of support in the world, or they couldn't have, and wouldn't have, done what they did.
Dehumanizing them doesn't help. Whether we fight them, or treat with them, or do some of both, we will do it most effectively if we understand them. MacArthur, no angel of mercy, would have said the same.
What these terrorists did made sense and seemed right to them.
Some understanding, a good deal of understanding, might help a good deal. I'm not suggesting forgiveness, or weakness.
I'm for wiping terrorism off the face of the earth. But might the definition of terrorism be worth discussing?
I think so.
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8839.htm
rshowalter
- 03:19pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8839
of 8869) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752613@.f0ce57b/9906
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752613@.f0ce57b/9906
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
If we understood more clearly why we were hated, isn't it concievable that we might find ways to be less hated? Even ways that weren't expensive? Even ways that were to our own advantage?
The terrorist crime and tragedy of yesterday grew out of some wrenchingly ugly messes. It might be concievable that, with better understanding, those messes might be better handled.
I'm not ruling out the possibility that punishument, fighting, and killing might be a part of the best solution available.
But if so, it would have to be a part of some other arrangements that made sense - - so that after winning a battle or two -- people could go on in workable, reasonable ways.
Most of the messes involve lies. I think lies have had a big role in impoverishing the Arab world, and rest of the underdeveloped world, as well.
But Russians, Americans, and others have some problems with lies, as well.
rshowalter
- 03:20pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8840
of 8869) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752613@.f0ce57b/9907
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752613@.f0ce57b/9907
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
And for all concerned, lies and mistakes about facts are expensive and dangerous when decisions based on "facts" have to be made.
rshowalter
- 03:21pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8841
of 8869) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752613@.f0ce57b/9908
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752613@.f0ce57b/9908
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
These folks may be "irrational" -- but they seem plenty effective in some technical ways. The Nazis were, too.
rshowalter
- 03:39pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8842
of 8869) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752613@.f0ce57b/9909
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752613@.f0ce57b/9909
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
gisterme 9/12/01 3:16pm asks:
"After witnessing the events of yesterday, do you doubt that they would use such a missile?"
I don't take it as a forgone conclusion, and don't think anybody else should, either.
Maybe they would. But that depends on a lot of thing you don't know.
rshowalter
- 03:41pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8843
of 8869) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752613@.f0ce57b/9910
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752613@.f0ce57b/9910
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Their killings yesterday were aimed, and by some standards, well aimed, not indiscriminant.
I though what they did was terrible . . . but it was done by human beings, with minds much like yours or mine in many ways -- not by magical or mythical "evil beasts."
rshowalter
- 03:47pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8844
of 8869) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752613@.f0ce57b/9911
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752613@.f0ce57b/9911
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
gisterme , http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?224@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752613@356514@.f0ce57b , you said something that depends on some checkable facts.
And you're dead wrong. You said:
" We must prepare for all scenarios, likely or not. The cost of not doing so was demonstrated yesterday and is far greater than the cost of all preparation combined."
We cannot prepare for all scenarios, because there are too many of them, and the cost of trying to do so could beggar us, and leave us much less well defended than if we made some rational choices, and did some rational things.
Have you ever thought about how many ways there are to get at the United States, or any other complicated sociotechnical system?
We have to find ways to safety that are practical. Not delude ourselves.
Sometimes, you have to count.
rshowalter
- 03:51pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8845
of 8869) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752613@.f0ce57b/9912
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752613@.f0ce57b/9912
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Other nations and people can't protect themselves anywhere nearly completely, for just the same reasons.
And so, in addition to incentives, and "understanding" in the sense of amity, there is a role for rational fear.
Deterrance works.
It works for people in their everyday lives, within society. And we need to have it work among nations.
But it has to be stable, and reasonable under the circumstances, all the circumstances, as they are.
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8846.htm
lunarchick
- 03:51pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8846
of 8869)
lunarchick@www.com
Alex mentioned 'OIL' kindoms. Oil == Energy. Energy == Power. Power drives equipment. Equipment + Power within process help do. DOing creates wealth. A problem for the OIL kindoms was they gained income without DOing - the DOing was the task of the external oil companies.
Moving away from oil=power is giving the world economies chances to DO and WORK and continue.
Americans as a mass won't have to RUN out of their country today, won't have to live in refugee camps, won't have to seek a safehaven, won't have their language, culture, education, workskills stripped and life chances denied.
-----
Refugees who have to learn a new language, speak it with an accent, and have to start the work ladder from the bottom wrung, don't climb so high. When they speak with an accent there's a mistaken belief that their intelligence is limited, that they don't have the skills required for promotion they become the second class / underclass ... are frustrated and can't break through ...
------
So while America weeps, it still has a right to feel lucky - on the global perspective.
-----
On inquiring of someone what they thought of the WTC matter yesterday ... the response was ... that they'd been through WAR.
The people wanted and were working for REFORMS.
America sided with the RIGHT.
Refugees flowed out of that country.
That country, that country, that ......
How many times has America sided with the Status Quo, rather than looked to the needs of the people within emerging nations - right around the globe?
This failure to SEE the people equates with the USA following the NAZI doctrines in its rotted central core ....
While the world watches America - yes, with empathy for the 'PEOPLE' marginalised, lost, and the feels the tears of children in The City of Orphans ..... America has to be aware that people elsewhere have suffered and suffered and suffered, have reached out to America, without THEM being SEEN nor HEARD. There are people in the world who've been DYING and are DYING ... who NEED alleviation from their suffering.
rshowalter
- 03:54pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8847
of 8869) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752666@.f0ce57b/9914
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752666@.f0ce57b/9914
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Totally disproportinate threats, especially threats that are prohibitively expensive to use, don't help.
Which is one excellent reason, among several, why it makes sense to get rid of nuclear weapons.
By the way, terrorists often justify their actions, by saying "as long as the United States does not renounce first use of nuclear weapons, we can do anything."
A lot of people find that a pretty logical argument.
lunarchick
- 03:59pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8848
of 8869)
lunarchick@www.com
TV's word was .... the American politicians and public won't want money wasted on the BwshShield ... rather, they want their money to be spent on conventional security.
How are Directors of Carlyle feeling today as the potential of anticipated military-technical-commissions slip away?
lunarchick
- 04:05pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8849
of 8869)
lunarchick@www.com
American people have the 'don't rock the boat' attitude regarding unity of power within their country - this i found arises from their Civil War .. the Old_Timers of which were still around in 1913 pre Great War.
One problem with the 'don't rock the boat' concept is a failure by the American people to really LOOK at their government. A failure to audit, to check, to question.
Will the WTC_NY/Pentagon_DC events arouse their critical appraisal powers wrt the core and direction of their government?
rshowalter
- 04:06pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8850
of 8869) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752666@.f0ce57b/9918
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752666@.f0ce57b/9918
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
that seems to me to be a fair question.
In a context.
The NUCLEAR THREAT INITIATIVE has a MISSION STATEMENT that I believe is beautiful : MD8426 rshowalter 9/4/01 11:11am
" “To strengthen global security by reducing the risk of use and preventing the spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. We will also work to build the trust, transparency, and security which are preconditions to the ultimate fulfillment of the Nonproliferation Treaty's goals and ambitions.”
This was written by people, like Sam Nunn, who have close connections to US policy.
Sensible people know the most basic things about what peace takes.
While we're dealing with terrorism, (and the linked issues of nuclear terror, whether delivery is by missile or rowboat) we need to remember what peace is going to take.
And work toward it, not classify it out of existence.
For reasons that have looked to me, too often, to be motivated for reasons that go against the reasonable interests of the United States of America.
rshowalter
- 04:21pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8851
of 8869) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752666@.f0ce57b/9919
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752666@.f0ce57b/9919
Robert Showalter mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Can negotiated peace be done once - done right?
MD8075 lunarchick 8/23/01 9:57pm
Do it once do it right - relates to process. If all the truth's/facts aren't on the table, then doing it once, and doing it right won't happen.
MD8076 rshowalter 8/23/01 10:13pm
Terrorism has to be handled for peace to be possible -- it is one of the problems.
We need "win-win" solutions for most of the people in the world, or peace won't stick.
Those solutions are there to be found.
lunarchick
- 04:25pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8852
of 8869)
lunarchick@www.com
GU thread re Chomsky
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8853.htm
rshowalter
- 04:33pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8853
of 8870) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752738@.f0ce57b/9921
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752738@.f0ce57b/9921
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
This article is worth careful reading in that regard.
. Elder Bush in Big GOP Cast Toiling for Top Equity Firm by LESLIE WAYNE http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/05/politics/05CARL.html
MD8659 rshowalter
9/8/01 1:35pm ... MD8660 rshowalter
9/8/01 1:48pm
MD8661 rshowalter
9/8/01 1:50pm
In the Eisenhower administration, there was an scandal, about undue influence. It concerned a fur coat -- a vicuna coat. Now, people in the Bush administration, and directly connected to the administration by strong ties of family or connection, have financial interest in government decisions. They act to influence and convey information about those decisions. The fact, and the huge sums involved, are disclosed, and the reaction is very muted.
Indecencies have accumulated, standards have eroded to a stunning degree, and "squeeze plays" involving information flows that are greatly to the disadvantage of other countries have accumulated.
These things need to be adressed.
The answer that "America is perfect -- it is everybody else who has to accomodate" isn't going to work.
Shouldn't work domestically. Can't be expected to work internationally.
. . .
On this thread, almarst has raised some very important questions about the good faith of the United States, and done so from a coherent point of view. His concerns should be adressed - - that is, if the United States expects "honorable conduct" -- in its behalf, from others.
rshowalter
- 04:35pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8854
of 8870) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752738@.f0ce57b/9922
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752738@.f0ce57b/9922
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
There are reasons why we are hated in many parts of the world, and we should fix them.
To a very large extent, we can, and it would be in our interest, material as well as moral, to do so.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't fight terrorism. We should. But to do it effectively, we need to fix some things that most Americans would be ashamed of now, if they understood them.
rshowalter
- 04:43pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8855
of 8870) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752738@.f0ce57b/9923
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752738@.f0ce57b/9923
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
The United States and our closest allies have had serious problems with a very "selective" justice, and that is a thing that many people have noticed, and resent. Almarst is bitter about the matter, and gives reasons I can understand. MD8744 rshowalter 9/10/01 9:26pm
If we are to expect the ultimate of good faith and "active justice" from others, we have to deal with some of our own problems, too.
Not continue to perpetrate frauds - - and not to thumb our nose at the interests of everyone else in the world except when we happen to be in trouble.
We also have a problem - - and people have noticed. We've been threatening people with nuclear weapons, for fifty years (certainly becq was clear about that) and people resent it. Some call American the biggest terrorists of all -- not long ago, there was an Aussie TV show, titled Rogue State. It was about the United States.
wrcooper - 04:49pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8856 of 8870)
Some call American the biggest terrorists of all -- not long ago, there was an Aussie TV show, titled Rogue State. It was about the United States.
You don't agree with this, do you? The U.S. inspires jealousy because it's a rich, powerful nation--the richest and most powerful. Many fanatical Muslims hate us because we're perceived as being largely Christian, or worse, secular. They hate our Enlightenment values; they hate our cultural influence. It's not because of what we do; it's because of who we are. They hate our defense of democracy; they hate and fear our freedom. Every tin-pot dictator and tyrant who rules with an iron fist or with fear hates our opennness. You don't really believe that crap about the U.S. being a global bad guy, do you? I pity you if you do.
rshowalter
- 04:54pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8857
of 8870) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752738@.f0ce57b/9925
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752738@.f0ce57b/9925
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Cooper, let me post this, and get back to you.
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8858.htm
rshowalter
- 04:54pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8858
of 8870) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752815@.f0ce57b/9926
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752815@.f0ce57b/9926
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
MD5784-5787 rshowalter 6/22/01 1:05pm ... sets out Henry Kissinger on Trial: A Guide to the Controversy Surrounding the Diplomat from the Encyclopedia Britannica web site --February 2001
US Policy in Guatemala MD6341 rshowalter 6/30/01 3:07pm
THREATS TO USE NUCLEAR WEAPONS: The Sixteen Known Nuclear Crises of the Cold War, 1946-1985 by David R. Morgan , National President , Veterans Against Nuclear Arms Vancouver, Canada March 6, 1996 http://scienceforpeace.sa.utoronto.ca/WorkingGroupsPage/NucWeaponsPage/Documents/ThreatsNucWea.html
Russians, other Europeans, and people in nations all over the world have reason to be concerned about patterns of agressiveness, and mercilessness, in the US past. And Wesley Clark's recent book ought to reinforce these concerns.
Some expressions of almarst's concerns:
MD8555 rshowalter
9/6/01 7:25am
MD8553 rshowalter 9/6/01 6:26am
lunarchick
- 04:56pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8859
of 8870)
lunarchick@www.com
Rogue State: http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/archives/2001b_Monday6August2001.htm
lunarchick
- 05:01pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8860
of 8870)
lunarchick@www.com
Afghanistan: behind the veil: Talibhan: http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/default.htm
lunarchick
- 05:06pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8861
of 8870)
lunarchick@www.com
Would
TRUTH help the stock market? That's grabbing world attention post WTC.
rshowalter
- 05:06pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8862
of 8870) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752815@.f0ce57b/9930
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752815@.f0ce57b/9930
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
"Rogue State" includes some great interviews, including one with Richard Garwin. http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/roguestate/interviews/garwin.htm
Cooper, almarst has laid out plenty of reasons why he thinks of Americans, in significant ways, as "bad guys".
I think both good and bad. But also think that, if we could see what others see, that looks bad to them (and to me, too) the possibilities for peace, and American security, would be much better.
There are a lot of quite coherent people, almarst among them, who have some very negative things to say about the United States.
We shouldn't be blind to what is said -- if we are, we can neither effectively deny it (if the points or wrong) or fix it (if the points are right, and fixable, as I often think they are.)
I'm against terrorism.
A lot of people with a lot of resentment against the United States aren't terrorists.
rshowalter
- 05:15pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8863
of 8870) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752815@.f0ce57b/9932
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^752815@.f0ce57b/9932
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Some very dedicated human beings, who worked hard at it, just sacrificed their lives in a very coordinated way, and did us a lot of damage, because they felt that it was right to hurt us.
I think what they did was awful, but if you can't imagine why they did it - - then a lot of possibilities for reacting well are closed off.
Cooper, do you really think what you said in wrcooper 9/12/01 4:49pm can apply as a reasonable and complete explanation about such actions by human beings ?
It is a dismissal, that only sounds like an explanation. You're dehumanizing them.
(The Nazis were people, too. That isn't to defend anything they did. But it is a fact.)
Myself, I don't feel forgiving about what those terrorists did. But they were human beings. Dangerous animals. Even as you and I are dangerous animals.
wrcooper - 05:18pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8864 of 8870)
I'm not saying the U.S. is perfect. But state what you think our nation's faults are in our foreign policy WRT the Middle East. How do we deserve the kind the attacks that were made yesterday? I've heard various voices, including yours, state that the U.S. brought this attack upon itself. I gathered from what you said that we deserved it somehow. It was warranted based on U.S. behavior. Defend that statement.
wrcooper - 05:19pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8865 of 8870)
Nonsense. It's impossible to dehumanize criminal evil. It's already dehumanized.
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8866.htm
gisterme - 05:21pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8866 of 8887)
WRT the last dozen or so posts from Showalter and lunarchick...
Tell all that idealistic, theoretical bull sh!t to the families of yesterday's victims.
And, Robert, if you think you can negotiate with madmen, then you put yourself in a class with Neville Chamberlain. You've extrapolated "understanding" to the point of the ridiculous. I'm sure that Hitler thought that his own actions were beautiful too.
If you tried to go negotiate with the guys behind yesterday's mass murders, then I'd know you were a fool. They'd have you on a spit in no time amidst peals of laughter...just like Hitler did with Chamberlain. They're mass murderers who are no more interested in negotiating than their brothers Hitler and Tojo. They'd take your gifts and as soon as you got done kissing their @sses they'd kill you without a blink.
It's impossible to de-huminize that which is already inhuman. Do you think that history has de-humanized Hitler in some unreasonable way? I find your desire to humanize the nazi (or other mass murderers) on the one hand and denounce the US as being "nazi-like" on the other a bit two-faced. People aren't stupid, Robert. Why do you act as if you think so?
Finally, I beg your pardon, Robert, but you should speak for yourself when you say that the minds those suicide pilots are not unlike our own. Maybe you want to claim a similarity; but I don't and most other rational folks won't either. I'm sane and rational by the standards of my society. I didn't notice anybody , including the leaders of the entire Islamic community except osama ben laden giving any support to the rationality of the actions of those who carried out yesterday's atrocity. Even Arafat who is a founding father of suicide bomber tactics seemed genuinely shaken. I don't doubt that the reason for that is because he realizes that this act has changed his little empire too.
Sorry, Robert; but, I just can't buy the way you try to justify evil things by intangile association...by just glossing them over with the rhetoric of generalization. There was nothing magical or mystical about what happened yesterday. That's reality.
rshowalter
- 05:26pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8867
of 8887) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^765998@.f0ce57b/9938
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^765998@.f0ce57b/9938
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
All right, George Johnson (Cooper), I'll fight with you. Let me take my time doing it.
I never said that the US deserved what happened yesterday.
I have said that we've done a great deal that has made us hated. You haven't read much of this thread, have you?
Our "Putin stand-in," almarst , has made quite a case.
I've spent much of my time trying to keep almarst involved, and not denying the reasons he feels as he feels, but also pointing out the good in America - - and some shortcomings in Russia, too.
rshowalter
- 05:30pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8868
of 8887) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^765998@.f0ce57b/9939
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^765998@.f0ce57b/9939
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Well, gisterme , we're getting somewhere.
I don't object to fighting and killing the people who were behind those terrible crimes of yesterday.
Never said I was.
But where do you end it - - and on what terms?
There may be 75-100 million people in the world who were cheered by that crime -- who really do have quite a lot of hatred of the United States.
Are we going to kill them? How might we go about it? If we could kill them, would that be a good idea.
Even in the middle of fights, understanding still counts, and dehumanizing people , even enemies, is a bad idea.
rshowalter
- 05:31pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8869
of 8887) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^765998@.f0ce57b/9940
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^765998@.f0ce57b/9940
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
The purpose of "winning" fights is to find something worth winning.
A livable situation.
gisterme - 05:35pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8870 of 8887)
Robert, you're technically correct when you say that it is impossible to prepare for every scenario. Obviously, there will be some that we just don't think of. But we'd be remiss to be caught again with our pants down on a scenario that is very possible.
Sometimes we do have to count, Robert, and sadly, this is one of those times. That's going on in NYC right now. It may be months before we know the result. We may never know the exact number.
rshowalter
- 05:38pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8871
of 8887) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^765998@.f0ce57b/9942
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^765998@.f0ce57b/9942
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
And because we have to count, and calculate, and because being right is so important, we have to be careful, check what's checkable, and not take damn fool chances on sucker bets - - like keeping funding projects that can't possibly work.
The protection of the United States is serious business.
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8872.htm
rshowalter
- 05:42pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8872
of 8887) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^766056@.f0ce57b/9943
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^766056@.f0ce57b/9943
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
And we have to do it in the world as it is -- with human beings as they are, and circumstances (including those that concern the past) as they are, and not as we might wish them to be.
