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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 - 05:54am Mar 31, 2001 EST (#1819 of 1823)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

http://www.timesofindia.com/today/31aspc8.htm ....'No difference with US in evaluating N Korean military threat'

I am ashamed for my country when I read the statement of Gen. Thomas Schwartz, the U.S. military commander in South Korea, who said North Korea was better equipped than ever for a war with the South.

I am ashamed to live on the same planet with Schwartz, and am ashamed of the officials and traditions that gave rise to the statement, considered in its realistic context. I believe that the U.S. legislators and staff who dealt with Thomas Schwartz with respect should be ashamed of themselves, for the failure of their duties for oversight, judgement, and human decency.

The culture of deception, evidenced many places elsewhere, rshowalter 3/30/01 3:18pm has deeply corrupted the military, and those who deal with it.

Schwartz can easily get my phone number if he wishes to discuss this. For my part, I would be pleased to meet with him, in a public way that can be videotaped and webcast, to discuss the "truth" of his statement, considered in the reasonable context of his speech, and other circumstances.

About 37,000 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea as a deterrent to a possible North Korean invasion.

The North Koreans are such a threat that they cannot feed their own people, or reliably maintain their electric power grid.

We killed more than two million North Koreans, and have never apologized, or officially regretted in any way widely known, our doing so. The fact is unknown in America, which gives such (justified) attention to the murder of six million jews by Hitler.

It seems to be the mission of Schartz and his sort to see to it that peace does not break out, so that they can stay there, to the detriment of very many, in the interest of very few, with gross disregard for the reasonable interests of the nation he is sworn to serve.

lunarchick - 06:58am Mar 31, 2001 EST (#1820 of 1823)
lunarchick@www.com

Didn't realise so many people were killed, that would be the equivalent (in my country terms) of decimation. And probably so for NK.

rshowalter - 07:33am Mar 31, 2001 EST (#1821 of 1823)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

And this after we had become, in every way that could matter to Koreans, "allies" of the Japanese, whose behavior towards the Koreans was as reprehensible as the German's behavior towards the Russians.

Statements from the dustcover of DARK SUN: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb byt Richard Rhodes, Simon & Schuster, 1995 rshowalter 3/22/01 11:48am are very much worth study, well set out in that much praised book., and include this:

" US firebombing of North Korean cities and large dams killed more than two million civilians."

The statements are well supported, and contextualized, in pages well indexed in the book.

The context of this mass killing does not seem to involve much extenuation, from a Korean point of view, or, I'd guess, from the point of view of most people who consider what was done.