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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?

rshowalter - 06:19pm May 16, 2001 EST (#3984 of 3992)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Don't be too cynical about THE NEW YORK TIMES 2029: rshowalter 4/6/01 6:34am .. or other papers and media outlets either. All have "slants" in one way or another, all care what their readers and advertisers think, and all are fallible. But they are expected to care about the public interest as well, and when reminded, they not infrequently do so.

gisterme - 06:20pm May 16, 2001 EST (#3985 of 3992)

almarst wrote: "...I am sure all past Imperial powers could use that claim. If you aske them, none have raped their colonies...."

Fair enough, almarst. Let's just check the list of US colonies. Hmmm. Let's see. Hmmm.

Puerto Rico? Perhaps that could be called a colony. They do enjoy most of the benefits of being a state in the Union without being so. They have their choice about whether or not they want to become a state in the US. But even those who are most vocal against statehood don't want to become completely independent because they'd loose so many benefits. I think you'd have a hard time finding even a significant minority in Pureto Rico that thinks the US has "raped" their country.

One might by some stretch of the imagination claim that the Phillipine Islands were once a US colony. They were previously a Spanish colony prior to US occupation after the Spanish American War. Given that interpretation, and assuming all the worst is true, how much wealth could the US have "raped" from the Philipine Islands? I think the US spent far more than that preventing the Japanese from doing same. Frankly I'd bet that most Philipinos feel more "raped" today than they did when they were a ward of the US.

Help me out here, almarst. Can you think of any other US "colonies" the US might have raped to explain its wealth?

Viet Nam? Korea? Not colonies, but cold war interventions. Both strategic battles in that war. US lost the tactical battle in Viet Nam but won the strategic battle in both places. The US motiviation was certainly not accumulation of wealth in either place. The US has poured billions of dollars into the two places combined. Contrast the economies of Norh Korea and South Korea and see if you can find any correlatiton between the relative well being of their populations to the presence or absence of American support.

rshowalter - 06:34pm May 16, 2001 EST (#3986 of 3992)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

gisterme's right, here almarst .

Whatever you may think of the US, to think of it as a "colonial power" in the usual sense is wrong.

But people can end up just as dead . . .

There are things in American history, not discounting the glories at all, that might have been better.

rshowalter - 06:35pm May 16, 2001 EST (#3987 of 3992)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Central to almarst's concerns, which should be concerns for us all, are the points set out in Paul Weaver's NEWS AND THE CULTURE OF LYING: How Journalism Really Works --- Free Press, 1994.

and the adaptations of the "military industrial complex" to this "culture of lying."

1294 rshowalter 3/22/01 8:11am .... 1295 rshowalter 3/22/01 8:22am
1296 rshowalter 3/22/01 8:37am

But the mechanisms on which this "culture" is based can be deeply undermined by the extended memory, and expanded ability to handle complexity, that the internet makes possible.

rshowalter - 06:37pm May 16, 2001 EST (#3988 of 3992)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

1290: lunarchick 3/22/01 6:08am
Good, specific pointers about conflict resolution.

a) apologise for past wrongs
b) voice concerns
c) engage in continual dialogue
d) break conflicit down into small steps
e) resolve small area and move to next
f) from dialogue develop/make decisions

The reality is that the parties have to learn to live together and get along after the dispute.

Sometimes going back and forth from "small scale" to "large scale" works too.

rshowalter - 06:37pm May 16, 2001 EST (#3989 of 3992)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

If you can't talk to somebody . . . . you don't know something.

1297: rshowalter 3/22/01 9:14am

gisterme - 06:47pm May 16, 2001 EST (#3990 of 3992)

rshowalter wrote: "...Don't be too cynical about THE NEW YORK TIMES..."

Why not, Robert? How's that any different than you characterizing all Americans abroad as acting like nazis? :-)

The previous comment was WRT electronic media. To me that means television. There has always been much better objectivity in the printed press and on radio because there are many newspapers and many radio stations that are independent of the huge media companies.

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