MD8136 rshowalter 8/25/01 9:55pm includes this:
" The culture of some of the "military industrial complex" - including the intelligence community - has felt invulnerable for a long time -- immune from the ordinary decencies involved in considering others for a long time, or essays like FLYING INTO TURBULENCE by Peter Martin http://www.intellnet.org/news/articles/peter.martin.flying.into.turbulence.html couldn't be written, and featured in the "respectable" places where they are."
The fact that such things are written in "respectable" places says a good deal about how maladroit the United States can sometimes be, even though, on things like terrorism, it needs active help from the other nations of the world.
wrcooper - 05:45pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8873 of 8887)
Showalter:
Why did you write "George Johnson (Cooper)?" What did that mean?
rshowalter
- 05:51pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8874
of 8887) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^766056@.f0ce57b/9945
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^766056@.f0ce57b/9945
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
We did not deserve what happened yesterday.
But, we have done things, for a long time, that have permitted it to happen.
And a never ending cycle of threats hasn't worked so far - - in large part because our relationships with the rest of the world have not been such that we've gotten active help when we needed it - so in fact, we haven't been able to carry out a lot of the threats we've made or implied.
If the countries Bush called "the civilized nations" today were a community then things like "missile defense" wouldn't be anything like so urgent - - because terrorism, including nuclear terror -- and including nuclear terror by big powers - - would under much better control.
The American military has some good reasons for some intense fears. And there will have to be some fighting. But if the fighting isn't combined with some more productive things, to serve the needs of he people involved, we'll be in a mess forever, and the situation is unstable enough, with nukes as they are, that the world might end.
rshowalter
- 05:52pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8875
of 8887) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^766056@.f0ce57b/9946
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^766056@.f0ce57b/9946
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Perhaps I made a mistake.
rshowalter
- 05:54pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8876
of 8887) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^766056@.f0ce57b/9947
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.j5CeaC3PuTt^766056@.f0ce57b/9947
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Let me go back, and take a little time, and think about the things gisterme has said.
I'd very much like to see terrorism ended in the world, and I don't have any belief that it can be done without force. Without some killing.
But to actually have a good outcome, there's more to it than that.
almarst-2001 - 05:55pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8877 of 8887)
My suspicions may be not too far fetched after all...
Two men suspected of links to US attacks carried Saudi passports - http://asia.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/world/article.html?s=asia/headlines/010913/world/afp/Two_men_suspected_of_links_to_US_attacks_carried_Saudi_passports__TV.html
gisterme - 06:02pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8878 of 8887)
rshowalter wrote ( rshowalter 9/12/01 5:31pm ):
"The purpose of "winning" fights is to find something worth winning.
A livable situation"
That's a stupid statement, Robert. Are you really that naive? Since when did a fight become a search? The only purpose for fighting is to defend something that's worth fighting for.
Robert, if you don't think the free open society that we've enjoyed here in the USA is worth fighting for, then you should move someplace else...
You've just insulted the memory of every brave American serviceman and public servant that has fought for your freedom and well-being...yes, including all those fire-fighters and policemen who died yesterday in NYC.
Sometimes your shallowness and insensitivity disgusts me, Robert.
...Perhaps Afghanistan...maybe you'd find a negotiating opportunity there...
almarst-2001 - 06:03pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8879 of 8887)
What have originaly brought me into NYT forum was a US-NATO bombing compain against Serbia.
I would define the terrorism as An attempt to harm the population, including innocent civilians, as a mean to advance the particular political agenda.
I would chalenge anyone here to dispute this definition and/or show that the bombing compain against Serbia was NOT an ACT OF TERROR.
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8880.htm
rshowalter
- 06:08pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8880
of 8905) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.36fSaFLzuOG^782936@.f0ce57b/9951
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.36fSaFLzuOG^782936@.f0ce57b/9951
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
almarst , I happen to think you have a very respectable position there.
Some terrorists have said the same -- and their argument is - -
" since the United States acts as it does, and threatens as it does, we can do anything.
It is a terrible argument - - but in terms of logic and proportion, has some things to be said for it.
We need to take away the intellectual and religious justification for terrorism that is actually used - - which is justification in terms of the stances of the United States - - by getting rid of nukes. Or, at least, reducing them a helluva a lot.
The US would be better defended, and safer, without them, and so would everybody else in the world.
rshowalter
- 06:11pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8881
of 8905) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.36fSaFLzuOG^782936@.f0ce57b/9952
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.36fSaFLzuOG^782936@.f0ce57b/9952
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
I think people should read the all-day discussion I had with "becq" on September 25 2000 (who I believed at the time was Bill Clinton) and see how matter-of-factly he acknowledged the role of nuclear threats in US diplomacy.
rshowalter
- 06:16pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8882
of 8905) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.36fSaFLzuOG^782936@.f0ce57b/9953
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.36fSaFLzuOG^782936@.f0ce57b/9953
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
That day started with a proposal from me MD266-269 rshowalt 9/25/00 7:32am
went on all day, included this:
" Quite true thats why America makes it quite clear and indicates that it will use nuclear weapons if it feels it needs to. " MD301 beckq 9/25/00 5:03pm
and ended with an offer from me that still stands MD304 rshowalt 9/25/00 5:28pm
rshowalter
- 06:18pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8883
of 8905) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.36fSaFLzuOG^782936@.f0ce57b/9954
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.36fSaFLzuOG^782936@.f0ce57b/9954
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
It was an unapologetic terrorist stance.
In almarst's terms, and in mine.
If we changed our stance, we'd have a much better chance of controlling all other forms of terrorism.
rshowalter
- 06:21pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8884
of 8905) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.36fSaFLzuOG^782936@.f0ce57b/9955
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.36fSaFLzuOG^782936@.f0ce57b/9955
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
I am very strongly for condemning and eliminating terrorism.
In all its forms.
A big thing the world has to do is become more like a community , and less like a Hobbesian gaggle, engaged in a war-of-all-against-all.
To a quite encouraging degree, I think there have been steps in that direction in the last few months.
rshowalter
- 06:24pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8885
of 8905) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.36fSaFLzuOG^782936@.f0ce57b/9956
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.36fSaFLzuOG^782936@.f0ce57b/9956
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
gisterme 9/12/01 6:02pm , when did I ever say that our "free society" --- especially the free parts, wasn't worth fighting for?
Never did.
I don't always like you either - - it seems to me that, quite often, you drag red herrings across the dialog, just to close off conversation whenever you feel you or your colleagues need to pull a fast one, usually for private profit, to the disadvantage of the United States and our allies.
rshowalter
- 06:34pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8886
of 8905) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.36fSaFLzuOG^782936@.f0ce57b/9957
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.36fSaFLzuOG^782936@.f0ce57b/9957
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Talk about insulting the memory of our fighting men who lost thier lives, and insulting the men who fight today . . . . look at this:
. Elder Bush in Big GOP Cast Toiling for Top Equity Firm by LESLIE WAYNE http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/05/politics/05CARL.html
Don't you think soldiers have reason to be ashamed of that sort of thing?
rshowalter
- 06:46pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8887
of 8905) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.36fSaFLzuOG^782936@.f0ce57b/9958
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.36fSaFLzuOG^782936@.f0ce57b/9958
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
I'm working to defend and protect the reasonable interests of the United States.
Not interests that cannot stand the light of day, held by a small group that has, long ago, forgotten both about its job and its responsibilities.
MD8246 rshowalter 8/30/01 3:05pm ...contains many links about what this thread is built to do, and what it has done.
MD8258 rshowalter
8/31/01 8:10am ... MD8259 rshowalter
8/31/01 8:16am
MD8260 rshowalter
8/31/01 8:55am ...
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8888.htm
lunarchick
- 07:13pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8888
of 8905)
lunarchick@www.com
"We are rather better at Airport security than America is" Kim Beasley (Leader - Australian Labour Party).
Relates to Demming, statistics, quality and standards.
Says there's too much reliance on electronic monitoring -- too little on using appropriate cultural nationals to take the pulse on thinking.
Speaking on GMA tv 10
lunarchick
- 07:32pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8889
of 8905)
lunarchick@www.com
Watching the doll figures fall from the high rise begs the question 'why did they jump?' .. i wouldn't -- but would i? They did.
They jumped to gain relief - all be it a momentary flight - from the pain of intense physical forces - fire.
----
A big screen, re WTC events, for students at a city U drew a clapping response from a watching (international student) who was then 'punched'.
Raises the question why would/do people applaud. Are they applauding the suffering of individuals per say?
Or the concept that the SuperPower is seen to be experiencing the pain that they have suffered.
------
That America has silos of missiles lined up and targeted ... turned like wine in a vinyard cellar on a nightly basis ... that could 'blow' at any time with a more devastating effect than wtc incident - says America likes to place a psychological grip over the world.
lunarchick
- 07:36pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8890
of 8905)
lunarchick@www.com
KNIFE: seems these may have been from the plane's own galley.
lunarchick
- 07:39pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8891
of 8905)
lunarchick@www.com
Wonder if the USA media are giving intelligent analysis re the wtc event. Doesn't seem that way from the live broadcasts.
Prayers to the american concept of 'god' currently - to assist healing.
------------
So why did the PLASTIC MINDS of the terrorists shape into the wtc/dc modes of thinking ... how did these minds arrive at that point ?
rshowalter
- 07:40pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8892
of 8905) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.36fSaFLzuOG^782979@.f0ce57b/9963
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.36fSaFLzuOG^782979@.f0ce57b/9963
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
MD400 rshowalter 10/10/00 1:34pm : .... "In today's NYT, Barry Bearak's Lahore Journal: A Jehad Leader Finds the U.S. Perplexingly Fickle offers a clear example of how the U.S. nuclear policy increases danger, and offers excuses for horror, all over the world.
" Hafiz Muhammad Saeed justifies all sorts of terrorist activity, all sorts of random, hateful destruction, on the argument that "since the U.S. uses nuclear weapons, and claims the right to use them on first strikes, I can do anything."
We need to be properly afraid
MD398 rshowalter
10/10/00 11:57am MD399 rshowalter
10/10/00 12:04pm
If we were working to reduce all terrorism, in almarst's definition, all over the world, we'd get an enthusiastic response from a lot of nations that aren't helping us now, and I think we'd make a lot of progress.
Going after the terrorists who have hurt us so badly would be much easier for us to sell, all over the world, if we took that position.
And we'd be safer. Our military would still have plenty to do. But we'd be safer, and less hated, and the world would run better.
And also last longer.
lunarchick
- 07:41pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8893
of 8905)
lunarchick@www.com
I'm out ... visit the bay ... put my feet in the ocean, let the breeze blow some of the debris of the week away.
gisterme - 08:13pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8894 of 8905)
This, from a Canadian newspaper, is worth sharing.
America: The Good Neighbor.
Widespread but only partial news coverage was given recently to a remarkable editorial broadcast from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television commentator. What follows is the full text of his trenchant remarks as printed in the Congressional Record:
"This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least appreciated people on all the earth.
Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.
When France was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.
When earthquakes hit distant cities, it is the United States that hurries in to help. This spring, 59 American communities were flattened by tornadoes. Nobody helped.
The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars! into discouraged countries. Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans.
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8895.htm
gisterme - 08:14pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8895 of 8907)
(continued)I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplane. Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tri-Star, or the Douglas DC10? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all the International lines except Russia fly American Planes?
Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or woman on the moon? You talk about Japanese technocracy, and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy, and you get automobiles.
You talk about American technocracy, and you find men on the moon -! not once, but several times - and safely home again.
You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at. Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from ma and pa at home to spend here.
When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke.
I can name you 5000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.
Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of those."
Stand proud, America!
gisterme - 08:24pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8896 of 8907)
rshowalter wrote: ( rshowalter 9/12/01 6:24pm ):
" when did I ever say that our "free society" --- especially the free parts, wasn't worth fighting for?
Never did."
Nope. What you said was even more general...
"The purpose of "winning" fights is to find something worth winning.
A livable situation."
Any reasonable person must interpret that to mean that you know of nothing worth fighting for in your world. Good luck with your search.
rshowalter
- 08:26pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8897
of 8907) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.162Ta8jpuDa^793228@.f0ce57b/9968
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.162Ta8jpuDa^793228@.f0ce57b/9968
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
All true! A great deal to be proud of about America.
And I am proud of America.
All the same, we've been threatening first use of nuclear weapons, for many years. When the Cold War should have been ended, in 1991, we didn't know how to end it - - or didn't.
A lot of people, all over the world hate us.
I'm not so proud of that.
We should preserve the good things about America, and make it safer, and stronger.
To do that, it doesn't help, and it isn't logically necessary, to forget about the bad things. Instead, we should work to fix them, to the extent we reasonably can. It is in the national interest to do so.
It seems to me, still today, where so much of human concern, and human hatred is on view, that the concerns in Mankind's Inhumanity to Man and Woman - As natural as human goodness? 1-3 , http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b085/0 make sense.
MD8827 rshowalter 9/12/01 9:08am
rshowalter
- 08:33pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8898
of 8907) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.162Ta8jpuDa^793228@.f0ce57b/9969
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.162Ta8jpuDa^793228@.f0ce57b/9969
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
gisterme 9/12/01 8:24pm says something that doesn't follow at all:
" Any reasonable person must interpret that to mean that you know of nothing worth fighting for in your world."
I never said, or meant, anything like that.
I'm taking some quite tangible risks, here.
When we consider the world, and how we'd like to change it, it is good to consider the ideas, memories, and news stories associated with this famous picture, of THE POWER OF ONE http://www.christusrex.org/www1/sdc/tank-1.jpg
We need to be careful. And only so "trusting," where nukes are concerned, of either ourselves, or others.
We need to fight for things worth fighting for.
And we need to fight in such a way that, after we win the fight -- we can have peace - - not just another fight -- and another - - - and another, till the sorry story ends.
Which, with nukes now so badly controlled, and with human passions as they are, it could.
rshowalter
- 08:41pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8899
of 8907) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.162Ta8jpuDa^793228@.f0ce57b/9971
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.162Ta8jpuDa^793228@.f0ce57b/9971
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
gisterme , if you can read at all, you should know that I'm no pacifist.
I've worked to make that clear from the beginning.
Have you looked at my first postings? Postings I've repeated from time to time.
MD266 rshowalt
9/25/00 7:32am ... MD267 rshowalt
9/25/00 7:33am
MD268 rshowalt
9/25/00 7:35am ... MD269 rshowalt
9/25/00 7:36am
The proposal involves fighting. Fighting that is worth it. It also involves leaving military forces intact.
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8900.htm
rshowalter
- 08:48pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8900
of 8907) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.162Ta8jpuDa^793270@.f0ce57b/9972
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.162Ta8jpuDa^793270@.f0ce57b/9972
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
With the world as complicated as it is, and people and nations as exposed, limited and vulnerable as they are, community is an essential part of security. It is the most flexible, most useful defense, most often, -- the thing that keeps the world, at most times and places, from being reduced to a Hobbesian "war of all against all."
Before yesterday's tragedy, Bush was working, and working hard, to keep Australia friendly. He had good reason to do so.
Broad reasons. Bush ought to consider America's role in the community of nations - - and work to build aspects of defense that can only come from community.
To defend against horrors like yesterdays, and things that risk still greater horror that, without motivated friends, we cannot defend against:
. Nuclear Booty: More Smugglers Use Asia Route by DOUGLAS FRANTZ http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/11/international/asia/11NUKE.html
With motivated friends - effective defenses are much more possible.
This is a fact -- this can be checked. The actions of the Bush administration have been enormously effective in distancing the United States from the rest of the world - - destroying the sense that the United States is "part of the community of nations" and that U.S. citizens are "part of the community of people of the world."
It is hard to imagine anything more clearly against the security interests of the United States of America.
Now, we need friends. We should recognize that.
That change should be reflected in changes in the Bush administration's policies.
gisterme - 08:50pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8901 of 8907)
rshowalter wrote ( rshowalter 9/12/01 6:24pm ): "...I don't always like you either - - it seems to me that, quite often, you drag red herrings across the dialog, just to close off conversation whenever you feel you or your colleagues need to pull a fast one, usually for private profit, to the disadvantage of the United States and our allies..."
More blather. Give me one example of some "red herring" I've posted for any purpose, Robert.
The referenced post is your red herring. Firstly because you persist in making implications about me you know are patently untrue like:
"...you drag red herrings across the dialog, just to close off conversation whenever you feel you or your colleagues need to pull a fast one,..."
What colleagues, Robert? I've told you repeatedly that I'm just an individual who expresses his own opinion. You know I have absolutely nothing to do with the US government except being a tax payer and voter...and I have NEVER been a government employee except for a single enlistment in the service when I was a kid...and let's have an example of "a fast one" (don't expect you'll get around to answering that one).
and like:
"usually for private profit, "
That's just as untrue. What besides your own bias could motivate you to say a thing like that? Beyond what I wrote above, you know little else about me except that I have a good technical background. The only profit I derive from my participation on this forum is the satisfaction of knowing that at least one person answers your barrage of BS with some reason...
and like:
"...to the disadvantage of the United States and our allies..."
That's simply a ridiculous claim. Everything I've written here on this forum is there to be read. Let's have an example, Robert (don't expect an answer on this one either).
Secondly, it's you who throws out statements like this when you want to cut off conversation.
So goes the analysis of a Robert Showalter red herring. :-)
gisterme - 08:50pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8902 of 8907)
Out.
almarst-2001 - 08:51pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8903 of 8907)
Gisterme,
The list of America's good deeds may not be shorter then the bad ones. Don't you think that's beside the point of this discussion? For all those suffered, starved, killed, poisoned, burned and destroyed by the US your arguments provide a little comfort.
Do you or don't you agree with my definition of terrorism?
If not - why?
And if yes, you should accept that US was engaged in terrorism for a very long time. In my mind, the broad economical sunctions targeting the entire population in order to topple the regime, like one against Cuba for example, is as much an act of terror as any suicidal bombing attack. With one difference - The US is not willing to risk even a single American life to achieve its goals. Even if the goal is a nobel one.
The terrorism is a mode of operation and not always the evil intention.
If you had a chance to read a Dostoyevsky's "The Karamasov brothers", you may understand where do I come from.
rshowalter
- 08:55pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8904
of 8907) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.162Ta8jpuDa^793270@.f0ce57b/9976
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.162Ta8jpuDa^793270@.f0ce57b/9976
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Thanks for commenting, gisterme.
I think there's been a great deal of dialog on this thread where you've been taking stances against the national interest.
And plenty of examples where your response to an argument has been irrelevant diversion.
But I'm also tired, and I've opened my second beer. I'll be back in the morning.
Out.
rshowalter
- 08:56pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8905
of 8907) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.162Ta8jpuDa^793270@.f0ce57b/9977
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.162Ta8jpuDa^793270@.f0ce57b/9977
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
almarst, sorry to leave.
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8906.htm
rshowalter
- 10:17pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8906
of 8912) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.y7wVaWCKuTP^822073@.f0ce57b/9978
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.y7wVaWCKuTP^822073@.f0ce57b/9978
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
REPEAT: MD398-399 rshowalter 10/10/00 11:57am
Nuclear weapons are extermination weapons, and although they may have been necessary in some inescapable sense during the Cold War, the use of them, by any reasonable accounting, is a war crime comparable (or, with current instabilities, worse) than anything Hitler did.
