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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 - 12:58pm Sep 10, 2001 EST (#8741 of 8748)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I let a Guardian thread referred to in MD4159 rshowalter 5/22/01 5:20pm lapse. I will be modifying it in terms of things that have happened, and reposting it . . hopefully today.

There's also an excellent thread on the Guardian, where I have only a few postings, God is the Projection of Mans Unrealised Potential - Discuss http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b2bd that I think is very good. Discussions there make the point that, on many issues of morality and practicality, people with very different backgrounds and beliefs should be able to find common ground on some basic things.

I believe that Dawn Riley has some posts in there that she should be very proud of - - that represent intellectually first rate and aesthetically beautiful work. Some other people have contributed some really find posts in that thread, as well.

But I also want to say more about the points in MD8717 wrcooper 9/9/01 5:05pm to MD8726 rshowalter 9/9/01 8:03pm

rshowalter - 01:01pm Sep 10, 2001 EST (#8742 of 8748)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I'll have other things to say about
MD8731 gisterme 9/9/01 11:49pm ... MD8732 gisterme 9/10/01 12:11am
as well.

gisterme makes one point, where we have an essential disagreement, and a disagreement that matters very much:

"You really do spend most of your effort talking about things not related to missile defense but rather related to demonizing the United States government, particularly people who haven't had any significant influence for decades. "

Things that have happened over decades matter still.

On the matter of "demonization" .... I believe that there are many, many beautiful, credible things about my country, the United States. And I love my country. But for the good of the United States itself, and for the safety of the whole world, people both inside the US and outside it need to understand that there are ugly things about the United States, and need to know what they are.

These ugly things need to be tended to, and made better in the future, rather than denied.

If that happened, the United States would be a much more efficient, comfortable, safer place. With considerably less reason to be afraid than she now has.

There are significant and entirely avoidable risks that the world may end, and the world is far uglier than it needs to be, because the United States government, in some essential ways, has been so evasive, so predatory, and so dishonest.

There are things that need to be fixed.

And facts that need to be checked. Including some basically simple technical ones, that gisterme has worked long and hard to evade and avoid.

rshowalter - 06:43pm Sep 10, 2001 EST (#8743 of 8748)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Repost, as promised in rshowalter 9/10/01 12:58pm

Detail, and the Golden Rule http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?128@@.ee8b441

Religious?

In a sense, yes.

In another sense, maybe not.

Either way, I have no apologies for it. I'm proud of it, in fact.

gisterme , perhaps you may have objections to the piece when you read it. I think it is intensely practical.

Also, for most people, inoffensive.

I don't think my maternal grandfather, who was a Baptist preacher, would have objected. Nor granddaddy's best fishing buddy, who was a Rabbi.

Nor another good fishing buddy of his, a scoffer.

rshowalter - 09:26pm Sep 10, 2001 EST (#8744 of 8748)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Nazi war criminals in Britain . http://www.guardian.co.uk/nazis/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/nazis/article/0,2763,478005,00.html

almarst represent thoughts of the RUSSIAN culture -- and Russians, having watched the coddling of Nazi war criminals for fifty years, are likely to respond cynically to selective prosecution of war crimes.

We, as a nation, and the British, and NATO, ought to build a single standard here.

I think there should be many more prosecutions for war crimes. Not fewer.

But the decisions of the past need to be accomodated. And if the standard is "severe prosecution of all war criminals with Communist ties - - - almost no prosecution of war criminals with Nazi ties" that is a problem.

We have that problem. In our dealings with the Russians, we need to know, as they know, that we have it. We can't change the past. But we can remember it, as we move into the future.

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