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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 - 08:00pm Apr 2, 2001 EST (#1924 of 1927)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

On reflection, I think a very sensible case.

In today's Times:

Yugoslav Firm on His Stand to Bar Milosevic From Hague by STEVEN ERLANGER http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/02/world/02CND-YUGO.html

"President Vojislav Kostunica of Yugoslavia expresses a very high ideal

" Mr. Milosevic's arrest was an important event, said Mr. Kostunica, who defeated him in elections in September. "Its meaning is to make public all the violations of the law and rights committed by the old regime led by Milosevic, so people can have a complete, clear picture," he said, adding: "There will be no hide-and-seek, everything will come out. If we speak of the need for social catharsis, then the most important is this one."

If that promise can be kept, it is an important one -- worthy of great respect, and a model for much that is needed in the world. "Social catharsis" might be, and seems like, another term for what I've referred to as secular redemption.

rshowalter - 08:00pm Apr 2, 2001 EST (#1925 of 1927)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

792: rshowalter 2/27/01 6:03pm

793: rshowalter 2/27/01 6:06pm

794: rshowalter 2/27/01 6:15pm

"The situations Rosenberg describes, where she hungers for justice, do not admit of satisfactory justice. They are too complicated. There is too much ugliness. What is needed, for logical reasons that are fundamentally secular rather than religious, is redemption.

"The phrase beyond redemption is sometimes used, but I havent heard much discussion of the idea that a situation is beyond justice . But situations that are beyond justice occur, and our nuclear circumstances are full of such situations, and paralyzing conflicts produced by them.

"These situations cannot be resolved in a way that specifically balances all rights and all wrongs. They are too conflicted and too complicated. These situations need to be redeemed, and they can be.

"The situation needs secular redemption. http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee79f4e/1345

"The redemptive solution cant be an abstraction, or a fizzle - it has to be able to propagate - to get past chain breakers http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?13@@.ee7ec3f/119 , as only a redemptive solution can.

"A central problem is to deal with - or put pressure on, people who deny very obvious, provable, morally compelling facts, because the cost is somehow, too great Learning to Stand http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?13@@.ee7ec3f/110

"The cost of lies is prohibitive here. The bottle scene from Casablanca http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/12 offers an example of this.

"Punishment should be avoided, whenever it is at all possible. It produces chain breakers to solutions that need to go through.

"Redemption should be the goal instead. Because nothing else can possibly be beautiful, and safe, in these circumstances.

At the same time, sometimes punishment cannot reasonably be avoided, and I believe that many will come to the conclusion that in the case of Milosevic is an example.

I would definitely support Mr. Kostunica in what he is proposing, and hope he does, indeed, achieve a redeptive, livable situation that both Serbia and the world needs. If that were possible, it would be a fine example, for the form Communist countries, for the countries involve the nuclear impasse, and very widely elsewhere.

But the objective is service and truth, and the World Court should watch very closely, to see that justice is done by interanational standards, and might ask to try Milosevic if the cause of justice, after seeing what was done required it.

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