A cultural change needs to occur, where people look straight at what these weapons are, and reject the making or use of these weapons so thoroughly that they aren't made again. I think the poets, artists, literary people, and feminists ought to be up to this. Especially if the history of the 20th century, starting with World War I (not WWII) was more completely understood in moral terms. We need to regain some kinds of decency that, as Bertrand Russell explained, were forfeit in the tragedy-crime of World War I.
There are so many different ways, in an technological society as sophisticated as ours. to destroy the world (any competent industrial chemist knows more than a few.) They aren't done, because people aren't inclined to do them, and if a madman tried, too many people, understanding the stakes, would keep the crime from happening. Nuclear weapons should be unacceptable in this same sense. I think this is something practical to hope for.
I'm in a hurry, because I think the controls on these things are far, far less stable than people have thought. I think the chances of the world ending SOON are entirely real.
Nuclear weapons are noxious, they are unusable, they are morally unacceptable, they exist on a hair trigger, and they should be taken down.
To do this, the main thing required is that people have to recognize how afraid we are of these weapons, and how well we really know them, and respond to our rational and animal fears with a take down strategy based on rational distrust. If that change of heart occurred, the take down could occur quickly. . . . .
We DO have to think about these weapons, not only intellectually, but also emotionally. If intellectual argument and elitist appeals could have solved this problem, it would have been solved long ago. Ordinary people, a wide sector of the population, have to feel, not only "know" what's involved, and become properly afraid.
Then we could all become much less afraid in short order.
rshowalter
- 10:20pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8907
of 8912) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.y7wVaWCKuTP^822073@.f0ce57b/9979
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.y7wVaWCKuTP^822073@.f0ce57b/9979
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
If you think I don't believe this, count postings. Sample them - I've worked hard, Dawn Riley has too, and both Almarst and Gisterme have made enormous efforts on this thread. (Count and sample their postings, and you can see this.)
There is reason to be concerned. If people would check things, the desperate seriousness of the concerns would be immediately clear.
The world could end. With a little good sense, and reasonable cooperation, we could keep that from happening. And stop terrorism, too.
We need judgement. Distrust. We need to check and make sure.
Life, and love, and hope, and fear, ought to be enough to justify that.
rshowalter
- 10:26pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8908
of 8912) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.y7wVaWCKuTP^822073@.f0ce57b/9980
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.y7wVaWCKuTP^822073@.f0ce57b/9980
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
MD8892 rshowalter 9/12/01 7:40pm
almarst-2001 - 11:42pm Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8909 of 8912)
Interestingly, there is no discussion on a 4th plane full of passengers being shut down by our own military.
armel7
- 12:20am Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8910
of 8912)
Science/Health Forums Host
A bit of perspective -- The bombing of Hiroshima caused a loss of life which was no more severe than a bad night of bombing in Europe in the throes of WWII. Nuclear weapons are considered specially "evil", I believe, out of a remaining ignorance and spookish fears about their power. They are weapons. All weapons are designed to kill as many people as possible.
Your host,
Michael Scott Armel
armel7
- 12:29am Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8911
of 8912)
Science/Health Forums Host
Taking off my "host" hat
For those who wish to cite America's sins as reason for this attack, I
challenge you to name a country whose track record is better. Yes, America has
its problems, but we should take an honest look at the problems of the other nations
of the world to see if we're really so bad:
China? TienanMen square; 100million murdered by Mao.
Russia? Stalin's 50million purge victims...
Africa? The latest count is about 2.5million slaughtered in the Congo civil war in the past three years.
Germany? It starts with an "H".
Saudi-Arabia? Ask them why no Jews live there.
Iran? Ask them why no Jews live there.
Iraq? Ask them why no Jews live there.
Afghanistan? A great place -- If you agree with the Taliban.
It is utter hypocrisy for people to sit and traduce the USA as if their own nations are pictures of virtue.
"host" hat back on
Your host,
Michael Scott Armel
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8912.htm
lunarchick
- 04:49am Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8912
of 8924)
lunarchick@www.com
The USA gave the world Statistician Demming father of the quality movement. Demming tools measure, quantify and evaluate. Prempting the question ... was history 'good enough?' plus 'can the NOW be better?'
It occurred to me that ElderBush and Bwsh have given the world, one decade apart, a compulsive viewing week of lounge_room tv warfare.
Is this just coincidence or is it derived from factors related to the Bush Family perspective on the world ?
That Bwsh spent his first months calling nations, including China, ROGUES, was no doubt the reason why China brought the spy plane to heel ... and went on to humiliate the USA wrt it's return.
WWII Europe saw use of 'conventional' weapons.
Hiroshima used nuclear weapons .... like the ones currently set-up daily in the USA and pointed to Europe, Russia .. perhaps also to China. Such missiles at one time lined the areodromes of the English East coast.
The above lists dictatorships .. begging the question "How does one man rise to power and take dominance over a country?" Where are the checks and balances that should be in place to ensure a democracy?
WRT modern day America the question is - 'why is it that questions that need to be asked and answered are ignoed or blocked?'
Take POSTOL (MIT) .. why is it that his explicit scientific logic is
being derided.
Why when he puts forward genuine heartfelt, brain knowledge, questions they
aren't properly regarded?
Why is it that Academics have not got the right of freedom of speech.
Why is it that he is told to shut-up - or research grants to MIT will be in
jepardy ....
isn't this exactly the experience of people within totalitarian systems?
Back to the quality perspective. Arriving at quality relates to having facts/truths that can be checked.
Armel - can you put forward a bona fida science person who believes that MD should function on the basis of technical lies ... that being cost effective?
WRT the ElderBush war with IRAQ .. this didn't end .. perhaps the WTC factor is part of that ongoing war. The reality for people in IRAQ is misery .. a generation of children have been born and many many of them have died .. since the ElderBush war .. the reason they've died is because they have been denied the basics of life by sanctions.
The point re both Bush&Bwsh is their failure to engage and negotiate and pre-empt crisis ... they let situations simmer and build .. and crisis occurs!
lunarchick
- 04:53am Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8913
of 8924)
lunarchick@www.com
Book for Armel: Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono
lunarchick
- 06:17am Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8914
of 8924)
lunarchick@www.com
ON: Good Neighbours - and being greatful: gisterme 9/12/01 8:13pm
Thinking about this one is reminded of the fact that America was built on 'imported' peoples.
People have value.
Take one imported person ... work out their earnings through their American life.
Take the figure. Compound it over the centuries.
This is the value of the person to their home country.
Do this for every migrant.
Then think .... perhaps America owes something to the world.
WRT the engine of the US economy ... keep it in mind that the capital funds that drive it come into America from the world.
Now re-read the article :)
lunarchick
- 06:23am Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8915
of 8924)
lunarchick@www.com
Gisterme .. thanks for your edifying comment on the value of my posts back there awhile -- you're under pressure.
One post - relating to the speech at the Canberra Press Club was about racism and crime.
I note that people in the US who have muslim backgrounds ARE being targeted by the civilian hoards.
The post was about the need for LEADERS to say that CRIME is common to all. That people of specific cultural ethinic origins - who are "AMERICANS" .. ought not to be targeted. Has a leader said that ? There may have been a common sense statement from someone ... but ... has it been heard.
The Newscorp headlines are jingistic and looking for blood .... that's how Rupert sells papers!
lunarchick
- 06:24am Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8916
of 8924)
lunarchick@www.com
On the victims ... these guys who worked in the WTC were people from all over the world. Australia has 90 people missing! The strike wasn't just against America .. it was against world-wide workers.
logician3
- 06:40am Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8917
of 8924)
Bush is an idiot.
This incident proves that Bush's NMD is a grossly bad idea. I hope that the repubs don't use hate rhetoric to get that monstrosity funded in legislation.
lunarchick
- 07:08am Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8918
of 8924)
lunarchick@www.com
Remember the Guns of Singapore ... they faced out to sea .. when the real danger came from on land.
----
The Yugoslaves in the workplace here initally cheered the terror ... reality again will be that the WTC will have seen the death of many from that region.
----
In the Global era workplaces contain people from all nations.
The bombing of a workplace equates with the bombing of the world.
That's why it's important that America does ask questions about the BushBwsh leadership and support core .. and look back to the Iraq war ... and start to consider!
lunarchick
- 07:14am Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8919
of 8924)
lunarchick@www.com
cantabb "Science News Poetry" 9/13/01 3:04am
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8920.htm
rshowalter
- 07:35am Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8920
of 8924) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.58dCadhUula^832351@.f0ce57b/9992
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.58dCadhUula^832351@.f0ce57b/9992
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Beautiful, Dawn!
Important comments by Armel . . . . but subject to some qualifications, that are important, because Armel's points are so important.
MD8910 armel7 9/13/01 12:20am
" All weapons are designed to kill as many people as possible."
Not true, most weapons, throughout most of history, have been designed to do controlled damage, to specific targets, chosen with human volition largely preserved.
The more indiscriminant and gross the damage, the more reason there is to be concerned about weapons.
For centuries, but especially since WWI, the notion of "total war, against civilians" has taken root. We shouldn't be causal about it.
And we shouldn't dismiss crucial operational distinctions. Including quantitative distinctions.
"How much? questions are important in the world, and questions of "How bad?" -- not only qualitatively, but quantitatively, too, are important.
rshowalter
- 07:36am Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8921
of 8924) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.58dCadhUula^832351@.f0ce57b/9993
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.58dCadhUula^832351@.f0ce57b/9993
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Armel also asks: "Are we really so bad" - - and frames the question comparatively - - - bad compared to who else? MD8911 armel7 9/13/01 12:29am
And he makes a good case, that I don't wish to dispute, that other nations have bad things about them, too, and that there are many, many wonderful things about America.
But the comparitive question "are we really so bad" can be compared to a number of things - - including compared to consequences.
Even America's worst enemies appreciate many, many things about America:
. Japan Is Said to Detain Son of North Korean Leader by HOWARD W. FRENCH http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/03/world/03CND-KIM.html
A North Korean leader who takes great risks to take his kid to Disneyland can't be all bad. Not all bad. But bad enough to give us some pause. Would that North Korean leader kill Americans if he could? I think so. Does that make him inhuman? No.
Should we defend ourselves? Sure we should.
Might it make sense to talk to N. Korea, and see if there might be ways for us to coexist more comfortably? Sure might.
We aren't "all bad" -- there are more wonderful things about America than a person can possibly put in his head. But we can be bad enough, in crucial ways, as well.
Abraham Lincoln said something that a lot of other people have known, probably as long as man has been man.
" If you look for the bad in people, you will surely find it."
That doesn't relax the seriousness of consequences.
rshowalter
- 07:45am Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8922
of 8924) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.58dCadhUula^832351@.f0ce57b/9994
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.58dCadhUula^832351@.f0ce57b/9994
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
The world is complex , and we are too. That shouldn't grant anybody absolution. But it is a fact.
I gave a briefing to almarst, that I've talked about in MD7388-89 rshowalter 7/24/01 8:17pm , that includes this
MD1128 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?14@184.58dCadhUula^832351@.f0ce57b/1224...
MD1129 rshowalter 3/17/01 5:38pm ... MD1130 rshowalter 3/17/01 5:38pm
People can be guilty and victims at ONCE.
People can be monsters and good people at ONCE -in different aspects of their lives, or at different times.
Americans can be dazzlingly beautiful. And have terrible faults, too. That can apply to single Americans, and can be said of groups of us, too.
rshowalter
- 07:52am Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8923
of 8924) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.58dCadhUula^832351@.f0ce57b/9995
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.58dCadhUula^832351@.f0ce57b/9995
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Of course we have to defend ourselves. Of course we sometimes have to fight. All the same, some of what "good" people do makes you want to turn your head away. And we'd have to fight less, and we'd fight more effectively when we had to fight, if we remembered that.
MD3201 rshowalter
5/3/01 8:17pm ... MD3202 gisterme
5/3/01 8:37pm
MD3203 rshowalter
5/3/01 8:45pm ... MD3204 rshowalter
5/3/01 8:47pm
MD3205 rshowalter
5/3/01 9:00pm ...
Some context, and a big question by almarst . . .
1308-1310 rshowalter
3/22/01 11:48am
You don't have to be a sentimentalist, or a cultural relativist. Some
things are ugly and some uglier than others.
MD2437 rshowalter
4/20/01 3:20pm ... MD2438 rshowalter
4/20/01 3:23pm
MD2442 rshowalter
4/20/01 4:00pm ... MD2443 rshowalter
4/20/01 4:01pm
MD2444 rshowalter
4/20/01 4:04pm ... MD2445 rshowalter
4/20/01 4:11pm
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8924.htm
rshowalter
- 07:54am Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8924
of 8934) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.a9BpaGcEuiz^883131@.f0ce57b/9996
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.a9BpaGcEuiz^883131@.f0ce57b/9996
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
I'm for eradicating terrorism, and not averse to the use of some violence in the process of doing it. I think the terrorists who attacked America should be punished, and I wouldn't mind it being memorable, wrenching punishment, ugly in proportion to what they did.
But in the world as it is, we need to deal with arguments about our own
behavior, too.
MD8892 rshowalter
9/12/01 7:40pm
lunarchick
- 08:05am Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8925
of 8934)
lunarchick@www.com
This 1933 classic came out at the same time the dangers of asbestos were understood.
This week she, she, she, she, she, she, she fell, fell, fell, fell, fell, fell, fell from the scraper ... then fell the scraper ... and the cloud contained asbestos .. and back to quality ... air quality ... lungs ... and lack of masks in NY.
rshowalter
- 08:10am Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8926
of 8934) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.a9BpaGcEuiz^883131@.f0ce57b/9999
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.a9BpaGcEuiz^883131@.f0ce57b/9999
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
I have a hard day ahead of me, trying to say the bad things about gisterme that she's asked me to say, and trying to do so with balance.
What a chore! Condoleezza Rice sure is a complicated person. Beautiful, intelligent, accomplished, sparkling, sexy . .
A lot like gisterme , in those ways and others, it seems to me.
lunarchick
- 08:21am Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8927
of 8934)
lunarchick@www.com
Sounds as if you'll be running the gauntlet from tarot ... to ... uhhmmmmmm ..... tea leaves
lunarchick
- 08:27am Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8928
of 8934)
lunarchick@www.com
Watch out for airplanes and towers in those leaves!
~ http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest
rshowalter
- 08:31am Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8929
of 8934) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.a9BpaGcEuiz^883131@.f0ce57b/10004
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.a9BpaGcEuiz^883131@.f0ce57b/10004
Robert Showalter mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
These faces, among so many, are worth looking at . . they give one pause -- about abstractions that can be too simple. http://www.guardian.co.uk/gall/0,8542,551227,00.html
rshowalter
- 08:36am Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8930
of 8934) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.a9BpaGcEuiz^883131@.f0ce57b/10005
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.a9BpaGcEuiz^883131@.f0ce57b/10005
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Death Be Not Proud
by John Donne
http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee74d94/3521
almarst-2001 - 11:56am Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8931 of 8934)
No sane person can justify this act of terror against innocent civilians in US.
And, as Armel pointed, the US record mau not be worst then others.
Except for the following:
1. The US had the least of all other nations to commit any atrocities it commited.
2. The US is the most powerful nation in order of magnitudes greater then its victims.
3. Due to its power, it can and must follow a different standards of behavier.
rshowalter
- 12:07pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8932
of 8934) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.a9BpaGcEuiz^883131@.f0ce57b/10007
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.a9BpaGcEuiz^883131@.f0ce57b/10007
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
almarst , for the US to follow a different, higher standard of behavior (and I agree that it should) -- people with influence, from other nations, have to ask for it.
And also show responsibility themselves. As is, it seems to me, happening impressively and increasingly.
rshowalter
- 12:16pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8933
of 8934) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.a9BpaGcEuiz^883131@.f0ce57b/10008
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.a9BpaGcEuiz^883131@.f0ce57b/10008
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Now is a time for mourning, but also for an increased seriousness that can make a lot of things better.
We cannot possibly, and should not "all become alike" -- or all think alike. But on issues important to peace, decency, and human cooperation, we need to have "islands of fact" where we are "reading from the same page" -- and can cooperate.
We need to find "win-win" situations in many places where they've been classified out of existence. You and I, who feel differently about many things, and disagree about many things, have been working for that.
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8934.htm
rshowalter
- 12:27pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8934
of 8975) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.ObkQaahBuQd^974127@.f0ce57b/10009
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.ObkQaahBuQd^974127@.f0ce57b/10009
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
md2088 rshowalter 4/8/01 8:30am
Almarst , discussions of the need for a free, fair, effective, accountable press, we had -- and that included concerns about US press patterns, seem worth considering here. To win a "war on terror" that is practical and balanced -- that involves all forms of terror, we need to have common bodies of fact, and mechanisms by which we can check each other, and ask questions of each other.
The "culture of lying" in journalism and more broadly, is part of the problem - - part of the reason we cannot become well enough informed to protect each other, and collaborate with each other -- when now, too often, we misunderstand and hate each other.
mazza9
- 01:01pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8935
of 8975)
Louis Mazza
Ah.."The Culture of Lying" Last night at the TWA 800 site George Stephanopolus, Sen Kerry of Mass, and FBI Agent Kalstrom (The Lead FBI investigator) were all quoted as saying, "TWA was the First terrorist action". So the center fuel tank explanation was a cover up. Who was covering up what? Was it, as I suspect, an artifice so that Pres Clinton could avoid the issue and win re-election?
Now it's reported that on Tuesday that the White House received a warning, after the Pentagon strike, that AF One was next. The code words that accompanied the threat demonstrates that the highest level codes were compromised. The reports of "lost" laptops from the State Department and FBI last year demonstrate that the lax security of the Clinton years is coming home to roost. Rob Lowe is reported to have watched his sons play with the football, (the nuclear code briefcase), while Rob was visiting the White House. I was a crypto security officer when I was in the Air Force. I blanche when I hear these tales.
Comments????
LouMazza
logician3
- 01:52pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8936
of 8975)
Bush is an idiot.
Bush et al were asleep at the wheel on this one.
mazza9
- 02:23pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8937
of 8975)
Louis Mazza
logician3
How stupid are you? Is there a scientific measure of your ridiculous quotient? On a scale of 1 to 10 what is the color of you grey matter? Blue you say? Of course Bush was asleep at the wheel in 1996 when TWA 800 was shot down and we can also blame hime for the loss of the Alamo and the fall of the Roman Empire. Your ignorance is only surpassed by your .... ignorance.
gisterme - 03:10pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8938 of 8975)
Lou Mazza wrote ( mazza9 9/13/01 1:01pm ): "...The reports of "lost" laptops from the State Department and FBI last year demonstrate that the lax security of the Clinton years is coming home to roost..."
"Coming home to roost" is a kind term, Lou. I expect we will all expreience the full Clinton legacy first-hand before this is all over. Still, now doesn't seem a good time to be worried about cause but rather to repair whatever damage can be repaired to mitigate effect. There will be plenty of time for truth about the past administration later.
According to one source I looked at, the number of Americans who died in combat in the Viet Nam War was a bit over 47,000 with another 11,000 dying from other related causes. That's a total of about 58,000 dead over all those years.
I have heard estimates that the American dead resulting from this past Tuesday's mass murders, just one day during "peacetime", may surpass 30,000.
I believe that Tuesday's atrocity is the worst loss of life resulting from a deliberate attack during peacetime anywhere in the world throughout all history. Except for a couple of Civil War battles, this is the greatest loss of American life in a single day in either peacetime or wartime.
