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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 - 12:01pm Oct 2, 2001 EST (#10051 of 10055)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Eastern Middle School by THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/02/opinion/02FRIE.html

Friedman speaks movingly about the values of the United States that make our country so great, and a source of cultural influences that have been very widely accepted and welcomed all over the world.

Friedman says that, on many, many practical and moral fronts, the US has much to be proud of - and more that is beautiful than any person could put in her head.

None of that means that we shouldn't fix our problems. None of that means that we shouldn't pay attention to what others regard as ugly about us, and see if, from our own point of view, the negatives identified may indeed be subject to correction. None of that means that we shouldn't fix such problems, if found. None of that means that it would not be highly practical to do so.

If checking when it mattered enough, became morally forcing the bad things in America would be adressed to a very great extent, pretty painlessly, and the good things would get better.

Distorted societies, such as the Taliban, would have a harder time standing up to us, or existing themselves in their currently perverse forms, if this happened.

Because key things are not checked, terrible things happen and persist, and our lives, and the welfare of the whole world, are compromised and endangered.

rshowalter - 12:06pm Oct 2, 2001 EST (#10052 of 10055)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

This thread has been about missile defense, and interconnections to missile defense that, in my view, really are essential to understanding the issues involved, and finding better solutions.

The thread contains a great deal about missile defense, and the related questions of space weapons. In MD10032 rshowalter 10/1/01 11:16am I believe that I showed, once again, that lasar weapons systems are fatally flawed - - and with them, much else about the administration's missile defense program. I asked:

" can you ( kangdawai ) , or gisterme , or anyone else, point to responses, cited in MD9896 rshowalter 9/29/01 7:44am that are not specific enough to check and tell me why they are not?

I'm awaiting an answer. The question is central to the logic of "missile defense" as it is being proposed. More than lasar weapons are involved, because patterns of evasion, and sometimes stunning technical irresponsibilitiy on show in the lasar weapons programs also exist widely elsewhere in the "missile defense" programs.

And elsewhere, too, especially in areas, long separated from the usual American traditions of openness, that involve nuclear weapons. For a policy that I wish was unamerican, that surely is very different from normal American usages, see ARMED TO EXCESS by Bob Kerrey http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/02/opinion/02KERR.html

rshowalter - 12:16pm Oct 2, 2001 EST (#10053 of 10055)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

From Kerrey's piece:

"Part of the reason that Congress has not been pressing for steep reductions is that members of Congress have never seen the actual missile targeting plans developed by the military in response to presidential directives. For twelve years in the Senate — eight of which I served on the Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence — I tried without success to get this briefing. In fact, I was unable to find a single member of the Senate who had been briefed. Mr. Bush should order his military commanders to brief members of Congress on the targeting plans.

" . . . . A map of Russia that contained thousands of red circles each indicating a nuclear detonation would convincingly show the extent of the excess nuclear capability we have.

The progam is so thoroughly hidden because it conflicts so strongly with ordinary, sane, proportionate human responses - and the people in charge of it know that.

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