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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 - 02:53pm May 31, 2001 EST (#4390 of 4466)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Dependent on a lot of things. And on a confidence level about a lot of things.

gisterme , after half a century of terror, including decades where the fate of all mankind has been at risk, we still have a yawning, painful abyss between two powers that still point world ending arsenals at each other.

You say:

" It's arm-waving, jumping up and down, chest pounding and all the other "body language" not unlike what happens between chimpanzees when different clans meet. The difference is that "our" (human) negotiations only begin with that. They must progress past that stage to be concluded successfully. "

They surely must. And it is amazing how primative the level of communication currently is. We have to get to know each other MUCH better. I think this thread has made a significant start at that, and there's more to be done. Even though some of it is laborious, and some embarrassing.

We're just learning to talk to each other -- and express some things that are crucial, that must be understood. Not only our hopes. Not only our fears. But our distrusts -- and the reasons for them.

And the sheer amount of learning necessary - to get enough understanding so that peace is possible -- takes a lot of work.

For peace to actually occur, and be stable, we need MUCH more contact than we've had -- and better checking mechanisms. These threads, with hard work put into them, can help.

rshowalter - 02:55pm May 31, 2001 EST (#4391 of 4466)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

A sense of human imperfection can, I believe, be useful here -- there are reasons people need to check, rather than trust. I believe that there ARE some reasons for distrust of the current administration.

I think there's a great deal of solid information on this thread: US election rigging, how they did it. http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7f2b6/309

I have just read and signed the online petition:

"Petition to the Senate to Investigate Voting "Irregularities" in the 2000 Election Year Cycle" http://www.PetitionOnline.com/CLGact1/

I personally agree with what this petition says, and I think some other readers of this thread might agree, and might consider signing it. It asks that some things be checked.

- - - - - - -

I found the references here interesting as well, http://www.awolbush.com/ and wish that they could be read by a wide public. They may be wrong, but the people posting are inviting people with countrary information to come forward with it, and claim a reward.

gisterme - 03:02pm May 31, 2001 EST (#4392 of 4466)

almarst wrote: "...Before going to specifics, please take a look at:

A CENTURY OF U.S. MILITARY INTERVENTIONS From Wounded Knee to Yugoslavia - http://www.swans.com/library/art6/zig055.html and

A history of U.S. intervention in Latin America and the Caribbean - http://www.ukans.edu/cwis/organizations/las/interven.html

Those are good compilations of "actions" especially the first one eventhough they are obviously biased toward one point of view.

Would you please post a similar chronicle of Russian/Soviet/Russian military actions over the same period? Of course you can't because details of Stalin's pogroms that killed millions INSIDE THE USSR would make far to large of a list. Also there's no cadre of folks who see those horrors as significant enough to warrant compilation of such a list. Seems like kind of a double standard to me. Besides, what would posting such a list of Soviet/Russian military actions accomplish? Nothing more than your posting of these things has. Just more ugliness from a past era.

I can't help but think that moving forward in a new era must require a certain amount of decoupling past happenings from present motivations. The age of empire and the cold war are over. The motivations due to those are over.

"Let him who is without sin cast the first stone..." - Jesus Christ

rshowalter - 03:12pm May 31, 2001 EST (#4393 of 4466)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The six part summary of this thread from September 25, 2000 to March 1st answers some of' gisterme's questions
MD813 rshowalter 3/1/01 4:08pm ... to ... MD818 rshowalter 3/1/01 4:32pm

rshowalter 3/1/01 4:32pm reads in part:

In the complex, conflicted situations described, beautiful justice is impossible. There are multiple contexts, each inescapable and in a fundamental sense valid.

These situations cannot be resolved in a way that specifically balances all rights and all wrongs. They are too conflicted and too complicated.

. . . What is needed, for logical reasons that are fundamentally secular rather than religious, is redemption, a reframing. rshowalter 2/27/01 6:03pm

We're in a mess, the world is in much more danger than it needs to be, and messy and slow as it may seem, we may be making progress.

We can do without casting stones.

But a little accounting (done, and ideally, done fairly quietly, but clearly enough so that people can go on, "reading from the same page") could have its uses.

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