In my view Teusday's atrocity is justification for whatever the president decides to do to preempt such acts in the future. If those "jihadists" think they can hide in and fight from those remote Afghan mountains as they did so successfully against the Russians, they'd better think again. At that time the Russians had no such provocation as the US has today and the world was a different place in those days. This time those "mountain fighters" will have no savior...and this time they've taken on and enemy who has the power to say to this mountain "be thou removed" and it will be removed...
...and nobody in the responsible world community will blink an eye because they'll know that the cause is just and the result will be prevention of future "wonders" like those witnessed last Tuesday in NYC. They'll know that the destruciton of evil will ultimately save lives in their own countries. And those who do not wish to participate in and receive the benefits of a responsible world community will find themselves living in isolation. Those who wish to prevent others from participating in and receiving the benefits of a responsible world community will undoubtedly receive the fruits of their criminal choice.
The removal of this kind of evil from the world is a worthy cause, and in spite of what some may say, it is not an impossible task. It is a task that must be accomplished for the benefit of all mankind.
rshowalter
- 03:16pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8939
of 8975) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.ObkQaahBuQd^974127@.f0ce57b/10014
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.ObkQaahBuQd^974127@.f0ce57b/10014
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Everyone lies, or decieves, or shapes facts in various ways, from time to time.
Psychologists, when giving tests, know to be particularly suspiscious of people who deny that they lie.
When the phrase "culture of lying" has been used on this thread, I've meant something more specific, and have hoped others have, too. I've been speaking of
" news and the culture of lying."
MD1294 rshowalter
3/22/01 8:11am ... MD1295 rshowalter
3/22/01 8:22am
MD1296 rshowalter
3/22/01 8:37am ...
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8940.htm
rshowalter
- 03:21pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8940
of 8975) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.ObkQaahBuQd^974222@.f0ce57b/10015
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.ObkQaahBuQd^974222@.f0ce57b/10015
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Good to see you, gisterme . Worthy cause? I think so, too. Getting rid of terrorism is a fine idea. But we need to do it so that it works.
Some points that are ringing very true, but ominously, about the war talk now.
MD1287 almarst-2001
3/21/01 10:05pm ... MD1289 gaddissio
3/21/01 11:54pm
MD1290 lunarchick
3/22/01 6:08am ... MD1293 rshowalter
3/22/01 8:10am
After the fighting, if extermination is ruled out, people have to find ways to coexist.
lunarchick
- 03:24pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8941
of 8975)
lunarchick@www.com
The figure of 4763 is given as the number of NAMES they are looking for .... if this is published, some of the names may be around and 'ring home'.
rshowalter
- 03:24pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8942
of 8975) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.ObkQaahBuQd^974222@.f0ce57b/10017
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.ObkQaahBuQd^974222@.f0ce57b/10017
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Another point, listening to the war talk, occurred to me. Knocking out any offensive missiles would be an easier thing than defeating Bin Laden , or any other terrorist who may be involved.
When the US really finds itself threatened, it finds instantly that it has conventional military resources.
The best way to protect against nuclear missiles in the hands of rogue states doesn't take anything we've been lacking, save resolve.
Unworkable Buck Rogers equipment isn't needed.
mazza9
- 03:25pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8943
of 8975)
Louis Mazza
gisterme
I agree. One of the reports says that the NATO ministers are meeting and that they may implement Article V of the NATO treaty which states that an attack on one NATO ally is an attack on all. That means an 18 nation front against terrorism. Add Japan, Australia and South American allies and maybe we can deal with this issue intelligently.
I hope that President Bush pulls no punches at the UN. It's ironic that the Durban meeting condemned Israel of being racist while the slavery that exists in Africa is ignored. My church is sponsoring 5 Sudenese young men who spent the past 12 years in a refugee camp. They are guilty of being Christian nothing else. Wanna talk about racism Jesse? How about going to Africa and dealing with the real deal. By the Way I am for reparations. I believe that each former slave should be given $1 Trillion. All they have to do is report to the treasury and collect their check. Descendants needn't apply.
Lou
rshowalter
- 03:27pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8944
of 8975) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.ObkQaahBuQd^974222@.f0ce57b/10019
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.ObkQaahBuQd^974222@.f0ce57b/10019
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Notice how necessary allies are.
The main unilateralist thrust of the Bush administration has been undermining its alliances as fast as it can go.
Time to mend some fences?
lunarchick
- 03:31pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8945
of 8975)
lunarchick@www.com
The TEXICUTIONER whose never blinked an eye at death starred in his own holiwood drama scene for CNN ... pushing the line America will take revenge.
BabybWsh was followed by the puppeteer himself saying he'd crawled out of his Wiscon hideaway and was went on to do the big wrap for the puppet .. and then went on to MAKE USA POLICY .. while the country was weeping .. by demanding that the fifth estate be expanded and the POWERS of the same be increased.
So catching the USA off guard - ElderBush has put you all on notice that he wants Congress to let through Bills that immediately expand the powers of the CIA - for your own good of course.
Now let me see ... the Texicution has put it on record that he can retrospectively decare anything and everything 'CLASSIFIED' and throw any one looking at truth, for truth in jail.
Now ElderBush is making the point that having the ability to classify words is insufficient. He wants power for the 5th Estate to classify all twenty six letters of the alphabet!!!
While you were weeping the devil was creeping.
Pity CNN didn't get time to do a little analysis!
-----
lunarchick
- 03:35pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8946
of 8975)
lunarchick@www.com
The theatre critics of the media spoke of how visibly shaken the president was .... how visibly shaken can a Texicution get - not very.
My take was that he's realising, his father is realising, just how
pathetic the Bwsh presidency is - has been. And wants to batten the presidency
down by strengthening and building the muscles of the arms of the shadow!!!
Making the 11th a very black Tuesday.
lunarchick
- 03:39pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8947
of 8975)
lunarchick@www.com
How upset can killer father Bush get ... remember this man was happy to send missiles on Iraq. Was happy in the knowledge that a lot of nuclear stuff was on these missiles. Was happy that the guys were given 'leathal injections' as they went to the desert.
BushElder had had full knowledge re events in Iraq for the year prior to the tvLoungeroom staging.
The world people were lead to believe the war was a surprise .... it wasn't ... preparations for it were in place six months before it happened.
lunarchick
- 03:40pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8948
of 8975)
lunarchick@www.com
WHY are the AMERICAN power clique banging their shields with their swords tapping out the word
R E V E N G E
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8949.htm
rshowalter
- 03:45pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8949
of 8975) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.ObkQaahBuQd^974301@.f0ce57b/10025
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.ObkQaahBuQd^974301@.f0ce57b/10025
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
We have to be careful , in all the senses of that word.
We want terror in the world to be much less , not more.
There's plenty of need for competent military function, but that can't be the whole story -- and the military has to do sensible things.
lunarchick
- 03:47pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8950
of 8975)
lunarchick@www.com
Putin has lined up Eurasia. Fox Latin America. And lackies like Australia, Britain,and Canada seem happy to lick the polish to shine on any US Presidents boots.
Bwsh advisors must have read carefully the Chi dynasty book on understanding strategy and Asians .. for last night .. the Rogue State (USA) fluffed up its feathers then sat on its nest and threw under it's warm boney belly a golden egg with the name of most countries that matter ... to declare war on 'terrorism'.
At the one level all will concurr .. but .. at another level ... wasn't that a crafty strategic move by the USA war horses to re-position America. They have to be congratulated.
rshowalter
- 03:48pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8951
of 8975) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.ObkQaahBuQd^974301@.f0ce57b/10028
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.ObkQaahBuQd^974301@.f0ce57b/10028
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
From time to time, I set out directories and summaries of this thread, because it is extensive ... MD6837 rshowalter 7/10/01 10:13am ... MD6838 rshowalter 7/10/01 10:13am MD6839 rshowalter 7/10/01 10:14am
Discussion, including many with gisterme , our "Bush administration stand-in" and almarst , our "Putin stand in" have continued.
"Counting search pages" MD7657 rshowalter 7/31/01 5:34pm
Exchanges with gisterme :
MD7656 rshowalter
7/31/01 3:16pm
Each but the last of the links below to 30 postings by gisterme:
MD7658 rshowalter
7/31/01 5:35pm ... MD7659 rshowalter
7/31/01 5:36pm
MD7660 rshowalter
7/31/01 5:36pm ... MD7661 rshowalter
7/31/01 5:37pm
MD7662 rshowalter
7/31/01 5:38pm ... MD7663 rshowalter
7/31/01 5:38pm
MD7664 rshowalter
7/31/01 5:39pm ... MD7665 rshowalter
7/31/01 5:40pm
MD7666 rshowalter
7/31/01 6:51pm ...
MD7497 rshowalter 7/27/01 11:05am
There have been many since. I think it is useful to point out how much involved gisterme has been on this forum, in a way that can easily be seen, and judged by sampling.
I've very much appreciated gisterme's involvement, because gisterme's postings have seemed to indicate such deep sources of information, and so much rank.
Some fairly complete summaries of this thread, much more compact than the Missile Defense forum itself, are set out from #151 of Psychwarfare, Casablanca -- and terror http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/159
since August 29, including a summary yesterday: http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/236
lunarchick
- 03:54pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8952
of 8975)
lunarchick@www.com
Getting back to the guys who DID THIS :
perhaps Doctor PHIL of Ophra fame might take the time to look into their heads and work out the process that lead them to THIS!
lunarchick
- 04:03pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8953
of 8975)
lunarchick@www.com
Permaculture's Bill Mollison - at the end of a permaculture show day - talked about Trusts. During the talk, that was mainly biographical, He made the point that as he'd travelled the world on his mission to educate folks as to how they can develop gardens and grow food and be self-sufficient, he noticed that governments never talked to each other. They were separate entities who each had their own set of operating rules.
This non-communication factor has been emphasised by a french accented commentator:
who notes that
the secret services of Europe don't intercommunicate
this makes it most difficult to pre-empt plotters.
lunarchick
- 04:12pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8954
of 8975)
lunarchick@www.com
The gulf war was perverse!
The WTC.DC war is inverse!
Any comments on the 'out in the open' dawn of the BushBwsh presidency!
If OIL is the root of all evil ... isn't it time to fund a raft of alternative green energies ... so, rather than having a handful of greedy people reaping oil rewards, power would be more diverse! then terrorism would reverse!
rshowalter
- 04:16pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8955
of 8975) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.ObkQaahBuQd^974301@.f0ce57b/10034
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.ObkQaahBuQd^974301@.f0ce57b/10034
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Oil isn't the root of all evil, but as almarst has pointed out with many fine references backing him up, it is the root of a lot of it.
There's more to terrorism than that.
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8956.htm
lunarchick
- 04:17pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8956
of 8975)
lunarchick@www.com
On putting secret service people back on the ground to join terrorist cells .... the reasons why the people wanted them out of that senario related to their sometimes being labelled as being involved in terror themselves - yes?
rshowalter
- 04:20pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8957
of 8975) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.ObkQaahBuQd^974383@.f0ce57b/10036
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.ObkQaahBuQd^974383@.f0ce57b/10036
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
And we're in a situation now that we have to deal with.
But it isn't as easy a situation as Saddam's invasion of Kuwait -- which was diplomatically hard enough - - and the US's negotiating position, and resevoir of good will, world wide, is less than it was.
A time to be careful, and mindful of the vulnerabilities that we have. Whatever we do, that is effective, has to have a community of nations really behind us.
And those nations can be expected to form their own judgements of what makes sense, and not defer to the Bush administration. And that is what they should do, for the safety of the world.
lunarchick
- 04:21pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8958
of 8975)
lunarchick@www.com
Watch the markets ...
on RISK
only ONE of the two towers was insured .. because they were believed to be infallible. Watch the share price of tennants tumble today!
rshowalter
- 04:23pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8959
of 8975) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.ObkQaahBuQd^974383@.f0ce57b/10039
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.ObkQaahBuQd^974383@.f0ce57b/10039
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Yes - - it is practically impossible to penetrate such groups - - the history of attempts to do it, in the past, has been a sorry saga.
Friedman was clear about that this morning.
rshowalter
- 04:30pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8960
of 8975) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.ObkQaahBuQd^974383@.f0ce57b/10040
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.ObkQaahBuQd^974383@.f0ce57b/10040
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Ominous title -- important piece:
World War III By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/13/opinion/13FRIE.html
gisterme - 04:43pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8961 of 8975)
The BIG PICTURE...
This attack on NYC is NOT the first battle of this war. This war started prior to the Gulf War and the Gulf War was the first major battle. Expect that lessons learned by the enemy during that battle will be applied to the next major battles in this war. Hindsight shows that gathering information about how the US would make a major deployment to the middle east may have been one of the enemy's major objectives of that battle. Given that as an objective the otherwise apparent stupidity of his strategy makes more sense. Our enemy observed and learned from the coalition actions during that battle and expect us to respond in a similar way during this one. We must not. We must be as unpredictable as our enemy. The tactics of this enemy have always been to attack by stealth, from within. That much IS predictable about his behavior. However, for that strategy to be effective, he must be able to move freely among us (as was done here at home) or prepare a snare in advance based on our expected behavior.
We know that Pakistan has been a major supporter of the Taliban and that the Taliban are close to the heart of this enemy. We know that Pakistan has developed nuclear weapons. We know that these jihadi militants can look you in the eye, lie and kill with a smile. We should be prepared for the worst.
If we deploy any significant numbers of troops to the middle east, including Saudi Arabia, we should preempt the possibility of attack from within. We must not forget that those who are willing to "martyr" their own individuals for thier cause will also be willing to "martyr" large numbers of their own for their cause. The rationale for both cases is identical. We shoud not deploy any forces to or near existing bases anywhere in the middle east.
Since our enemy does not at present have good methods of deploying their nuclear weapons or other WMD against our military forces, they will try to lure our military forces to their WMD. I believe this is the intent of the high profile attack on Tuesday. This attack would not have been made if our enemies had not felt they were prepared for our response. They expect the US and its western allies to act in the same way that they did during 1992-93. This may be the sole reason that the Saudi Royal Family has not been overthrown. Far more Saudis support the Taliban than support the Royal Family. Our enemy wants it to be easy for the US to move forces to those existing bases.
If we must deploy ground forces to the middle east, they should be deployed to large well-secured areas using bases we build ourselves. Not as easy; but, far safer for our troops. Those areas should be secured without advance notice by our own people , carefully searched and well-defended against ground, air and theater ballistic missile attack before many more people are sent there... Secure perimeters should be miles from the main activities of any such bases.
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8962.htm
rshowalter
- 05:06pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8962
of 8975) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.ObkQaahBuQd^974705@.f0ce57b/10043
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.ObkQaahBuQd^974705@.f0ce57b/10043
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Don't forget that it is possible to miscalculate , get surprised, and lose.
There's a common mathematical relation, called the factorial relation, set out with a number and an explanation point.
1! = 1
2! = 2 x 1 = 2
3! = 3 x 2 x 1 = 6
4! = 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 24
5! = 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 120
. . . .
10! = 3,628,800
. . . .
15! = 1,307,674,368 x 100,000,000,000
and explosive growth thereafter.
When there are a lot of possibilities, and a lot of things can happen in several orders, the number of things that could happen grows fast.
In complex circumstances, you can't defend against them all.
You can't always know what's coming.
Be careful.
rshowalter
- 05:09pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8963
of 8975) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.ObkQaahBuQd^974705@.f0ce57b/10044
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.ObkQaahBuQd^974705@.f0ce57b/10044
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
For reasons like that, by the way, there are jobs that are impossible , even for fast computers.
Missile Defense, as now designed, has a number of such showstoppers, some not encountered yet.
Some of them have already made progress on crucial jobs maddeningly slow for a decade.
Have your contractors missed this simple, unchangeable fact about the world?
almarst-2001 - 05:14pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8964 of 8975)
Gisterme,
I am impressed by your buttle-plan;)
I wish you also know what those forces will do? Occupy the Iraq? The Afganistan? The Pakistan? The Iran? The Sudan? The Libia? The Siria? And what next? Install the "democracy" and teach the tolerance and admiration toward the shiny West?
In my oppinion, it would be good enough if US would stop at least create the next generation of those monsters in places like Kosovo and Chechnia.
It also would be nice if the US would seriously denounce all types of terrorism (by my definition) and start acting accordingly.
As for this tragic event, let's just hope the West does not turn this into catastrophy. The best it can do is to improve the internal security and start the process of reducing the number of its enemies. Starting from some honest assessement of its own behavier. It will not help to fight the terrorism while practicing it at the same time.
almarst-2001 - 05:22pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8965 of 8975)
Clinton-Approved Iranian Arms Transfers Help Turn Bosnia into Militant Islamic Base - http://members.tripod.com/Balkania/resources/geostrategy/rpc_iran_arms_bosnia.html
U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee - Larry E. Craig, Chairman - Jade West, Staff Director - 'There is no question that the policy of getting arms into Bosnia was of great assistance in allowing the Iranians to dig in and create good relations with the Bosnian government,' a senior CIA officer told Congress in a classified deposition. 'And it is a thing we will live to regret because when they blow up some Americans, as they no doubt will before this . . . thing is over, it will be in part because the Iranians were able to have the time and contacts to establish themselves well in Bosnia.'" ["Iran Gave Bosnia Leader $500,000, CIA Alleges: Classified Report Says Izetbegovic Has Been 'Co-Opted,' Contradicting U.S. Public Assertion of Rift," Los Angeles Times, 12/31/96. Ellipses in original. Alija Izetbegovic is the Muslim president of Bosnia.]
"'If you read President Izetbegovic's writings, as I have, there is no doubt that he is an Islamic fundamentalist,' said a senior Western diplomat with long experience in the region. 'He is a very nice fundamentalist, but he is still a fundamentalist. This has not changed. His goal is to establish a Muslim state in Bosnia, and the Serbs and Croats understand this better than the rest of us.'" ["Bosnian Leader Hails Islam at Election Rallies," New York Times, 9/2/96]
almarst-2001 - 05:32pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8966 of 8975)
Another oppinion: yok_finney "U.S. Foreign Policy" 9/13/01 3:54pm
almarst-2001 - 05:36pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8967 of 8975)
Today I have seen on the Russian news (NTV) the pictures of attacked muslim places in US. Some burned, some fired upon.
Any guess how far are we from anti-muslim pogroms in this country?
almarst-2001 - 05:41pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8968 of 8975)
Taliban Plead for Mercy to the Miserable in a Land of Nothing - http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/13/international/13AFGH.html
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8969.htm
gisterme - 05:44pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8969 of 8980)
I'm glad you got the point of what I was saying, Robert. Our enemy is much less flexible and resiliant than we are. He has even more to fear from complexity than we do...and can only wage war effectively against us if we act in a predictable way.
Another thing we do know about this enemy is that he has finite resources. He can do his worst to us all; but, only until his resources are expended. Even if he manages to nuke some city here or elsewhere, tragic as that would be, that won't kill freedom and it certanly won't spare him. It would just remind all the brotherhood of western civilization that we must never again forget that freedom is not free. Like precious gold, if left unattended, freedom will surely dissappear.
The condition of freedom in the world right now is one of "illness"; but, the world's immune system has already begun working to expell the disease. In the long run, love will always overcome hatred, kindness will always overcome malice and that which is good will overcome that which is evil.
