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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?

pbella - 09:15am Apr 30, 2001 EST (#2767 of 2776)

The move by the Bush administration to undermine the ABM treaty is nothing less than a betrayal of the international community. Bush's "strike first and work in diplomatic circles later" mentality is backwards. He has also shown how quickly his administration can pointedly sour relations with important global players -- notably China -- to heighten tensions and move the world back towards a cold war mentality. Apparently, though, he has never, ever held a different mentality than "think locally, act locally."

kapit - 09:23am Apr 30, 2001 EST (#2768 of 2776)

Repeatedly, the Bush administration deals with inconvenient scientific facts by simple denial. A verbal smokescreen of Orwellian disinfospeak is set up. The Bushies chatter as though everyone agrees that the inconvenient fact does not exist.

Global warming? W. says that he doen't believe it. Administration people talk instead about economic harm to the US economy from the treaty.

Arsenic in water? Just bad science. Forget it.

The BMD appears to be one more example of this. If tests and scientific opinions indicate that the system won't work, well then, the answer is to build it sooner.

rshowalter - 09:53am Apr 30, 2001 EST (#2769 of 2776)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

If I were an American with interests outside the United States that depended on cooperation from others, and that required the sale of American goods, I'd be concerned.

Also, if I had to talk and look at informed people outside of the United States, I'd be ashamed of how the Bush administration is degrading the United States, the country I love, a country with a great deal to be proud of, a country that, for all its faults, deserves better than this.

boydm - 09:58am Apr 30, 2001 EST (#2770 of 2776)

This is crazy!

romjac - 10:06am Apr 30, 2001 EST (#2771 of 2776)

"The Cold War ought to be over. "

Ahhh, but is is... the new game in town is Capitalism with a face of steel.

Yeah... I remember when the USSR imploded, and GB Sr. spoke about a peace benefit. In the year 2001 George Bush Sr. trots the globe on corporate jets with other former politicos to advertise for the Carlyle group, an group of inestments which have their claws deep in Pentagon coffers. It should come as a surprise to noone that development of a Missile shield will enrich the Bushes and their cohorts at the Carlyle Group beyond thier wildest dreams.

ALL this at a time when public schools are rotting away nationally, close to 20 million Americans have NO health care, most two paycheck couples who have to work have to basically pay another monthyl rent (called childcare) so that they can continue working... and on and on.

It's time to mobilize, protest and make sane voices heard once again. It's the height of arrogance to assume that even though IF most of the American Public (and real Scientists who arent ourchased lock stock and barrel) believe that the type of missile shield Rumsfield envisions will never work, is an utter waste of money and is very destabilizing, as well as that people will just sit back ans say... oooh well... what can WE do???

Such a pouring of TRILLIONS of dollars into a corrupt military-political toilet is the greates affront to US citizens in history.

WE ARE THE PEOPLE.

VOTE WITH YOUR VOICES AND YOUR FEET.

I, for one, plan to.

rshowalter - 11:08am Apr 30, 2001 EST (#2772 of 2776)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Many of the interests most concerned are outside the United States , and, as a matter of mechanics, for some purposes actions and stances taken outside of the United States are going to have to take essential steps to clean up this mess.

I think there's a great deal that is beautiful about the United States, and a lot of people, all over the world, agree. I think that, from a certain point of view , the great majority of what happens in the United States is beautiful, and that we have plenty to be proud of.

But sometimes, things that are "beautiful" in a fundamental sense -- fitting and proportionate to everything involved in a context seen and weighted in a certain way, are ugly, seen in another way.

There isn't any contradiction here. Things can be ugly looked at one way -- and at the same time beautiful, from another perspective.

marktorres2001 - 11:08am Apr 30, 2001 EST (#2773 of 2776)

I'm not sure what this guy is doing. I'm not sure how he got into office. According to a poll printed in the Denver Post, the majority of Americans think "he's doing just fine."

Decisions like these make it clear he's not.

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