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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 - 04:16pm Sep 30, 2001 EST (#10018 of 10048)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

And how often have they killed unjustly, according to patterns that do MUCH more harm than good? Pretty often, in my view. I'm not alone in that opinion.

rshowalter - 04:18pm Sep 30, 2001 EST (#10019 of 10048)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

There would, however, be massive unemployment in whole extended neighborhoods in the greater DC metropolitan area. A whole subculture would have to redirect their skills to jobs they could actually do, on subject matter they could decently check.

rshowalter - 04:31pm Sep 30, 2001 EST (#10020 of 10048)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The C.I.A. is now, and has long been, a massive lie and rumor factory that has misled us, and done an astonishing amount to alienate other peoples, and make them have contempt rather than respect for the United States of America.

rshowalter - 04:34pm Sep 30, 2001 EST (#10021 of 10048)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

If the US wanted to make a brilliant public relations coup, warming the hearts of the whole world, and opening lines of communication that are closed to us, all over the world, it could do no better than closing down the CIA, firing the people in it (and many of their opposite numbers in the military) and working in clear .

rshowalter - 04:36pm Sep 30, 2001 EST (#10022 of 10048)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Many of our biggest problems in dealing with Latin America and the Islamic nations would fade away if we did this.

What of net value would we lose?

On net, it would be a big gain.

The pluses that the CIA can show aren't 10% of what it costs us, and aren't 10% of the negative effects it has had on US interests.

rshowalter - 05:14pm Sep 30, 2001 EST (#10023 of 10048)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The world is interconnected, and one issue recurs with monotonous, but deadly serious regularity.

It is that sequences where lies are involved are likely to go wrong in ugly, expensive, unjust, unpredictable ways.

MD9807 rshowalter 9/24/01 6:23am ... MD9808 rshowalter 9/24/01 6:26am
MD9809 rshowalter 9/24/01 6:40am ... MD9810 rshowalter 9/24/01 6:55am

rshowalter - 06:47pm Sep 30, 2001 EST (#10024 of 10048)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Personal anger may have biased me, in my suggestion that CIA should be shut down. I'm wondering about that. There are surely roles for a CIA to fill. But I believe that their procedures, for a long time, have been badly flawed, operationally and morally, and they should be checked , or find workable ways to check themselves, much more than they do at present. For reasons discussed in detail on this thread, intelligence based on open sources, notably the internet, has become far more powerful in recent years - and CIA uses these sources. For many purposes, the open sources are MUCH better than the covert ones, and can often be used to crosscheck the covert ones.

Even so, speaking on the basis of things I can know, from open literature sources -- it seems to me that the argument for shutting down the CIA is worth considering, because their performance, so often, has been so bad.

If the United States is well respected in national communities, it has a relatively easy time getting information. When it acts so that it is not - - getting information is much harder. If the CIA could operate in ways that earned the respect of many nationals -- that would be a wonderful thing - - but now, given the past - it may also be impossible.

vic.hernandez - 06:51pm Sep 30, 2001 EST (#10025 of 10048)

Re: rshowalter #10014

What level of casualties is unacceptable? You got to witness the deaths of over five thousand of your fellow Americans. All you can say is "No big deal, we lost only an infinitely small % of our friends and neighbors."

You can argue over how we should seek out the guilty and deliver punishment, you cannot just indicate that it was just a flea bite, no big deal.

This is not at time for mental masturbation, this is a time where we say the loss of just one of our citizens to this kind of action is not acceptable. This is a time when inaction is the same as supporting more of this kind of attrocity.

If you do not think that our present course is correct, then say so and present practical alternatives. A kum-ba-ya alternative of wouldn't it be nice if we did nothing is not such and alternative.

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