We must remember that, as demonstrated by Hitler, the real objective of evil is to spill as much blood as possible. There's no distinction there beween the innocent and the guilty. It's only volume that counts. The more we can reduce the volume of blood-letting in this war, the less we satisfy evil. Given the extraodinary circumstances of the situation we should take extraordinary measures to uncover the heart of this evil. Once that's revealed the thrust needs to be swift and final. I'm certain that all peace-loving peoples, whatever their culture may be, will offer all the help they can toward revealing the heart of this common enemy.
rshowalter
- 06:18pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8970
of 8980) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.qainaq3bvE2^982496@.f0ce57b/10051
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.qainaq3bvE2^982496@.f0ce57b/10051
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
gisterme 9/13/01 5:44pm ... you better be certain of that.
Just be sure that you're dealing with the common enemy in the ways that allies feel comfortable about.
gisterme , we've both agreed that we'd like a "world without nukes" - - and we'd like a world with less terror , not more.
Just a suggestion. Given the number of possibilities, when you set up an attack -- at least do the exercise -- how can you attack them multiple ways at once.
The best attacks, historically, have mostly had the following characteristic
1. Set 'em up for a specific attack, that sets up their forces in a predictable way.
2. Hit them from another dimension, where there defensive setup, for the attack they thought they were facing, disarms, or nearly disarms them.
3. Reduce them to disarray, and take 'em down.
(Several switches may be necessary to get to disarray.)
MOST OF ALL , whatever you do, have your allies really behind you.
AND HAVE AN END GAME -- this is absolutely essential. One that works -- not a botch like the Desart Storm war -- which looked like a masterpiece, and ended as a travesty.
If you can't do that, you can easily go slam-banging into disaster.
If you can't do that, it is better to do nothing.
rshowalter
- 06:20pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8971
of 8980) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.qainaq3bvE2^982496@.f0ce57b/10052
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.qainaq3bvE2^982496@.f0ce57b/10052
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Think hard about doing nothing.
Are the consequences really so bad?
(No kidding - - doing nothing is an important option -- and usually better than doing something wrong.)
rshowalter
- 06:26pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8972
of 8980) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.qainaq3bvE2^982496@.f0ce57b/10053
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.qainaq3bvE2^982496@.f0ce57b/10053
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Especially this time.
Can you really get your allies behind you?
If not, you better think hard about why you can't, and fix the fixable.
Deaths so far are nothing compared to what could happen if you botch this.
The Russians , the Chinese , and many other countries have to accept what you're doing, or the long term consequences are likely to be counter-productive.
You have to think of consequences, you have to be right, and you have to do the best you can -- with awareness of the grave limitations and inflexibilities that you really have.
If you had a real world community behind you -- getting control of terrorism would be easy.
HOW HARD HAVE YOU WORKED AT THAT?
rshowalter
- 06:28pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8973
of 8980) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.qainaq3bvE2^982496@.f0ce57b/10054
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.qainaq3bvE2^982496@.f0ce57b/10054
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
For instance, you better understand clearly , the reasons why almarst has expressed so many criticisms of the United States here.
The Bush administration should act to make things better , not worse.
If you're doing the opposite, other nations in the world have plenty of reasons to resist. And a lot of effective ways to do so.
rshowalter
- 06:32pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8974
of 8980) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.qainaq3bvE2^982496@.f0ce57b/10055
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.qainaq3bvE2^982496@.f0ce57b/10055
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
The Bush administration isn't necessarily going into this thing with lily white hands.
ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN "NAZI" AND "NAZI+BUSH" ON THIS THREAD
MD8675-8672 rshowalter 9/8/01 7:49pm
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8975.htm
gisterme - 06:33pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8975 of 8984)
rshowalter wrote( rshowalter 9/13/01 6:20pm ): "Think hard about doing nothing.
Are the consequences really so bad?..."
What we saw last Tuesday are the consequences of doing nothing. You tell me if they're not so bad...
rshowalter
- 06:44pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8976
of 8984) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.qainaq3bvE2^984764@.f0ce57b/10058
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.qainaq3bvE2^984764@.f0ce57b/10058
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Compared to what?
Bad as those consequences were -- and I'm concerned, too - - you have to ask about the consequences that could occur from now on.
We have nukes around, and something going on for 100 million angry, alienated people.
DO IT RIGHT.
YOU HAVE TIME.
DON'T GO OFF HALF COCKED.
MD269 rshowalt 9/25/00 7:36am
rshowalter
- 06:55pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8977
of 8984) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.qainaq3bvE2^984764@.f0ce57b/10059
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.qainaq3bvE2^984764@.f0ce57b/10059
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
MD8964 almarst-2001 9/13/01 5:14pm
Almarst's suggestion has to be seriously considered in any sensible thing the Bush administration can possibly consider.
logician3
- 06:59pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8978
of 8984)
Bush is an idiot.
Sticks and stones may break by bones, but your brain f*rts will never hurt me.
Bush et al received clear indications from congress and others that major terrorist activities were in the works. They did nothing about it.
Use what little logic you can muster to figure it out.
rshowalter
- 07:02pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8979
of 8984) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.qainaq3bvE2^984764@.f0ce57b/10061
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.qainaq3bvE2^984764@.f0ce57b/10061
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
We have to find ways to safety that are practical. Not delude ourselves. . . .Sometimes, you have to count.
MD8844 rshowalter 9/12/01 3:47pm . . . MD8845 rshowalter 9/12/01 3:51pm
Fear can be very appropriate. And there are limits to what can be
accomplished by disproportionate threats -- especially those that, as a
practical matter, can't be carried out
MD8847 rshowalter
9/12/01 3:54pm
rshowalter
- 07:22pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8980
of 8984) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.qainaq3bvE2^984764@.f0ce57b/10062
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.qainaq3bvE2^984764@.f0ce57b/10062
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Yesterday, gisterme made some statements, that were heartfelt, but
that concerned me, and concerned almarst.
MD8832 gisterme
9/12/01 1:48pm ... MD8833 gisterme
9/12/01 1:49pm
MD8835 gisterme
9/12/01 2:23pm ... MD8837 gisterme
9/12/01 3:16pm
MD8866 gisterme
9/12/01 5:21pm ... MD8870 gisterme
9/12/01 5:35pm
MD8878 gisterme
9/12/01 6:02pm ... MD8896 gisterme
9/12/01 8:24pm
And one comment, especially, that I've felt I had to respond to.
MD8901 gisterme
9/12/01 8:50pm ...
This thread is mostly built for staffed organizations, and I feel that gisterme's question -- basically " when was I ever evasive?" -- is an important question.
" Give me one example of some "red herring" I've posted for any purpose, Robert. ....
The question can best be answered, first, by reviewing things that gisterme has said, in order, and in a context where, in my view, there are clear obligations to the truth, and to the national intererest in making correct decisions on matters of great consequence, involving great risk to the nation if they are wrong.
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8981.htm
rshowalter
- 07:33pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8981
of 8984) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.qainaq3bvE2^984813@.f0ce57b/10063
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.qainaq3bvE2^984813@.f0ce57b/10063
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
From this list, there are examples, and patterns of examples, that I will refer to later -- with the context here for people to judge.
MD6461rshowalter
7/3/01 6:40am ... MD6462 rshowalter
7/3/01 6:45am
MD6627 rshowalter
7/5/01 10:31am ... MD6666 rshowalter
7/6/01 10:31am
MD6667 rshowalter
7/6/01 10:37am ... MD6668 rshowalter
7/6/01 10:41am
MD6765 rshowalter
7/8/01 4:16pm ... MD6766 rshowalter
7/8/01 4:17pm
MD6767 rshowalter
7/8/01 4:21pm ... MD6768 rshowalter
7/8/01 4:23pm
MD6808 rshowalter
7/9/01 4:43pm ... MD6809 rshowalter
7/9/01 4:44pm
MD6810 rshowalter
7/9/01 4:47pm ... MD6020 rshowalter
6/25/01 4:23pm
MD6021 rshowalter
6/25/01 4:31pm ... MD6022 rshowalter
6/25/01 4:34pm
MD6023 rshowalter
6/25/01 4:36pm ... MD6024 rshowalter
6/25/01 4:52pm
rshowalter
- 07:34pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8982
of 8984) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.qainaq3bvE2^984813@.f0ce57b/10064
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.qainaq3bvE2^984813@.f0ce57b/10064
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
MD6027 rshowalter
6/25/01 6:38pm ... MD6028 gisterme
6/25/01 6:58pm
MD6029 rshowalter
6/25/01 7:06pm ... MD6030 rshowalter
6/25/01 7:07pm
MD6033 gisterme
6/25/01 7:45pm ... MD6034 rshowalter
6/25/01 7:54pm
A major technical point, and a major concession:
MD6059 rshowalter
6/26/01 1:35pm ... MD6060 gisterme
6/26/01 3:13pm
MD6826 rshowalter
7/10/01 8:11am ... MD6827 rshowalter
7/10/01 8:58am
"I'm at a loss, myself, to understand how this cannot be treason. ...You
don't have to trust what I say -- look for yourself
More on questions of "treason" - - and key matters about
the technical viability of weapons systems claimed to be useful for the defense
of the United States:
MD6860 rshowalter
7/10/01 4:31pm ... MD6861 rshowalter
7/10/01 4:36pm
rshowalter
- 07:34pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8983
of 8984) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.qainaq3bvE2^984813@.f0ce57b/10065
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.qainaq3bvE2^984813@.f0ce57b/10065
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
"We could get closure on important things -- and make progress, if the Bush administration would concede things that are becoming obvious and inescapable. It would be better to do it in a way that might permit some graceful resolutions.
gesterme and the control group gisterme represents ought to respond -- ought to feel morally forced, as decent human beings, to respond.
Perhaps, though, there is a divine plan, and gisterme and co-workers have
been put on this earth to make clear how ugly some old ways are -- how ugly and
useless some old certainties are.
MD6926 almarst-2001
7/11/01 1:18pm ... MD6927 rshowalter
7/11/01 1:41pm
MD6928 rshowalter
7/11/01 2:15pm ... MD6929 almarst-2001
7/11/01 3:47pm
MD6931 rshowalter
7/11/01 4:14pm
The missile defense projects proposed by this administration are far fetched. They have only a vanishingly small chance of working at the levels tactical performance takes.
The things that matter can all be checked in the open literature - up to
specifing advances -- best described as "miracles" that would have to
be achieved for program viability.
MD7009 rshowalter
7/13/01 2:07pm ... MD7010 rshowalter
7/13/01 2:11pm
MD8409 rshowalter
9/3/01 11:26pm ... MD8663 rshowalter
9/8/01 5:56pm
MD8665 rshowalter
9/8/01 6:02pm
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8984.htm
rshowalter
- 07:37pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8984
of 9003) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.VabjaMO5vXX^1000253@.f0ce57b/10066
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.VabjaMO5vXX^1000253@.f0ce57b/10066
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Assume, as I do, that gisterme is a responsible member of the Bush administration, with a voice.
Most people, looking at the record as a whole, would assume that.
Is gisterme morally obligated to deal with these issues, are not?
What are the consequences, from the standpoint of the national interest, if these key technical issues are not dealt with - and mistakes fatal to the success of large programs are made?
rshowalter
- 07:41pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8985
of 9003) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.VabjaMO5vXX^1000253@.f0ce57b/10067
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.VabjaMO5vXX^1000253@.f0ce57b/10067
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
If gisterme's judgement is as weak as it appears to be on matters of missile defense, why should we defer to it, and the staff judgements behind it, in matters of military action on which the future of the world may well depend?
That seems a reasonable question to me.
lunarchick
- 07:56pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8986
of 9003)
lunarchick@www.com
Incompetence twice over ?
Wasn't stormingNorman alarmed when Bush pulled out of Iraq without taking down Saddam?
Wasnt't the world concerned when Bwsh spent the first 200 days playing the fool!?
Can the USA afford to have BushBwsh playing America for kicks to enhance their pockets via the Carlyle connection ?
How many losses does America have to suffer before critical appraisal kicks in ...
Americans are flaunt high numbers of Doctorates ... how come these guys can't put their brains into 'think' gear and truely evaluate world concerns.
----
On Australia Talks Back Oz tv talk show ... a person raised a question regarding CIA activity in Central America - implying that the way the CIA has conducted itself the past half century - worldwide - and without either the approval or understanding of the American people - is an explantation for the events and happens of the 11th. It had to happen - the USA have worked so hard for it to come about.
lunarchick
- 07:59pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8987
of 9003)
lunarchick@www.com
Amnesty International cautions the world to offer great respect to innocent individuals !!
Germany warns America to act with Caution!!! To look to a LIMITED response.
-----
Seems America must be looking at the armoury to pull out the 'toys' to throw at .. at ...
that's the question ... exactly who at?
----
Why isn't the Court of the Hague the correct place to run this through?????????????????
lunarchick
- 08:02pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8988
of 9003)
lunarchick@www.com
The second worst ever civil mishap in Australia's history has happened. SEE
rshowalter
- 08:08pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8989
of 9003) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.VabjaMO5vXX^1000253@.f0ce57b/10072
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.VabjaMO5vXX^1000253@.f0ce57b/10072
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Now, more than ever ....
MD8395 rshowalter
9/3/01 9:16pm
lunarchick
- 08:09pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8990
of 9003)
lunarchick@www.com
Chapter I - what a terrible place New York would be if THIS happened
It happened
lunarchick
- 08:13pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8991
of 9003)
lunarchick@www.com
Butler (GMA tv10 Melbourne) just speaking expressed concerns, re the first months of the Bwsh presidency, to the effect that:
America moved towards isolationism ... unilateralism .. America First - ism .... What ever suited America is what they'd do ... and they reduced America's generosity.
lunarchick
- 08:16pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8992
of 9003)
lunarchick@www.com
Butler said that the world has changed ....
Showalter .. has the world changed?
I can see quality improvement with regard to security service at American airports.
QANTAS (Queensland and Northern Territory Air Service) has determined to do a Cobb and Co approach re flights into the USA ... armed security will ride shot gun .. with plastic bullets.
rshowalter
- 08:26pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8993
of 9003) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.VabjaMO5vXX^1000253@.f0ce57b/10076
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.VabjaMO5vXX^1000253@.f0ce57b/10076
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
The world has changed, and there are new things to hope for, and old things, long feared, are becoming progressively more dangerous.
People are doing things that are classifying hope out of existence. Deferring to experiences, and assumptions, that are completely wrong for the new conditions.
A lot had happened in the world, just in in the few months before the NY-DC tragedy. Much that was promising was taking shape.
It may be a good thing, too.
And Condoleezza Rice may be one of the worst choices possible for National Security Advisor for this President, under these conditions.
She's been thinking about ways to use nuclear weapons, and excuses for using them, all her life. And now "nuke 'em" - isn't a workable answer.
And she may have the worst possible background for her job -- she's been a college Dean and Provost - - and the things that make a University good are terrible things to have in a military and diplomatic system.
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8994.htm
gisterme - 08:28pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8994 of 9003)
rshowalter wrote WRT his proposal (gisterme 9/13/01 6:33pm) that the consequences doing nothing about Tuesday's massacre of innocent Americans weren't so bad.
showalter wrote: "Think hard about doing nothing. (about Tuesday's massacre of innocents)
Are the consequences really so bad?..."
gisterme wrote: "...What we saw last Tuesday are the consequences of doing nothing. You tell me if they're not so bad..."
showalter wrote: " Compared to what?..."
gisterme writes: Compared to peace and security in our own home, Robert.
You say you're "concerned" about what's happened. You must be the only American that's not outraged at the murder of 30+ thousand of your countrymen. Perhaps you're not an American. Now that I think about it, how would I know? I'm starting to believe that my assumption that you are is mistaken. No American would want to just sit around and wait to see if this happens again. Certainly not one that was at all in touch with reality. If you are an American, Robert, you're a member of a minscule minority. Of course, that shouldn't surprise me because such membership is quite consistent with the number of folks who'd agree with your day-to-day views.
Wow. What you've said simply boggles my mind...I can just imagine what would have happened if president Franklin D. Roosevelt had eloquently argued to congress the day after the Pearl Harbor bombing saying, "We need to seriously consider doing nothing. Let's just wait and see if the Japanese attack San Francisco...after all, we don't want to risk doing something wrong...".
Tuesday's attack is at least 15 times worse than Pearl Harbor in terms of human lives lost. Probably far worse than Pearl Harbor in terms of material damage. You want to do nothing. Your position on this is utterly ridiculous, Robert;...but, it is revealing WRT your character and nature.
You really don't mind the spilling of blood as long as it's American, do you? You praise and support almarst's whining about a couple of thousand Serbs, almost all military, who were killed in the act of slaughtering civilians, in order to to prevent their slaughtering thousands
gisterme - 08:29pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8995 of 9003)
continued...
You really don't mind the spilling of blood as long as it's American, do you? You praise and support almarst's whining about a couple of thousand Serbs, almost all military, who were killed in the act of slaughtering civilians, in order to to prevent their slaughtering thousands more civilians and to break the power of a dictator who had the blood of tens of thousands of innocents on his hands;...but, you could apparently care less about 30,000+ Americans who were not using tanks against civilians or burning them out of their homes or harming anyone in any way. Your hypocracy is hard to comprehend.
You don't like it when blood-spilling is stopped and you want to do nothing when it's likely to continue. I think you are evil, Robert by nearly any definition. Either that or you're just absolutely spineless.
Whichever may be your case, Robert, I'll offer up what president Roosevelt did say following that other day of infamy...
"The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself".
And finally, I'm sincerly glad you're not a world leader, Robert.
rshowalter
- 08:39pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8996
of 9003) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.VabjaMO5vXX^1000300@.f0ce57b/10079
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.VabjaMO5vXX^1000300@.f0ce57b/10079
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Back to you -- wanted to post this:
MD8691 rshowalter 9/9/01 7:15am MD8692 rshowalter 9/9/01 7:19am
I believe that Condoleeza Rice, National Security Advisor is gisterme . That's a guess, for a lot of reasons, based on a very extensive correspondence.
Whether I'm right or not, Condoleeza Rice is now an important personage, and she has spent her entire life around, and justifying, American doctrines about nuclear weapons. http://www.webdesk.com/condoleezza-rice/
One need not doubt that Condoleezza Rice has manifest virtues. But people have experiences that are "packages of responses and experiences" - - and some virtues go with some defects, too.
Cultures and organizations are specialized to do what they do, and so are the people in them.
That can fit them well for some purposes, but can make them blind, incompetent, and sometimes cruel in the face of challenges they are not adapted for. (Or adapted to resist.) Universities can be terrible models for efficient administration, or for rational conduct. Or fine ones. Depending on details. So can university administrators (there's some very bracing literature on the behavior of college presidents, for instance.)
Here's a cautionary tale: http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/highlights/essay_kay_lostcause/index.html
Stanford University , and Oxford University , are wonderful places, similar in key ways, and subject to the same kinds of paralysis.
But such ivory towers , aren't good models, or training grounds, http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/highlights/essay_kay_lostcause/images/kay.gif
aaphrodite - 08:52pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8997 of 9003)
In Iraq America is seen as the GREAT SATAN
Different countries - individuals have different view points
Seems that the PAGE of the BOOK they've been reading on America is the same page ... not at all .. America presents itself in different ways to different groups of global humanity.
The kids stepping on land mines in LAOS - will grow up without legs .. but with a definate view point on their perception of America!
