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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 - 01:52pm Sep 8, 2001 EST (#8662 of 8671)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

My guess is, too many to be consistent with the safety and prosperity of the world, including the prosperity of the United States population as a whole.

Why, with the Bush administration acting as it is, should these treaties be left unchanged?

rshowalter - 05:56pm Sep 8, 2001 EST (#8663 of 8671)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

gisterme , I haven't adressed all the points you've raised in recent postings, especially in the tone you'd like, and my hesitations are partly out of concern -- not out of any lack of respect. In fact, my respect for you is so great that I sometimes suspect you of beeing Condoleeza Rice, ably assisted by Hadley and some staff. Perhaps an incorrect judgement, but surely not a disrespectful one. You write with the dash, and some of the intellectual patterns, that I associate with Rice, a distinguished Stanford Provost, and a participant in nuclear policy discussions, in the Pentagon and elsewhere, since before her 21st birthday.

But I do have some problems with your postings, as they are placed in the format of this thread.

lunarchick - 06:01pm Sep 8, 2001 EST (#8664 of 8671)
lunarchick@www.com

Fox: Treaty had become obsolete with the end of the cold war and that his government, after consulting with other Latin American nations, would decide within the next 60 days whether to withdraw from it.

Interesting situation here Showalter. The deal countries to the South of the USA have been dealt over the past half century has not been a stunning one.

The USA is seen to have interfered here to stunt the Will of the people whenever they have tried to push towards modernity.

One can see a real LEADER such as Fox having the Vision to rewrite that South-to-North relationship, where the USA, it seems has treated those countries with paranoia ... trying to weakeningly control them ... just incase they were opened to 'world' influences.

South American people .. who flooded out ... and moved around the world a decade ago .. see the USA as a dangerous negative meddler.

One can see Fox arising as a visionary LEADER of the Americas .. Putin likewise for Eurasia ... seems it's time these two held talks!

rshowalter - 06:02pm Sep 8, 2001 EST (#8665 of 8671)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

We have a representative of Russia, a Russia that has some common ground with the 106 nations that attended the Moscow conference on prohibition of weapons in space.

That representative wants peace, including, if possible, full nuclear disarmament. His condition, about which it is clear, is that American forces cease to act (I'm using a phrase that is partly shorthand here) like Nazis.

He makes his case clearly, and responds to criticism. And accepts both the possibility of Russian faults and ignorances, and his own.

His positions usually seem to me to fit closely the interests that AMERICANS usually believe, and are willing to advocate in public.

Your responses, by contrast, assume that "you know best" and that America is in the right, at a level that is essentially beyond discussion (though there are exceptions, in your discourse, too.)

I find that aspect of your postings a concern, and especially so because of the great influence in the Bush administration that, based on your postings, I can reasonably imagine you to have.

MD8540 gisterme 9/6/01 2:31am

MD8582 gisterme 9/7/01 2:38am ... MD8584 gisterme 9/7/01 2:53am

MD8612 gisterme 9/7/01 5:41pm

MD8645 gisterme 9/8/01 4:19am ... MD8646 gisterme 9/8/01 6:01am
MD8647 gisterme 9/8/01 6:04am ...

lunarchick - 06:03pm Sep 8, 2001 EST (#8666 of 8671)
lunarchick@www.com

beeing

so Condi's Queen Bee in the Bush Admin

:)

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