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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 - 11:52am Apr 3, 2001 EST (#1942 of 1946)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The lies involved in the US "missile defense" programs are so gross, so all pervasive, and so numerous, that it seems unbelievable that Americans could be perpetrating such a fraud.

But, in key ways, the military-industrial complex has been out of control since Eisenhower's time -- something Eisenhower worried about deeply, and made the subject of his Farewell Address.

Now, the "rogue state" that threatens the world most, by far, is the United States of America.

Some lies need to be uncovered, in the interest of almost every human being in the whole world, lest the world end.

It is an ugly story, but it is coming out.

By the way, I am obeying the orders I was given, many years ago, by William Casey. I'm "coming in" through the New York Times -- and coming to them without introductions. But the world has changed. William Casey would be very ashamed of the CIA, and the military industrial complex, if he were alive.

rshowalter - 12:15pm Apr 3, 2001 EST (#1943 of 1946)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

rshowalter 3/29/01 12:28pm
rshowalter 3/29/01 12:29pm

rshowalter 3/29/01 12:54pm

but also not forgetting that

rshowalter 3/29/01 12:55pm

rshowalter - 12:58pm Apr 3, 2001 EST (#1944 of 1946)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Experts say the information that exists in the spy plane is of great importance: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,3-108859,00.html

Putin is replacing a TV organization involved with a bankrupcy dispute, but has the courage to put an American investment banker, vulnerable in many ways to American media, on the board. almarst-2001 "Putin and the Direction of Russia" 4/3/01 10:14am http://asia.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/world/article.html?s=asia/headlines/010403/world/afp/Controversial_US_banker_to_run_Russia_s_NTV_channel.html

almarst-2001 - 01:13pm Apr 3, 2001 EST (#1945 of 1946)

This step (Boris Jordan) is not clear to me. May be the Gas-Prom has more influence over Putin then Putin over the Gas-Prom?

rshowalter - 01:28pm Apr 3, 2001 EST (#1946 of 1946)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

That might not make him so different from American politicians. But in a complexly articulated sociotechnical system -- like any nation state -- people with power in different places are both subject to and capable of exerting, power on each other. "More power" depends, and depends a lot, on the circumstances -- and often enough, it is the power to persuade.

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