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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?

lunarchick - 04:48pm Apr 18, 2001 EST (#2367 of 2379)
lunarchick@www.com

Note: my 'thedawn.com' email is impossible to get into ... why would the USA deliberately infiltrate my computer and trash my link .. such a nusiance!

rshowalter - 05:06pm Apr 18, 2001 EST (#2368 of 2379)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

April 18, 2001 Pentagon: Osprey Not Ready for Use by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Marines-Osprey.html

The Osprey program, alone, exceeds Russia's current indebtedness. 12 billion dollars have been spent to build 8 airplanes that cannot, as of now, be flown.

Peace would make a great deal of economic and emotional sense, from many points of view.

But there would be ONE difficulty -- and it seems as if, to many, it would be insuperable.

To make peace, people have to find common ground about what happened in the past -- they have to be "reading off the same page" - not feeling the same way about the facts, perhaps, but knowing the same facts.

And, all over the world, in case after case, where there have been hostilites, or threats of them, there have been many, many deceptions, lies, and evasions, going on a long time - _ almost always, on all sides -- and people seem unable to face up to that plain fact.

So people lie to each other, very often, and especially when they are fighting, or are treating each other as adversaries. Is this such a surprise?

Why not just admit to the deceptions? All sides have plenty of "face" to lose. All sides have been deceptive, to their own people and to each other, in many ways. Why not just admit the plain facts? And get on to the business of living in reasonable peace? The deceptions and poses are expensive and dangerous to maintain - and serve no good purpose.

Human beings use deception a great deal, for many reasons, and maintaining the fiction that "good people" or "real people" or "our side" does not do so is getting prohibitively expensive.

rshowalter - 05:16pm Apr 18, 2001 EST (#2369 of 2379)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Lunarchick, perhaps they trash your email, and harrass you otherwise, because they have something to hide. Something shameful -- so they can't be direct about it. --- So they can't, for instance, email you directly, or call you on the telephone.

I've been on the recieving end of a lot of harrassment, too. It seems like dishonorable conduct to me. If they had truth on their side, they wouldn't have to behave so.

rshowalter - 05:18pm Apr 18, 2001 EST (#2370 of 2379)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

For instance, if they had some substantial objection to something said on this thread, they could post themselves --- they wouldn't even have to give their name, as I do, or have to be known to the TIMES, as you are.

Cowards. They give a good deal of credibility to us, I think, by behaving so.

lunarchick - 05:21pm Apr 18, 2001 EST (#2371 of 2379)
lunarchick@www.com

I've put an interesting question on science in the news .... :)

A thought for Russia re revenue raising .. euthanasia and in space at $Xmillion a pop! How soon would that take Russia 'out of the RED' ?

lunarchick - 05:23pm Apr 18, 2001 EST (#2372 of 2379)
lunarchick@www.com

Just 'chickpea-brainstorming' :)

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