- - - - -- -
gisterme
, if you have national rank, and people... by rshowalter - Sep 13, 01
(#9001 of 9061)
gisterme
, the fact that you post here, and have... by rshowalter - Sep 13, 01
(#9002 of 9061)
gisterme
and I discussed the notion that... by rshowalter - Sep 13, 01 (#9003 of
9061)
GI
said: Far more Saudis support the Taliban... by lunarchick
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md9000s/md9004.htm
lunarchick
- 09:15pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#9004
of 9027)
lunarchick@www.com
GI said:
Far more Saudis support the Taliban than support the Royal Family.
Why would any Saudis support the Royal Family which FLEW away when the war was on .. re-instating themselves later.
Why would any Saudis support the Taliban who believe the women should not be seen, not be heard .. and not BE ? Selfexplantory :)
gisterme 9/13/01 5:44pm The condition of freedom in the world right now is one of "illness"; but, the world's immune system has already begun working to expell the disease. In the long run, love will always overcome hatred, kindness will always overcome malice and that which is good will overcome that which is evil.
[interesting statement ... if the illness is mental illness .. does this relate to immunisation :) ]
gisterme - 09:17pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#9005 of 9027)
aaphrodite wrote( aaphrodite 9/13/01 8:52pm ):
"...In Iraq America is seen as the GREAT SATAN
Different countries - individuals have different view points
Seems that the PAGE of the BOOK they've been reading on America is the same page ... not at all .. America presents itself in different ways to different groups of global humanity..."
Hitler and Tojo hated America too...perception has much more to do with the agendas of the perceiver than with how America presents itself.
With regard to pages, aaphrodite, well, pick one. Decide what page your'e on...Or are you one of those folks who just can't make a decision? Just gotta' keep your options open rather than taking a stand? Perhaps you're one who thinks there's no right or wrong?
I'll say this, aaphrodite, if you think that what happened in NYC last Tuesday isn't wrong then you're probably seriously ill and should get help...and you're definately on the wrong page.
lunarchick
- 09:19pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#9006
of 9027)
lunarchick@www.com
There are needs for incementally improving world standards that uphold human rights. And safeguard women.
aaphrodite - 09:21pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#9007 of 9027)
I was relating to a world post11th survey .. which is in the media cloud.
On a personal level i'm for LOVE.
I'll say it again.
I'm for LOVE!
logician3
- 09:32pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#9008
of 9027)
Bush is an idiot.
"I'm for LOVE"
Me too, sex ain't bad either.
rshowalter
- 09:33pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#9009
of 9027) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.NbE3ah4Yv85^1017204@.f0ce57b/10092
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.NbE3ah4Yv85^1017204@.f0ce57b/10092
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
If the United States wants its allies to wholeheartedly come to it's aid, and to defer to American judgement, it has some cleaning up to do. Nothing could be more practical for military officers responsible for action to think about, right now.
I wonder how many enlisted men (and there are plenty of literate ones)
could read
Elder Bush in Big GOP Cast Toiling for Top Equity Firm by LESLIE WAYNE
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/05/politics/05CARL.html without being ashamed?
" I wonder how many military leaders would want soldiers to read such things prior to having to risk their lives in combat?
MD8659 rshowalter 9/8/01 1:35pm
aaphrodite - 09:34pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#9010 of 9027)
So love and sex are weighted on the positive side of the continuum ... with war and hatred on the other.
So why do wars happen.
Whose in it for power, for greed .. or is it opportunism in response to the weak and incompetent ?
rshowalter
- 09:37pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#9011
of 9027) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.NbE3ah4Yv85^1017204@.f0ce57b/10095
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.NbE3ah4Yv85^1017204@.f0ce57b/10095
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
logician3 9/13/01 9:32pm ... sex isn't bad.
I'm for having it go on and on.
In the human sense, that's not certain.
The world could end.
We need to be careful.
aaphrodite - 09:40pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#9012 of 9027)
This disaster has affected under 10,000 people - directly - more indirectly.
The earthquake that shook India a while back was said to have killed 100,000.
Bill CLINTON spoke up, visited, placed focus on it.
The reality is that the status of the rural Indian carried little weight - because the Indians who were affected, who died, had few world connections, and little status.
Proportionally the NY trauma is symbolic, but, in recent historical terms - there have been worse traumas that have recieved little attention.
If thousands of missiles had been accidentally fired - or terrorised ....
where would the world be now
where love?
lunarchick
- 09:44pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#9013
of 9027)
lunarchick@www.com
The Camera DOES NOT LIE .. i thought this guy never got to NY!
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md9000s/md9014.htm
aaphrodite - 09:46pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#9014 of 9027)
If the money the USA intend to 'throw at' this thing were put into THE FOUNDATION OF LOVE .. and used to educate, develop attitudes and economies ... would it out war?
lunarchick
- 09:48pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#9015
of 9027)
lunarchick@www.com
http://www.bbc.co.uk/
logician3
- 09:48pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#9016
of 9027)
Bush is an idiot.
Didn't you ever watch cowboy movies?
One American is worth 10 Indians any day.
aaphrodite - 09:58pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#9017 of 9027)
any day
those days are over ...
Indians can be worth ten times any cowboy today
thanks to casino investments
casino
gamble
risk
black jack
russian roulette
tomahawk
axe
flint
spark
The basics of civilization are subject to change .. yet the return to 'the laws of the jungle' .. chaos and no laws .. can happen
Will America have the sense to step back and be rational .... ?
Not according to an American Academic at a local U .. (there are 3 in town) ... his take was that uncle Sam would find something big and ham footedly start to throw it. Scandinavian Thor will confirm that!
lunarchick
- 10:08pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#9018
of 9027)
lunarchick@www.com
The Whitehouse has had it's day. Seems it is no longer a 'safe workplace' for a president. No longer a 'safe playplace' for little leaguers.
Time to turn it into a museum and build new!?!
lunarchick
- 10:13pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#9019
of 9027)
lunarchick@www.com
lunarchick "Science News Poetry" 9/13/01 10:12pm
gisterme - 10:14pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#9020 of 9027)
rshowalter wrote ( rshowalter 9/13/01 9:01pm ):
"gisterme , if you have national rank, and people listen to you, they shouldn't..."
You know I have nothing to do with the government...why do you persist in trying to project that illusion? It is false. As to whether or not people listen to me, frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. I say what I say...it all comes from the heart. I've said nothing that I don't believe or that I know to be false...and your false assumptions can't change that.
"...I was outraged, all right..."
Wellll, it's good of you to say so, finally.
"...But losing your head doesn't help..."
My head is quite attached and accounted for, thank you. It's yours that I've been wondering about.
"...I think most reasonable people, in the United States and abroad, who looked at my postings you were quoting from, and then at your posting, would be apalled at you..."
That's what you think and a perfect example of why I've been wondering about the location your head. Based on much what you've said lately, the credibility of all your statements is dwindeling so far as I'm concerned. What I think is that most Americans would applaud my response to your post, given what you wrote. I do feel a little better, Robert, to know that you were outraged by Tuesday's events and not just "concerned" as you wrote before.
By the way, Robert, are you and American?
lunarchick
- 10:19pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#9021
of 9027)
lunarchick@www.com
If Americans were American .. they wouldn't need to put the flag in the face as much ... when will the 'flag' take a backseat. When it does - then Americans will know who they are, and be American.
lunarchick
- 10:23pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#9022
of 9027)
lunarchick@www.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ headlines show America is going crazy!
lunarchick
- 10:26pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#9023
of 9027)
lunarchick@www.com
Rupert Murdocks London SUN puts the crisis in perspective http://www.thesun.co.uk/bizarre/
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md9000s/md9024.htm
lunarchick
- 10:38pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#9024
of 9038)
lunarchick@www.com
larry6117 "Weapons Labs and Nuclear Research" 8/19/01 4:08am
almarst-2001 - 10:57pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#9025 of 9038)
gisterme,
I repeat - this was a terrible and unexcusable act of brutality and terror. Deplorable by any sane human.
I only wonder why "a couple of thousends" of Serbian civilians (more then 90 children and about 3500 b DEAD several times more wounded) and I am talking about CIVILIANS does not touches your aprechention?
Taking in account the relative size of a populations (9-10 milions vs 300 milions) that would translate into more then 100000 dead Americans and several hundred thousends wounded.
More then 300 schools destroyed. Dosend of hospitals, roads, bridges, water and power systems, etc.
All inflicted by a country, most of its citizens don't even know where the Serbia is on a map. But chearefuly enjoyed the "wonders of humanitarian bombing" on their TVs.
Any second oppinion?
rshowalter
- 11:03pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#9026
of 9038) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.CciTafT0vQk^1050009@.f0ce57b/10111
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.CciTafT0vQk^1050009@.f0ce57b/10111
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
That seems to me to be an extraordinarily good question. I hope a number of people, connected to staffed organizations all over the world, read the output of gisterme carefully, and think about what it means.
rshowalter
- 11:03pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#9027
of 9038) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.CciTafT0vQk^1050009@.f0ce57b/10112
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.CciTafT0vQk^1050009@.f0ce57b/10112
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
back in the morning.
gisterme - 11:17pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#9028 of 9038)
aaphrodite wrote ( aaphrodite 9/13/01 9:00pm ): "Gisterme throw a link to your web site, a picture of yourself ... if you're big on truth and checking .. :)"
Don't have a website, aaphrodite. Probably wouldn't put it up if I did because I've seen how viscious some of the regular posters on this forum can get when they think they know where you are or they find out your real name. That's really pitiful, but a fact. When Lou Mazza first posted here I couldn't believe what I was reading. They were searching the web for Lou Mazzas! It was like a feeding frenzy! So, I prefer to maintain my pseudonym...I'm just plain ol' gisterme. The desire for anonymity has nothing to do with being "big on truth or checking", aaphrodite, although I'm big on both. In spite of all of Robert's rhetoric, and tangential reasoning (if it can be called reasoning) he's never shown anything I've written to be intentionally false because none of it has been. That's why I'm always confident in challenging him to give even a single example whenever he makes his periodic accusations. He never gives an example. He's only into talking about checking, not actually doing it. At one point I spent hours and hours doing research and calculations to show from public records why a laser could be used to destroy a missile using a re-integration of existing technology. He just blew it all off as "impossible" and a need for "miracles". Eventhough he promised, I don't believe he actually got around to checking. Did you, Robert? Didn't think so... I confess that I have been wrong before on at least one point (hair splitting as I recall) and accepted some correcton, and I've have said a couple of things that I regretted and voluntarily appologized for; but, I've always been truthful. I learned years ago that you don't need a very good memory if you stick to the truth. I think it drives poor Robert nuts sometimes. :-)
Everything I've written is there to be read...feel free to judge for yourself and challenge any of it if you like. I think I started posting at around MD 3,000-something. Don't know for sure. I'm definately with Robert in wanting the search engine back.
Haven't had much time to spend on this lately because I've been buisy with other things; but, I've been a bit numbed by the events of the past few days and find that expressing myself in this way is a good release. Argueing with Robert is distracting and usually not too challenging. :-)
Don't know how to post a picture here or that I would if I did; contrary to Robert's persistant false assumption I'm nobody you Robert or anybody else besides personal friends would recognize;but, I've been told within the last couple of days that I look like Ernest Hemingway. Others tell me Santa Clause, when I let my beard bush out. I think I prefer to be Santa-like myself, since I have more in common with him than Hemingway. Santa and I are both still alive and we have generally similar attitudes! :-) Robert thinks I'm a bearded lady...
rshowalter
- 11:21pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#9029
of 9038) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.CciTafT0vQk^1050009@.f0ce57b/10114
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.CciTafT0vQk^1050009@.f0ce57b/10114
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Condoleezza, you don't behave well under fire.
I'll be back in the morning.
almarst-2001 - 11:34pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#9030 of 9038)
I still didn't get any oppinion on my definition of terrorism.
As for the Serbia, just another fact for digestion: The total damage of "humanitarian" bombing on CIVILIAN infrastructure is estimated to be around $60bn. For the country with GDP of about 1bn (I believe). Which could be translated to about $60 trillion for US.
Speaking of attrocities...
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md9000s/md9031.htm
gisterme - 11:44pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#9031 of 9038)
rshowalter wrote ( rshowalter 9/13/01 11:21pm ): "...Condoleezza, you don't behave well under fire..."
HaaaaHaHaha, HeeHe. Robert, I sincerely doubt that anybody from the administration would have time to fart around with an insignificant, backwater forum like this during this time of national crisis. I certainly hope not, except, of course, to read gisterme's suggestions about how to defeat terrorists. :-)
Ho,ho,ahhhh.
Even if Condoleeza Rice grew a beard like mine, she'd likely not be mistaken for Santa Clause. Bwahahaha! Thanks of the comic relief, Robert. Your post hit me right in the funny-bone.
snurg, sicker...
Robert, you are really persistant with your whacky identity fetish. Is it becoming an obsession? Do you do this to make yourself feel more important? You may need help more than aaphrodite!
almarst-2001 - 11:49pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#9032 of 9038)
WHERE IS THE DEMOCRACY GONE? - http://english.pravda.ru/main/2001/09/13/15104.html
"With all respect to the feelings of the American people: sometimes the materials and reports of mass media are really shocking. Some shouts of the Americans on the net are just disgusting. It was a couple of days ago when you blamed Russia for the inhuman policy in Chechnya, you criticized Moscow because the militia men were checking people’s documents everywhere in the streets. You called the Chechens “separatists” and had meetings with emissaries of the “independent republic” at the Department of State.
You bombed Yugoslavia which was running the policy of “genocide” in Kosovo. Now the “rebels” of Kosovo were stabbing the peacemakers in their motherland and seizing Macedonia.
So now you are ready to execute the Palestinians without any trial or investigation. You are calling upon everyone “just to destroy those scoundrels, to kill everyone, women and children, a bullet in the head, to tear them into pieces, to exterminate them”. Are you ready for genocide being the protectors of the innocent and the oppressed? “I wish our government could start the military operation as soon as possible. I would personally remove Afghanistan from the Earth, right on the night of that day, without even landing there. I would then start the overnight incursion in Palestine not leaving anyone alive there - either women or children. Any Arab country which would let out a squeak will lose its capital the same day. NATO would announce its support to America’s reaction but the opinions of other countries that are dependent on America’s economic assistance are not interesting to me”. This is an opinion from one of our readers from New York.
And here is a text which has just been sent by the Interfax news agency: “Dozens of attacks on the Moslems were registered in the USA and in Canada after the acts of terrorism which happened this Tuesday. Police stopped 300 people which were trying to arrange a demonstration near the mosque. Unknown people threw a bomb in the center where the people of the Arab community gathered – this happened in Chicago as well. A drunk 75-year-old man was persistently following a woman from Pakistan threatening to kill her for “destruction of his country”. Spokesmen for Kuwait’s embassy in the USA said the Kuwait’s nationals who attended American schools were insulted.
How much is left for the first step of America’s execution? One hour, two, three? If such material which is now published by The New York Times had appeared on the pages of some Russian papers, there would have been warnings following from the State Committee for Press; licences could be withdrawn too.
But it is not a matter of sanctions. There was no material of this kind in the Russian press which unfortunately can not be said about the American media.
Unknown terrorists destroyed the myth about democracy and tolerance, the myth about the only multi-national country in the world in which there was no nationalism or chauvinism. Show your true colors."
gisterme - 11:52pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#9033 of 9038)
almarst...
I'll answer a bit later. I want to do a little research on the numbers you've given. 300 schools doesn't sound reasonable although I'll check. If you would, please post links to the sources of your data. I'm not ignoring you although you know I won't agrue too much about that. It's a different kind of issue than an unprovoked attack.
At the moment, I've got to take a break to give myself a chance to stop laughing. As much as Robert gets under my skin at times, his last post gave me the first occasion for a good laugh since Tuesday morning! That's a long time for Santa. :-)> He he. The visual of Condoleeza Rice in a red suit with a big beard and boots is just stunning! Hahaha...
almarst-2001 - 12:00am Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9034 of 9038)
Bin Laden comes home to roost - http://msnbc.com/news/190144.asp?cp1=1
His CIA ties are only the beginning of a woeful story...
lunarchick
- 02:06am Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9035
of 9038)
lunarchick@www.com
The CIA, ever mindful of the need to justify its “mission,” had conclusive evidence by the mid-1980s of the deepening crisis of infrastructure within the Soviet Union. The CIA, as its deputy director William Gates acknowledged under congressional questioning in 1992, had decided to keep that evidence from President Reagan and his top advisors and instead continued to grossly exaggerate Soviet military and technological capabilities in its annual “Soviet Military Power” report right up to 1990. Given that context, a decision was made to provide America’s potential enemies with the arms, money - and most importantly - the knowledge of how to run a war of attrition violent and well-organized enough to humble a superpower. That decision is coming home to roost.
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md9000s/md9036.htm
lunarchick
- 02:27am Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9036
of 9044)
lunarchick@www.com
Seems that the 5rh Estate works outside the Congress to it's own agenda.
Didn't a poster above say that the training of the 5th Estate was done to NAZI specification.
So, a reader of this thread might conclude tht the Agency had been allowed to set it's own agenda.
How come the Congress has been so slack?
Why aren't the Congress 'in control' of the Agency?
Why don't they bring it to heel, and make it report to the Congress?
---
Reading the above one concludes that the BUSHbwsh family have had their own agenda -- nothing to do witht he welfare of the American people -- a lot to do with the welfare of their hip pockets and that of their associates.
-----
This raises the point regarding CONFLICT OF INTEREST wrt the Bush Family!
-----
The asbestos ridden dust has settled over Manhatten Island .... how long before the Congress start to LOOK at the HISTORY of this issue that stretches back to the end of WWII ..
-----
The best approach may be to completely disbandoned the whole 5th Estate -- to deprive it of access to the syphoning public tax funding -- to establish a NEW administrative pattern.
At the same time LOOKING at the way the Agency and groups such as CARLYLE have taken up a feather_bedded life of their own.
That this is so publically known .. and not investigates suggests that the supposed movers and shakers (MEDIA investigtors) have had the stuffing knocked out of them over the years -- and have cowtowed to the 5th Estate.
Didn't Clinton hint that when President he didn't have the reign imagined to run the country - rather he too was intimidated by the same.
The same that throughout his Presidency ran bogus court case after court case against him - sapping his focus.
-----
As i've said on this thread
(get the search button working please Mr Howell when you take the reigns next week - or someone who is a higher level user and has search capabilities from the IT Administrator .. oh for a functional GUI!)
Bill CLINTON was both a President of the USA and a World President.
Bwsh - is president of Texas - still - let me be more specific ... Crawford.
The texicutioner president of Texas - puppet to ElderBush has the blood of 5000 people on his hands -- people for around the world -- because his role was to be and obey the 5th Estate -- rather than be a people's president.
Listen to his comments about he being a 'LOVABLE' guy ... and within the same breath beating the WAR drums!
logician3
- 06:51am Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9037
of 9044)
Bush is an idiot.
Bush was too busy hunting jackrabbits in Texas to worry about terrorism.
ledzeppelin - 07:00am Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9038 of 9044)
As it has been general knowledge about bin Ladens past link with the CIA why the sudden suprise now?
