New York Times on the Web Forums Science

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?

lunarchick - 08:25am Mar 26, 2001 EST (#1524 of 1529)
lunarchick@www.com

" If the talking doesn't work, it is usually because there are deceptions involved - intentional or unintentional, on one side or both. "

This caught my eye and stopped me in my tracks, in the Walter Mitty world of imagining ......

Imagine two 'fifth estate' very secret organisations that have both been reared on cold-war conceptions .. talking to each other .. when both have been trained to 'hide', 'lye', 'cheat' and 'kill' as per they think necessary!

These organisations are paid out of National funds, and yet, they have 'carte blanc' to behave as they see fit.

Their aim should be to 'enhance' those Nations. The question is, do they see the direction and futures, the way that life, the world, is going ... or do they live half a century in the past ???

rshowalter - 08:27am Mar 26, 2001 EST (#1525 of 1529)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I haven't taken time to say how sorry I am for the tragic, senseless bombing attacks on Russian citizens. I am personally sorry. We need, step by step, to find ways to make those things less likely, and if we can, and it can be justified in the balance of things, we need to bring the evil human beings who do such things to justice.

rshowalter - 08:33am Mar 26, 2001 EST (#1526 of 1529)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?11@174.4TahaUZKkKz^4498682@.f0ce57b asks questions that are dead on.

I think that it is a simple, objective fact, that both CIA and KGB, and their associated organizations, went crazy, and became entirely convinced of things that are not true, during the Cold War. And that some of the most essential perils the world faces trace to that fact.

The most dangerous part is how sincerely, and how forcefully, the people in these organization believe wrong things about the nonsense world they have constructed so ornately in their minds, talking to each other again and again, looking at the same few "precious secret facts" again and again, and constructing a dangerous dream world that they cannot check, and refuse to let others check.

All nations need intelligence. But it is dangerous, to all concerned, that the US and Russia have been guided, and continue to be guided, by organizations that are, in very objective ways, clinically insane -- "out of touch with reality."

Their insanity, and the actions they (and I think especially our CIA) take for insane reasons, stain and imperil the world.

lunarchick - 08:34am Mar 26, 2001 EST (#1527 of 1529)
lunarchick@www.com

Anyone/Anyman using bombs has to be compeletly desensitised to the human feelings of others. When a life is 'lost' the actual 'death' of the deceased does not occur until all those with memories of that person die.

That people who hold memories of a loved one have to 'suffer' all their remaining life - compounds the ugliness of such a tragedy.

lunarchick - 08:38am Mar 26, 2001 EST (#1528 of 1529)
lunarchick@www.com

The propping up of tired regimes, against the wishes of the local population, is the greatest tradegy. That propping shows a failure to understand the purpose of government, and the need for governments to swing.

rshowalter - 08:39am Mar 26, 2001 EST (#1529 of 1529)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

That's just right. And, led by the US, the world has been dominated by threats of mass murder since the 1950's. b DARK SUN (op cit) and many other books tell the story clearly.

It seems that George W. Bush is willing to use threats of first use of nuclear weapons, even to this day.

All other nation states should be clear that this is unacceptable, and should make that clear to Americans though their contacts with American business interests. Every time that sort of outrage is perpetrated, it should cost Americans money.

If it did, some things might clarify.

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense