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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?

rshowalt - 07:04am Jul 30, 2001 EST (#7596 of 7605)

I'd like to post links to a Guardian thread where I've said many of the most important things I'd like people to know. Psychwarfare, Casablanca -- and terror http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/0

including the key story, #13.. http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?7@@.ee7a163/13 ...to #23.. http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?7@@.ee7a163/24

note #26 ... http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/25

To see many references to this that thread, and to the movie Casablanca , search "casablanca" for this thread.

Here are some postings connected to the Casablanca story that interest me especially:

MD3044 rshowalter 5/2/01 5:31pm .... MD3045 rshowalter 5/2/01 5:31pm
MD3046 rshowalter 5/2/01 5:32pm ...

MD3831 rshowalter 5/14/01 12:09pm .... MD3523 rshowalter 5/8/01 4:12pm

Summaries and links to this Missile Defense thread are set out from #153 in http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/159 MD4778 rshowalter 6/11/01 7:31pm

People who have much good in them can be monstrous, too. The world is a complex place.

We shouldn't let the world blow up. As of now, it could.

We shouldn't continue policies that teach callous massive murder, and a callousness that would have been almost unthinkable a century ago. As of now, the United States is doing just that.

The world is far, far uglier than it needs to be, because people don't face up to facts, and deal, as responsible human beings, with things as they are. That includes people from all over the world, but it very definitely includes Americans.

Lies are dangerous. We need to deal with some of them, that keep the Cold War going, that keep war going. 100 million people died in wars last century, and the lives of billions were blighted. The toll has been terrible beyond human telling, continues to be, and it could get worse. The world could end. ( Our nuclear "balances" are less stable than people think.) We should do better.

MD6058 rshowalter 6/26/01 7:23am

rshowalt - 07:11am Jul 30, 2001 EST (#7597 of 7605)

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.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. The seconds leading up to the last word of the sermon, I believe, are eloquent persuasion.

I think the sermon is eloquent in another way. It shows, clearly, the degree of horror that good Americans, in a prosperous and literate Church, have come to take for granted, and have come to consider unchangeable, and even unremarkable.

We should step back from some horrors. To perserve the world, and to redeem some terrible ugliness. We could have a much safer, more prosperous, more hopeful world if we did this.

People like gisterme may laugh at this -- the current "moral" Bush administration may laugh at this - - but it seems to me, looking at what they do, that the world may need a new Dante, and a new Johnathan Edwards, to find proper words for what these people are, and what should happen to them, and to those who support them. There are situations that need to be redeemed -- trends that need to be reversed.

rshowalt - 07:27am Jul 30, 2001 EST (#7598 of 7605)

I'll be posting links to all of gisterme's very extensive contributions to this thread, so people can judge both the good, callousness, of his positions.

gisterme is, quite clearly, I believe, a representative of the Bush administration, cleared at very high levels.

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