Moreover given his CIA training and his own network and his public statements conserning his desire to obtain nuclear weapons is why I have always been conserned as to the USA's Missile Defence Programme giving bin Laden greater legitamacy within the fundamental movement on the basis that the US would have not a missile shield but a missile system hovering above the Holy Cities? Secondly bin Laden or a terrorist would not use an inter-continental ballistic missile in any event? Thirdly the Son of Star Wars programme would destabalise more nations enabling terrorists to flurish, I could go on an on but I have saids it all before?
I just pray that our nations will forget Star Wars and spend the billions on taking out of the system the ingrediants for terrorists to make weapons of mass destruction? Moreover this time institute the anti-terrorist intellegence measures that will bring about 'real time' data on such persons as bin Laden furthermore removing the threat of any such further terrorist act whatismore ensuring we know whom is to follow bin Laden as there sure is another as sure as eggs is eggs an heir is waiting in the wings, as there are other terrorists as evil if not more so than bin Laden?
rshowalter
- 09:27am Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9039
of 9044) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.7dgwaVr3vb2^0@.f0ce57b/10124
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.7dgwaVr3vb2^0@.f0ce57b/10124
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
We need to be careful, and ask for and do things that are actually practical, for the human beings and human groups involved.
That's not being "idealistic" except in a sense where ideals are vital to all humanity.
Survival, and maintenance of reasonable hopes, require that we do this.
Right now, I'm both hopeful and afraid, and trying to find useful things to say and do. I hope many others, from many perspectives, are too.
ledzeppelin - 11:42am Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9040 of 9044)
rshowalter - 09:27am Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9039 of 9039) You will remain afraid if you expect ideals to keep you safe, it is time that humanity fights inhumanity and with regret we do not live in an ideal world therefore to fight that battle and win humanity will have to forget idealistic methodology and notions? The only practical thing any of us can say or do is search for the solution and seek out ways to ensure such obsenaties do not happen again? Moreover in some instances and however painful seek out the answer to the question why it did in the first instant! Therefore it is best to keep on thread and for us to explore the merits or otherwise of Son of Star Wars, et al.
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md9000s/md9041.htm
rshowalter
- 12:04pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9041
of 9051) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.7dgwaVr3vb2^1109617@.f0ce57b/10126
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.7dgwaVr3vb2^1109617@.f0ce57b/10126
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Good point. But a great deal is, as almarst has memorably said, "interdependent." More on that word, as almarst has used it, later.
We have to be careful about the assumptions we make, and that remains true if we are implacably at war -- That's not just important to have a war that can have a workable end. It is still true, just to conduct the war itself "efficiently."
MD6422 rshowalter 7/2/01 5:44pm MD6751 rshowalter 7/7/01 8:49pm
To hit the target, however it is shaped, you have to know where the target is.
( If that target is an organization, one needs some insight about what it knows, and can do, and how it thinks.) . . . .
I recall an old ad, circa maybe 1890, that advertised a Whiskey made by " honest North Carolina people -- who wouldn't dilute their whiskey, even if they knew how."
My people, who are from North Carolina, always smiled at that old ad.
If you're worrying about the odds of missile defense, and about other issues of defense, assumptions like the one in that ad aren't so funny.
And assumptions that dehumanize and diminsh our enemies in unrealistic ways aren't useful, either.
rshowalter
- 12:18pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9042
of 9051) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.7dgwaVr3vb2^1109617@.f0ce57b/10127
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.7dgwaVr3vb2^1109617@.f0ce57b/10127
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Direct response to gisterme's request for some specific examples. I think gisterme should have dealt with this, rather than evade it, and misquote it, as she did.
"I think this stuff, which deals with the idea of lasar weapons as "long distance death rays" is right as far as it goes. Which is pretty far . ..
MD6410 rshowalter
7/2/01 4:35pm ... MD6411 rshowalter
7/2/01 4:42pm
MD6413 rshowalter
7/2/01 4:53pm ... MD6414 rshowalter
7/2/01 4:56pm
MD6415 rshowalter
7/2/01 5:05pm ... MD6416 rshowalter
7/2/01 5:15pm
MD6418 rshowalter
7/2/01 5:26pm ...
MD6420 rshowalter
7/2/01 5:34pm ... MD6422 rshowalter
7/2/01 5:44pm
MD6423 rshowalter
7/2/01 5:46pm ...
The postings above still seem right to me, and right on,
MD7139-41 rshowalter 7/17/01 5:24pm
If missile defense is serious , and if plans for space weaponry are serious , then these are serious issues.
The issues have been evaded, and when answered, misquoted in ways that cannot, so far as I could see have been "honest mistakes."
In my view, the national interest is served by right answers here.
rshowalter
- 12:29pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9043
of 9051) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.7dgwaVr3vb2^1109617@.f0ce57b/10128
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.7dgwaVr3vb2^1109617@.f0ce57b/10128
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Many issues covered by The Coyle Report , and in the writings of Theodore Postol and others, ought to be adressed in detail as well.
I've not been able to see how "missile defense" could be anything but a shuck, a fraud, a boondoggle, given the density of the defects in it, and the corruption indictated by evasion of checking on these issues, at many levels.
Dealing with gisterme , who has done some useful work in communication with almarst , I've been amazed at the absence of answers.
Some New York Times columnists, and the editors, who may not ever look at this board, but who do consider evidence, have expressed similar concerns.
At a time where we've been shocked into taking military matters much more seriously, these points should be considered -- in the national interest.
almarst-2001 - 01:08pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9044 of 9051)
Just a couple of points:
1. It is interesting to watch the 180 degrees change in the attitude of so many Americans and particularely its leadership and the media when considering the response to terror once it hits the US. Remember the Bosnia, the Kosovo, the Chechnia, the Macedonia, even the Israel?
2. Today, as througout the all those years of Chechen conflict, the Chechens are free to move and establish businesses in Russia proper. Some very lucrative are located just under the Kremlin wall.
3. Whatever this administration does, it should not make the things worth. The widespread hysterical madness and mindless of initial reaction which mostly resembels the declaration of a "Holly War" in "defence of our values" is a serious cause for concern.
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md9000s/md9045.htm
almarst-2001 - 01:20pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9045 of 9052)
Bin Laden in the Balkans - http://emperors-clothes.com/news/binl.htm
From the 'The Washington Times' June 22, 2001
"The rebels would have their big brothers in America - the same heroes who led the NATO mission against their enemies, the Serbs - believe that the violence they are now perpetrating in Macedonia is merely about protecting minority rights. But the National Liberation Army (NLA), a splinter of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), also has another motive: It is fighting to keep control over the region's drug trafficking, which has grown into a large, lucrative enterprise since the Kosovo war. In addition to drug money, the NLA also has another prominent venture capitalist: Osama bin Laden. The Muslim terrorist leader, according to a document obtained by The Washington Times and written by the chief commander of the Macedonian Security Forces, puts out the front money for the rebel group through a representative in Macedonia: 'This person is representative of Osama Ben laden sic , who is the main financial supporter of the National Liberation Army, where up to date he has paid $6 million to $7 million for the needs of the National Liberation Army.'"
almarst-2001 - 01:29pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9046 of 9052)
"In the words of William Saffire writing in the New York Times: "When we reasonably determine our attackers' bases and camps, we must pulverize them – minimizing but accepting the risk of collateral damage" - http://www.antiwar.com/rep/chuss10.html
rshowalter
- 01:30pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9047
of 9052) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.7dgwaVr3vb2^1110413@.f0ce57b/10132
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.7dgwaVr3vb2^1110413@.f0ce57b/10132
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Yes, almarst , you're right.
Americans aren't consistent, any more than Russians are, and they are often very blind to how they appear to others.
I think the points you've made on this thread are vital ones, and I hope they continue -- for the sake of the whole world.
There is some steadying going on. A televised "national prayer service" just ended. I watched most of it, and listened to the preaching and the praying -- though I took a little time to post here, as well.
If the standards and ideals of that service were more consistently honored by Americans, your concerns, almarst, could be met, and we'd live in a better, safer, richer world.
Americans have to see "the bad side" of things they've done -- which I agree with almarst , have sometimes been very bad, with wrenching consequences for MANY people -- many more than the 5000 peole tragically murdered on Tuesday.
If Americans we did see the bad aspects of what they'd done as a nation -- the good things about American would be strengthened, and we could win a war on terror -- as almarst defines it, in a definition I like very much.
There has been an enormous amount of discussion about nuclear disarmament, and the interdependent problems of a stable, workable, real peace on this thread. The connections to missile defense have usually been quite direct -- the dialog on missile defense is embedded in a larger nexus of issues.
The main barrier to peace, and victory against the forces of terror, the "showstopper," is that Americans need a change of heart --- they need to see some things they haven't been willing to admit, to see, and to hold themselves decently responsible for.
If they did, there would be reasonable hope to defeat the forces of terror - - in the ways that will actually be necessary -- including central concerns that Thomas Friedman spoke of today.
If we had the respect of the decent majority of the world - in ways we now lack --- I think we'd have plenty of strength to do it - - and many "win-win" situations, now classified out of existence, would become possible.
rshowalter
- 01:31pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9048
of 9052) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.7dgwaVr3vb2^1110413@.f0ce57b/10133
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.7dgwaVr3vb2^1110413@.f0ce57b/10133
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
There will be some collateral damage. But we have to do a lot better, in a lot of ways, than Safire suggests.
rshowalter
- 01:31pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9049
of 9052) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.7dgwaVr3vb2^1110413@.f0ce57b/10134
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.7dgwaVr3vb2^1110413@.f0ce57b/10134
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Something new and hopeful has happened, ugly as things are.
People are paying attention, worldwide.
lunarchick
- 01:35pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9050
of 9052)
lunarchick@www.com
[ http://www.abc.net.au/rn/usa.htm ]
rshowalter
- 01:40pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9051
of 9052) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.7dgwaVr3vb2^1110413@.f0ce57b/10137
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.7dgwaVr3vb2^1110413@.f0ce57b/10137
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
The rest of the world ought not to simply defer to the wishes of the United States. Or let propaganda go unanswered, or unnoticed. almarst-2001 9/14/01 1:20pm
That would be a great mistake. A mistake that I don't believe is going to happen.
I hope that Russians, and many other people in NATO who have been unhappy with the attidudes expressed in pieces like
. FLYING INTO TURBULENCE By: Peter Martin http://www.intellnet.org/news/articles/peter.martin.flying.into.turbulence.html
can explain to leaders of the United States what it actually takes, for the United States to function as one leader, among a number, in a real, workable, world community.
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md9000s/md9052.htm
rshowalter
- 01:48pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9052
of 9061) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.mff4anFWvqW^1162481@.f0ce57b/10138
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.mff4anFWvqW^1162481@.f0ce57b/10138
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
A community that ought not to tolerate acts of terrorism, from any source, and that should have the competence, will, decency, and strength to prevent them.
There are signs that such a community is coming into being - - and it faces challenges which may cause more convergence to a workable community now.
lunarchick
- 02:00pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9053
of 9061)
lunarchick@www.com
Australian public opinion [ http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/austback/index/default.htm ]
Quote: 'the military mind sees the solution of all problems as the military solution' usa's G Douglas
"As for God Bless America - if I hear that again i'll puke. What the Americans need is someone to take the blindfold off their eyes"
'Digging for facts is better than leaping to conclusions'
'Cause and Effect : Americans i've met are totally ashamed of the Bwsh Government'
'Americans are 'hot heads' under Bwsh'
'Bwsh being there is the cause of the problem'
'Third worlders die everyday and no one blinks'
'No world war three - thank you!'
rshowalter
- 02:07pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9054
of 9061) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.mff4anFWvqW^1162481@.f0ce57b/10141
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.mff4anFWvqW^1162481@.f0ce57b/10141
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
There was a prayer service, today, and I'd like to cite some reasons for
concern that are both religious and secular.
MD776 rshowalter
2/24/01 9:17am ... MD777 rshowalter
2/24/01 9:25am
http://www.wisc.edu/rshowalt/sermon.html
MD803 rshowalter
2/28/01 9:39pm
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2000/democracy/nuclear/stories/nukes/index.html
We neen to know how others feel, and why MD1274-1279 almarst-2001 3/21/01 7:41pm
MD9044 almarst-2001 9/14/01 1:08pm
lunarchick
- 02:10pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9055
of 9061)
lunarchick@www.com
Re 'hot heads' rushing headlong into things that haven't been fully considered.
The point here is that Bwsh from the Bush family of opportunism is grasping this as an opportunity to invoke a President's ability to go to war - followed blindly by boot-licking nations such as Australia.
So, the world can quite suddenly 'be at war' .. without reference whatsoever to the WILL OF THE PEOPLE of those countries.
America should look carefully at the Powers of the President when at war ... that's why the 'war' word was used so quickly.
Sunday will see rallies here as people come out on the streets to campaigne against Howard Prime Minister embracing Bwsh too closely.
lunarchick
- 02:22pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9056
of 9061)
lunarchick@www.com
Can Americans explain why the planes that were hi-jacked weren't shot down ?
How come America say they can hit a missile (with a homing beacon on it) over the pacific ... travelling at fast speed ... when they are incapable of stopping a hi-jacked plane, a hi-jacked plane, a hi-jacked plane when it is pointing into a city of high density population and known to be way off course.
Recall Bwsh was beating drums looking for rogues .. leading to:
China bringing the regular routed spy plane down, as a lesson to bring the hot-headed president to earth - + insisting on plane being dismantled prior to dispatch
The rest of the world made alliances to counteract the failure of government by the hi-jack president - ballot fiasco
General discusssions on international boards have noted that the greatest threats aren't MD rather the bomb in the suitcase (asymmetry)
Bwsh is incompetent, rather than get into WWIII, he should look at the number of people he allowed to die on Tuesday, and as a mark of respect to their memories - resign!
rshowalter
- 02:26pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9057
of 9061) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.mff4anFWvqW^1162481@.f0ce57b/10144
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.mff4anFWvqW^1162481@.f0ce57b/10144
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
HOW TO SEARCH THE "MISSILE DEFENSE" FORUM
gisterme and I disagree on some things, but he's recently joined me in asking that the search function be reinstated.
That would be useful, because the thread has been set up as a format for communication and consideration of a complex, vital issue by staffed organizations. I think that the chances for peace, and good decision, would be facilititated if staffed organizations looked at it.
The thread, which now fills 25 1 1/2' notebooks of text, and accesses by links perhaps 3-4 times more text, is set up as an "associative memory" --with enough detail for closure. It has, I believe, gotten results.
To search the thread:
1. Pull down the entries to the thread, an html at a time, and store on disk so that it can be searched by one of several common search utilities. (For speed of searching, dividing into seperate files for each 1000 postings helps.)
2. Search by key words, or by citation numbers, and store the searches in a way that can be acessable. Many can be used as guides to further searching, and as these searches accumulate they serve to organize the ideas of the thread into a seperate corpus that can itself be searched.
3. The html's linked in a given posting can themselves be stored inside the "folder" that each html is filed with.
With disk storage and CD ROM storage as convenient as it is, this is a searchable corpus.
I believe that the similarities between the searching of this corpus, and the searching of human associative memory, are basic, and built into the logic of classification itself.
If that's true, that may be one reason, among a number, why this corpus, and corpuses like it, may facilitate "meetings of the mind."
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md9000s/md9058.htm
gisterme - 03:18pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9058 of 9067)
Although I have personally seen no such reports, it's troubling to hear that some misguided Americans may be vandalizing mosques or otherwise persecuting American Muslims.
If the rumors are true, I appeal to all angry Americans to stop such behavior. We must not let our righteous anger over the events of last Tuesday drive us to acts that are counter- productive to the task at hand.
True Muslims already understand, far better than we of other faiths do, that these radical terrorists do not in any way represent Islam. We non-Muslims must understand that too. We must also realize that our fellow Americans who happen to be Muslims will become one of our nation's greatest assets in the process of defeating the kind of evil that today saddens all of our hearts.
The mass-murderers who carry out atrocities like the one we witnessed last Tuesday proclaim that they do these things in the name of Islam. They are liars. They do these things to spill innocent blood, attempting to rally the ignorant to believe their lies, with the intent to motivate the spilling of yet more blood (not their own, of course). Fellow Americans, don't allow the hate-dripping lies of these animals to cause us to damage our own ability to send them to the place where they belong.
The delivery of truth to the uneducated masses of Islam will be a far more powerful weapon against these terrorist dogs than any guns or bombs.
The guilty need to feel the sword.
The innocent need radios.
rshowalter
- 03:33pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9059
of 9067) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.egszadgcvCc^1198726@.f0ce57b/10146
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.egszadgcvCc^1198726@.f0ce57b/10146
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
YES.
And they need to feel that the people speaking to them can hear, also.
rshowalter
- 04:04pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9060
of 9067) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.egszadgcvCc^1198726@.f0ce57b/10147
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.egszadgcvCc^1198726@.f0ce57b/10147
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
Truth, to work crossculturally, has to be checkable in objective and multiply independent ways.
People need that. Real people live, and have to live, along a continuum of trust and distrust.
For action, things have to be checked , so that they can be trusted enough for confidence.
When the issues are important enough (and military matters, where war and peace are involve are) then checking has to happen.
Checking on the things that matter needs to be morally forcing.
Especially among allies. Or people being asked to be allies.
Otherwise, when complex co-operations are needed, there is no solution.
Because deception, and restriction of information, have classified solutions out of existence.
American institutional and intellectual traditions, shaped by the Cold War, may be standing in the way of safety now:
MD8698 rshowalter 9/9/01 1:10pm ... MD8699 rshowalter 9/9/01 1:11pm
Perhaps, ugly though things are, we can find some practical ways of making them better.
rshowalter
- 04:16pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9061
of 9067) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.egszadgcvCc^1198726@.f0ce57b/10148
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.egszadgcvCc^1198726@.f0ce57b/10148
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
We need to go from "no solution" to situations where there are good solutions to be found.
We need a reframing:
MD8298 rshowalter
9/1/01 2:14pm ... MD8299 rshowalter
9/1/01 2:15pm
MD8300 rshowalter
9/1/01 3:52pm ... MD8301 rshowalter
9/1/01 3:54pm
MD8302 rshowalter
9/1/01 3:55pm ...
If we're to go after terrorism, in all its forms (something almarst wants, too) we have to do it in ways that can work.
We owe it to ourselves to approach things that way, and our allies and potential allies should insist on it.
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md9000s/md9062.htm
rshowalter
- 08:56pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9062
of 9068) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.egszadgcvCc^1198817@.f0ce57b/10149
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.egszadgcvCc^1198817@.f0ce57b/10149
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
BIG CHANGES: The Weak at War With the Strong By RONALD STEEL http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/14/opinion/14STEE.html
" This is the end: the end of an era, the era of our invulnerability. . . . . . Our invulnerability lasted for more than 200 years. During that time we grew rich and powerful, protected by vast oceans and our great territorial expanse. We fought our wars abroad, subjecting our enemies — Germany, Japan, North Korea and North Vietnam — to devastation. But we were safely beyond the reach of retaliation. Our wars brought us pain, but our home front was virtually unscathed. . . . . . . .
" Because we have enjoyed our impregnability for such a long time, we came to take it for granted. Concerns about vulnerability never seriously entered our calculations of where, and when, and how we would intervene abroad to bring about objectives we deemed to be desirable. . . . . .
" We welcomed allies, but also acted alone. Even as modern technology shrunk the protection that geography once offered us, we sought invulnerability in more advanced technology. Today our leaders tell us that an aerial shield will deflect all enemy attacks aimed at our shores. . . . . It is a comforting thought, reinforced by our abiding faith in technology and our history of fighting wars on the soil of others. But all that has now been revealed as a fantasy.
