![[F]](../_images/site.gif) New York Times on the Web Forums  Science
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?
    (1080 previous messages)
almarst-2001
- 02:12pm Mar 16, 2001 EST (#1081
of 1088)
Robert,
let me please say the following:
First, I greatly appresiate your attention, since I have a deep
respect for your knowlege and even mor, for willingness to ask
questions when you see an anomaly and most of all, your interest to
act on your believes.
Secondly, I am probaly not the person you may have imagined. I am
a USSR-born Jew (Moldova to be exact), educated in Leningrad (St
Petersburg)and immigrated to Israel 28 years ago. I live in US for
the last 14 years and am an US as well as an Israeli citizen.
Thirdly, I am 52 years old, married and recently grand-father, an
electrical engineer by education, work as a programmer in Boston and
absolutly amathure in real active politics.
I became involved in forums like this one due to my deep
resentment over bombing of Yugoslavia. I think the acts leading to
this tragedy, the bombing, the behavier of politicans involved,
including the Clinton and congress, the reaction of the media - all
changed dramatically my view on US. Similar chenges in my perception
happened only twice before in my life - the invasion of
Chechoslovakia by Warshaw armies and invasion of Lebanon by Israel.
May be, after all, I am just too naive to have a different
expectations, but that what I am. And it is my believe, the Human
Civilization came very close to the critical crossroad. We have
enough power to destroy this world, but not enough understanding of
human nature to insure the prevention of such a catastrophy. And it
seems not a priority for our leaders who mostly seem interested in
self-promotion and their "legacy".
The real question today may be "What will be the legacy of Human
Civilization?"
rshowalter
- 02:49pm Mar 16, 2001 EST (#1082
of 1088) 
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu
One hopes that this legacy gets updated from time to time --
though a nuclear end of the world is not unlikely, and may leave, as
only a short term-legacy, billions of rotting
corpses.
Perhaps I can express some hopes about what a legacy might come
to look like, and what a recounting of the Cold War, and the very
unfortunate lost decade of the 1990s will look like.
****
I think it is interesting to look at Study
of Minds Ability to Repress Backs Freud and imagine that
our mutual misunderstandings, that have been so serious and
inexplicable, have partly been due to ideas that, in our terror, we
have repressed, in ways that make rationality hard for both
Americans, and Russians, and others.
almarst-2001
- 02:53pm Mar 16, 2001 EST (#1083
of 1088)
As for my active involvement in politics, it was limited to
writing the letters to newspapers, including NYT, to senators and
congressmen, to Clinton and Gore.
When the Kosovo crisis first became public (here in US), I urged
all not to arm the KLA, even that was intensely discussed in the
media and Congress as a valuable option. Like the experience with
Taliban and right-wing gorillas in S. America was not enough to
learn the lesson. Luckily, the common sence prevealed. But it seems
was a close call.
When bombing started, I was shocked. not only by the act itself,
but even more so by the popular sentiment fueled by the mass media.
Again, I wrout the letters but, apparently, found myself in a very
small minority.
That gave me a reason to question the true values and the purpose
of this country, I used to respect. As it frequently happens, a
seemingly small event some times may radically change your
perception, once you take time to analise and understand it and
start asking questions.
rshowalter
- 03:14pm Mar 16, 2001 EST (#1084
of 1088)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu
I wrote this before seeing your #1083 -
Before I talk about hopes for the future (hopes that will require
us to survive into the future) let me mention a point you made, that
I was saddened to read, though I don't blame you for what you said.
It is, towards the end of #1069 almarst-2001
3/16/01 10:53am
You spoke of "Gebbelish propaganda and black-white
simplifications by the mass media." - and I'm sure that you were
referring to Goebels, war criminal and minister of propaganda in
Nazi Germany. I can see why you used those words. I can see why, in
Russian eyes, we often look like Nazis, or even, often enough --
worse than Nazis -- more underhanded, more treacherous, more
self satisfied, and even more arrogant. Russians often see us,
sincerely and with passion, as horrors in human form, as the Nazis
were.
I think I understand why, and can see how you feel as you do. In
our usage of nuclear weapons, at the level of our threats, your
perceptoin fits only too well, I'm afraid. The description can be
fairly applied to some Americans, among them General Curt LeMay, who
was, more than any other man, responsible for the implementation of
America's nuclear policies.
All the same, in ways that matter deeply to me, and ways that I
believe matter to you as well, Americans are not like Nazis, or like
Germans under the Nazis. Our nuclear policy, horrible as it is,
doesn't fit a very great deal about the rest
Here is an area where paradigm conflict, probably very much
strengthened by the repression of terror, separates us in ways that
are hard for either side to imagine.
We can't imagine how we can possibly look like Nazis to you --
when it is a basic perception in all of Russia, for reasons I
regret, but understand. I believe that, for peace, we need to
understand why you so often see us that way.
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