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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 - 03:25pm Jun 4, 2001 EST (#4495 of 4500)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Southerners tolerate complexity and ambiguity -- and have to. The South fought a War, knowing in many ways how wrong it was , because in ways it collectively could not escape - it could not find a better way, given Southern limitations, and some Yankee limitations, too. (Yankees called Southerners sinners -- and southerners resolved to give them sin, good and hard -- and provoked a war that the North would have liked to avoid.) Then the North decided that it needed unity -- something the South hadn't understood.

A mess.

The South, after losing the War, came to accomodations that were, in many ways, complicated and corrupt. So did the North, in many ways dealing with the South.

There's something I really like about Southerners. They know that they are capable of sin (a mark in their favor) and also know that there are sins that not only have to be acknowledged in one's own mind -- they have to be defended.

As a consequence, some of the best negotiators in all the world come from the South -- Clinton among them .

The New York Times often values the negotiating skills and patterns of southerners - at least as a base on which to build. Clifton Daniels was from Zebulon NC - as my mother's family was - and became Executive Editor of the NYT. Now, Raines, another Southerner, is being promoted to the top editor's spot.

I'm a Southerner, myself. If ever there is a part of the country where the need for negotiation requires sophistication -- it is the South -- and though no one can say "save your Conferderate money, boys, the South will rise again" --- many cultural attributes of the South including many worth having are rising -- and America has to accomodate that, and would be a better country if it would.

- - - - - - - -

Not that a lot of yankees and southerners won't go on disliking each other, more or less. But we have to live with each other. In some practical ways, and some emotional ways, we've still got a long way to go, learning to do it.

Ex-communist countries -- very un-american countries -- and the United States have to make accomodations, too.

We ought to find reasonable ways to do it. The South was MUCH poorer than it had to be, for a century, and much worse off in many ways, for whites and blacks both, because really workable accomodations, that could permit flexible growth, were closed off by patterns of deception that froze progress out.

We should do better than that now -- and face whatever truths have to be faced, so we can go forward without unreasonable costs.

gisterme - 06:58pm Jun 4, 2001 EST (#4496 of 4500)

rshowalter wrote (WRT Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombings): "...But it is CLEAR that you can't deal with this situation in terms of simple right and wrong -- simple justice -- the situation is just too complicated for that..."

Robert, put yourself in president Truman's place and tell me what decision you would have made in 1945. Remember that virtually the entire American public demands the utter defeat of Japan as promised by you yourself and your beloved predecessor. The options are:

1) Invade Japan and fight on for a couple of more years, lose a half-million of your own people, kill a couple of million japanese soldiers and civilians and destroy most of what's still standing in Japan.

2) Blockade Japan and suffer attrition due to kamakazie attacks for how ever many years it took to bomb and starve them into submission, probably causing millions of Japanese civilian deaths. Destroy most of what's still standing in Japan.

3) Use the "atom bomb", devistate some (more) Japanese cities to force a quick Japanese surrender with no further losses to your own people.

4) Just quit and call the boys home.

5) Surrender to Japan.

Which would you choose? Did I miss an option? Where are the complications you were talking about?

It may not be simple right and wrong, Robert; there's definately something wrong if a war is going on. But if there must be a sacrifice of lives due to a choice in war, the sacrefice of a few seems more right than the sacrefice of many when there's a choice. What am I oversimplifying here, Robert?

rshowalter - 07:44pm Jun 4, 2001 EST (#4497 of 4500)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

MacArthur, if I recall, thought it right to wait a while -- and expected that the Japanese would have surrendered in due course. Again, not checking references, but relying on memory, that was likely to have happened. There were, I believe, a lot of other officers who felt as MacArthur did.

As is so often true, the right decision depends on assumpions about what the facts are.

If, after checking, the options you set out above were the real options -- then dropping the bomb would have made sense.

That's an "if."

Very often, when reasonable people look at the SAME facts, and trust those facts, and a very few logical connections between them -- they reach the same conclusions.

Usually, when there are fundamental differences, facts or logic are in question.

Quite often, the points at issue are checkable - - - and the checking should occur.

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