. . . . .
" We call those who committed these acts "terrorists" because they operate outside the traditional rules of warfare. They operate this way because they are, virtually by definition, weak by traditional measurements of power and do not command the resources of a state to pursue their aims.
Comment: What if a state did operate like this, in some ways? With the same or more coordination, and more calibrated actions, including much smaller actions? What if many, or all states did so? Is that really impossible, or a worse state of affairs, a worse pattern of deterrance, than deterrance with nuclear weapons?
" This is a war that is showing — despite the proud claims of the globalizers — that in the end there may be no such thing as a universal civilization, of which we all too easily assumed we were the rightful leaders.
Comment: If so, it is showing something we should have known: that people live in different worlds, for reasons that can't be changed.
rshowalter
- 08:57pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9063
of 9068) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.egszadgcvCc^1198817@.f0ce57b/10150
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.egszadgcvCc^1198817@.f0ce57b/10150
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
BIG CHANGES: A Generation Unfamiliar With Feeling Vulnerable by KAREN W. ARENSON http://www.nytimes.com/20001/09/14/nyregion/14GENE.html
" For American college students, a generation that grew up in a period of virtually unalloyed prosperity, for whom Vietnam is a history lesson and the cold war a dim childhood memory, the attacks on the World Trade Center were a sudden, stark discovery of their nation's vulnerability and the scope of anger in the world.
. . .
" Students on campuses far from the attack, like Princeton and Michigan, admitted feeling empty inside and scared. . . . . . . students yesterday were feeling far less innocent than they did a few days earlier.
" ""I used to think of America as invincible, a sphere of influence ready to challenge any global conflict," . . . . "But these past couple of days have put my life into perspective, and the emotional stability I once had is gone."
Comment: Americans are learning facts about their own vulnerability that others of the world have known for generations. This is a new, essential, kind of common ground.
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md9000s/md9064.htm
rshowalter
- 08:58pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9064
of 9068) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.egszadgcvCc^1198856@.f0ce57b/10151
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.egszadgcvCc^1198856@.f0ce57b/10151
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
BIG CHANGES: U.S. Force vs. Terrorists: From Reactive to Active by MICHAEL R. GORDON http://www.nytimes.com/20001/09/14/international/14STRA.html
" For the last decade, the use of American might has been shaped by several principles: emphasizing air power and long-range precision arms, avoiding ground combat whenever possible and using overwhelming ground forces when it is not.
" The use of American military force has also been reactive. Pre-emptive action was ruled out, partly because American law prohibits assassination as state policy. The United States waited to be hit before striking back, and American casualties were to be avoided at all costs.
" All of those principles were at work when the Clinton administration struck at Osama bin Laden, the architect of the 1998 bombing of the American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the suspected sponsor of the attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
" The United States fired several dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles at his training camps in Afghanistan. There was no risk to American personnel; unfortunately for the Pentagon, there was little risk to the terrorist leadership either.
" That approach is now clearly in the process of being abandoned. The analogy between this week's terrorist attacks and Pearl Harbor is apt in one sense. The attacks have shaken the American public and the Pentagon leadership. Strategies and tactics that seemed unthinkable just weeks ago are thinkable now.
" Forget about the cruise missiles," said Francois Heisbourg, a French military expert and the incoming chairman of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. "The only thing that is worth thinking about now is how to dismantle and eradicate the organization that brought the terrorism about. You can use air power in support of joint military operations. But the coalition that takes on the terrorists has to actually send in people with guns and that means taking high risks."
. . . . .
" Such attacks could well mean casualties. "Forget about avoiding casualties," said John Keegan, the British military historian. "Air power can play its part, but this is not a conventional enemy."
" There has been a long-standing assumption at the Pentagon that the American public would not tolerate significant casualties. The Pentagon boasted that it did not lose a single soldier in combat during the Kosovo campaign as if that was as important as the mission of evicting Yugoslav troops from the province.
" The loss of just 18 United States soldiers during an ill-planned operation to capture clansmen in Somalia led the United States to abandon its mission in that East African nation. But the casualties seemed high because the mission seemed to be unclear and perhaps even unnecessary.
Comment: Thousand of Somalians were left to die.
" Now that terrorism has reached the American political and economic centers, inhabiting the minds of Americans in a way that is altogether new, the stakes have soared.
Comment: This is a return to military sanity, as the world has understood it for many generations, from a very strange stance. With sanity returning, there may be hope of eliminating horrors, incluiding terrorism in all its forms.
rshowalter
- 08:59pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9065
of 9068) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.egszadgcvCc^1198856@.f0ce57b/10152
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.egszadgcvCc^1198856@.f0ce57b/10152
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
The United States, which has so much good about it, has a resevoir of good will to work with, combined (and this is healthy) with disagreements and anger.
Outpouring of Grief and Sympathy for Americans in Europe and Elsewhere by WARREN HOGE http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/14/international/14EURO.html
LONDON, Sept. 13 — Dmitry Danilov, 44, a real estate broker, showed up outside the flower-strewn American Embassy in Moscow bearing a special Russian Orthodox icon for commemorating the departed.
" Maybe tragedy will unite us with Americans," he said. "We are very similar people."
In an extensive and spontaneous outpouring of grief across Europe and the rest of the world for the victims of the attacks on New York and Washington, citizens, heads of government, royalty and critics unaccustomed to confiding sentiments of similarity with Americans are expressing sympathy for the United States and sending urgent messages of encouragement and solidarity.
" You are not alone, America," read a floral tribute from the 11th grade of the Kopernikus Gymnasium in suburban Blankenfelde that was placed outside the American Embassy in Berlin. "America, we will support you."
A card at the embassy here read, "In sorrow and sympathy with the U.S.A. You supported us in two world wars and more, and we stand with you now."
. . . .
" In Beijing, funeral wreaths pile up on the same pavement outside the American Embassy where two years ago protesters hurled rocks and stones after the NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade.
" All that amounts to an extraordinary reversal. For some time, and especially since the Bush administration took office early this year, a current of growing hostility to the United States has been evident in many parts of the world.
" Resentments have focused on a wide range of issues, including American use of the death penalty, the politics of the environment, American plans for a missile defense shield, genetically modified food and the extent of American cultural and economic power.
"For now, such sentiments have been forgotten, it seems.
Comment: The reasons for sympathy have never been forgotten. The reasons for resentment won't be forgotten either. That's healthy.
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md9000s/md9066.htm
rshowalter
- 10:19pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9066
of 9074) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.egszadgcvCc^1200799@.f0ce57b/10153
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.egszadgcvCc^1200799@.f0ce57b/10153
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
I've been deeply influenced by the work of Thomas L. Friedman's
columns and ideasm, and have often cited them on this thread
MD8103 rshowalter
8/24/01 12:04pm
He's had many pungent things to say about the Bush administration's missile defense policies.
Friedman's column today seems especially important, in general and in ways that connect closely to missile defense.
Smoking or Non-Smoking? by THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/14/opinion/14FRIE.html
JERUSALEM -- "If this attack on America by an extensive terrorist cell is the equivalent of World War III, it's not too early to begin thinking about what could be its long-term geopolitical consequences. Just as World Wars I and II produced new orders and divisions, so too might this war. What might it look like?
"Israel's foreign minister, Shimon Peres, offers the following possibility: Several decades ago, he notes, they discovered that smoking causes cancer. Soon after that, people started to demand smoking and non-smoking sections. "Well, terrorism is the cancer of our age," says Mr. Peres. "For the past decade, a lot of countries wanted to deny that, or make excuses for why they could go on dealing with terrorists. But after what's happened in New York and Washington, now everyone knows. This is a cancer. It's a danger to us all. So every country must now decide whether it wants to be a smoking or non-smoking country, a country that supports terrorism or one that doesn't."
"Mr. Peres is on to something — this sort of division is going to emerge — but we must be very, very careful about how it is done, and whom we, the U.S., assign to the smoking and non-smoking worlds.
"As Mr. Peres himself notes, this is not a clash of civilizations — the Muslim world versus the Christian, Hindu, Buddhist and Jewish worlds. The real clash today is actually not between civilizations, but within them — between those Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and Jews with a modern and progressive outlook and those with a medieval one. We make a great mistake if we simply write off the Muslim world and fail to understand how many Muslims feel themselves trapped in failing states and look to America as a model and inspiration.
" "President Lincoln said of the South after the Civil War: 'Remember, they pray to the same God,'" remarked the Middle East analyst Stephen P. Cohen. "The same is true of many, many Muslims. We must fight those among them who pray only to the God of Hate, but we do not want to go to war with Islam, with all the millions of Muslims who pray to the same God we do."
"The terrorists who hit the U.S. this week are people who pray to the God of Hate. Their terrorism is not aimed at reversing any specific U.S. policy. Indeed, they made no demands. Their terrorism is driven by pure hatred and nihilism, and its targets are the institutions that undergird America's way of life, from our markets to our military.
Comment: It can't be quite that simple - - these people had a system of ideas they were willing to live for, plan for, and die for.
(more)
rshowalter
- 10:20pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9067
of 9074) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.egszadgcvCc^1200799@.f0ce57b/10154
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.egszadgcvCc^1200799@.f0ce57b/10154
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
"These terrorists must be rooted out and destroyed. But it must be done in a way that doesn't make us Osama bin Laden's chief recruiter. Because these Muslim terrorists did not just want to kill Americans. That is not the totality of their mission. These people think strategically. They also want to trigger the sort of massive U.S. retaliation that makes no distinction between them and other Muslims. That would be their ultimate victory — because they do see the world as a clash of civilizations, and they want every Muslim to see it that way as well and to join their jihad.
"Americans were really only able to defeat Big Tobacco when whistleblowers within the tobacco industry went public and took on their own industry, and their own bosses, as peddlers of cancer. Similarly, the only chance to really defeat these nihilistic terrorists is not just by bombing them. That is necessary, but not sufficient, because another generation will sprout up behind them. Only their own religious communities and societies can really restrain and delegitimize them. And that will happen only when the Muslim majority recognizes that what the Osama bin Ladens are leading to is the destruction and denigration of their own religion and societies.
"This civil war within Islam, between the modernists and the medievalists, has actually been going on for years — particularly in Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Pakistan. We need to strengthen the good guys in this civil war. And that requires a social, political and economic strategy, as sophisticated, and generous, as our military one.
"To not retaliate ferociously for this attack on our people is only to invite a worse attack tomorrow and an endless war with terrorists. But to retaliate in a way that doesn't distinguish between those who pray to a God of Hate and those who pray to the same God we do is to invite an endless war between civilizations — a war that will land us all in the smoking section. "
Comment: In Friedman's usage, "the smoking section" is a literary stand in for a word many others might hesitate to say, as well. Hell.
almarst-2001 - 10:21pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9068 of 9074)
The world-wide display of compassion with American suffering, including such places as Iran and China is trully magnificent.
I wish I could say the same abnout American attitude to the suffering of other nations, particularely from the hands of American military.
How many of them noticed the Iranian airliner with 300 citizens shot down over the Gulf during the Gulf war?
How may of them noticed 400 Iraqi citizens killed in a bomb shelter during the same war?
How many where touched during the 78 days of destruction of thye Serbia?
How many protested the Vietnam war not out of fear to die but due to unbelievable suffering of Vietnamese population?
How many remember the hundreds of thousends of innocent civilians killed in Dresden, Hiroshima or Nagasaki?
Why?
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md9000s/md9069.htm
rshowalter
- 10:25pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9069
of 9096) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.OheBaGXevkR^1253266@.f0ce57b/10156
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.OheBaGXevkR^1253266@.f0ce57b/10156
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
almarst , for the sake of the whole world, that case has to be made.
Because the carnage in the world is awful -- and we mostly ignore it.
And nuclear weapons that have had devastating effects already and that could destroy the world are tolerated, and justified on the basis of patters of rationalization that are insane.
If people could, and did, check facts , we might be able to make the world a much safer place, for all concerned. Including the citizens of the United States.
rshowalter
- 10:27pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9070
of 9096) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.OheBaGXevkR^1253266@.f0ce57b/10157
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.OheBaGXevkR^1253266@.f0ce57b/10157
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
And gimmicks, that can't work, such as "missile defense" are justified, and take up huge resources -- - when we should actually solve the problems, and when we could, if we'd sort through facts , and make sane (not idealistic, just sane) decisions.
almarst-2001 - 10:30pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9071 of 9096)
"Only their own religious communities and societies can really restrain and delegitimize them." - Here I must agree with Mr. Friedman.
I only wonder Where are American religious and civil communities at the need to restrain its evil deeds?
rshowalter
- 10:32pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9072
of 9096) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.OheBaGXevkR^1253266@.f0ce57b/10159
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.OheBaGXevkR^1253266@.f0ce57b/10159
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
If some world leaders wanted some key facts checked , they would be , and the logic of the situation would unfold - in ways that would be to the advantage of the whole world.
Some things have to involve action, and responsibility, from outside the United States, for reasons we discussed that are set out, with links in MD2088-2089 rshowalter 4/8/01 8:30am .
rshowalter
- 10:35pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9073
of 9096) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.OheBaGXevkR^1253266@.f0ce57b/10160
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.OheBaGXevkR^1253266@.f0ce57b/10160
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
almarst-2001 9/14/01 10:30pm . . . they are cowed, compromised, co-opted by patterns that are detailed, and powerful.
Can they be engaged in dialog? YES !
Can it be done, only from the inside? NO.
The fear level in America is too high. Nations outside the United States are going to have to take a position here.
In other areas, where you haven't been able to help yourself, we've helped you.
For the sake of the world, you can't just ask for the US to sort it out without guidance, and questions, from the outside. For reasons we've discussed.
rshowalter
- 10:40pm Sep 14, 2001 EST (#9074
of 9096) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.OheBaGXevkR^1253266@.f0ce57b/10161
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.OheBaGXevkR^1253266@.f0ce57b/10161
Robert Showalter mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
I'll have more to say tomorrow. But, almarst , you and other people, with connections to the outside world, cannot just sit passively by, and expect the US to handle all problems for you . . . you have to take the responsiblity to act.
With some facts established, you could be safe.
It seems to me that you should be scared enough, and EU leaders should be scared enough, to ask for some straight facts, checked beyond reasonable question.
Ask, and you'll get them. Wait for "the US to sort it out internally" and you won't.
The world could end.
Why not ask some questions where it could count?
. . . .
My heart and my eyes ache, I've had my 3 beers, and I'm going to sleep. I'll try to be productive tomorrow.
- - - -
lunarchick
- 12:13am Sep 15, 2001 EST (#9075
of 9096)
lunarchick@www.com
Autopilot could land hijacked planes New Scientist
11:15 12 September 01 Catherine Zandonella, San Francisco
Aeroplane hijackings could be halted in progress with existing technologies, say aviation researchers, but the attempt would be risky.
"Most modern aircraft have some form of autopilot that could be re-programmed to ignore commands from a hijacker and instead take direction from the ground," says Jeff Gosling of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
If a hijacking were detected in progress, being able to control a plane from the ground would be crucial, says Gosling. "The only other thing you could do is shoot the target down."
Autopilot, the system that maintains altitude, speed, and direction during flight, is fully capable of landing a plane without help from the pilot, says aviation engineering researcher Dale Oderman at Purdue University in Lafayette, Indiana. "We are already capable of flying unmanned military spy planes, so it is not far off to think that a remote system could land a commercial passenger jet."
Hijacking the fail-safe
However, Jeffrey Speyer, an aerospace engineer at the University of California, Los Angeles has qualms about the idea of remote control, saying that system could be a terrorist target itself.
He is devising a control system that would allow planes to fly close together in bird-like flocks. He says it could be adapted to override a hijacker's instructions, but "the system might be tampered with by the very people who you don't want taking over the plane."
The US Federal Aviation Administration experimented with remote landing of a commercial jet during the 1980's, says spokesperson Holly Baker at the FAA's William J. Hughes Technical Centre in Atlantic City, New Jersey. However it has not been an active topic of research in recent years.
Cockpit monitor
Detecting a hijacking is another area in which new technologies could play a role. Currently, if the pilot cannot use the radio to call for help, he or she can flip a switch to emit a distress signal that can be picked up by radar, says Oderman. The FAA could not confirm whether any distress signals were heard prior to Tuesday's attacks.
Numerous new technologies could call for help even if the pilot and crew were incapacitated. On board computers could detect when the plane has veered off course and then radio for help. Or, video cameras and voice recognition systems in the cockpit could alert ground-based crews, says Lewis Mingori, chairman of the mechanical and aerospace engineering department at the University of California, Los Angeles.
In future, researchers could deploy thousands of miniature networked sensors, or MEMS (microelectromechanical systems), to detect odd behaviour in the cockpit, says UC Berkeley computer scientist David Culler.
Security solution
To date, most of the FAA's research has been centred on preventing hijackings through increased airport security, says FAA's Baker. But advanced systems, like InVision Technologies' computerised tomography scan for explosives, are only now being adopted due to high costs.
In the case of Tuesday's attacks, it is difficult to predict how government agencies will respond in terms of air security, says Gary Ackerman, a terrorism expert at the Monterey Institute for International Studies.
"Until we know how they got around existing security measures, it will be difficult foresee how to strengthen them," he says.
11:15 12 September 01
lunarchick
- 12:15am Sep 15, 2001 EST (#9076
of 9096)
lunarchick@www.com
rshowalter 9/14/01 10:40pm Questions that count uhhmmm!
lunarchick
- 12:25am Sep 15, 2001 EST (#9077
of 9096)
lunarchick@www.com
GI: glad that my posts re differenciation between Crime/Criminal and Culture/ethnicity were noted.
---
Accident: Current thinking is there is no such thing as an accident --- only quality failure
----
lunarchick
- 04:51am Sep 15, 2001 EST (#9078
of 9096)
lunarchick@www.com
lunarchick
- 05:01am Sep 15, 2001 EST (#9079
of 9096)
lunarchick@www.com
http://www.news.com.au/cartoonslib/0,4835,cartoon%5Enews45,00.html
lunarchick
- 05:04am Sep 15, 2001 EST (#9080
of 9096)
lunarchick@www.com
lunarchick
- 05:19am Sep 15, 2001 EST (#9081
of 9096)
lunarchick@www.com
~ http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0,1300,552387,00.html
~ http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,550122,00.html
lunarchick
- 05:27am Sep 15, 2001 EST (#9082
of 9096)
lunarchick@www.com
http://news.ft.com/home/rw/ http://www.dawn.com/2001/09/15/
rshowalter
- 09:27am Sep 15, 2001 EST (#9083
of 9096) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.OheBaGXevkR^1253380@.f0ce57b/10173
http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?54@184.OheBaGXevkR^1253380@.f0ce57b/10173
Robert Showalter
mrshowalter@mrshowalter.net
This great cartoon by Peter Nicholson has a very practical message. It reads:
W'ere clever enough to fly people all over the world.
. . . to trade commodities and money all around the globe . . .
. . . to show live news by satellite or talk to anyone anywhere by cellular phone . . .
. . . but we're not clever enough to talk to get people to talk to their neighbors.
http://www.news.com.au/cartoonslib/0,4835,cartoon%5Enews45,00.html
We have some things to learn. Some of them may be simple.