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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 - 05:20pm Sep 2, 2001 EST (#8349 of 8359)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Many of the engineers could also look for effective ways to defend the United States of America, and our allies - - - rather than help us go slam-banging into disaster.

It is hard for me, looking at the matter, to distinguish a lot of what is being done by the government and the contractors from treason.

(I'd have to check, but Lunarchick did a very nice collection of links about what "treason" and "deriliction of duty" meant. Seemed to fit a number of Bush administration folks pretty well.)

There was also a collection of definitions of "fraud" -- as I recall, and in my judgement, that fit, too.

Things need to be explained and nailed down.

rshowalter - 05:35pm Sep 2, 2001 EST (#8350 of 8359)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

MD7943 rshowalter 8/20/01 11:08pm ... MD&944 rshowalter 8/20/01 11:09pm

references from lunarchick on "notions of TREASON" ...; "Misrepresentation, Fraud"; "Bad Faith" ; Duty; Bad Faith Military; Dereliction of Duty;

It should be a duty to work out basic facts about what missile defense proposals can do -- especially when this can so clearly be done on the basis of the open literature -- and where the projects proposed are so clearly unworkable.

rgbrasel - 05:44pm Sep 2, 2001 EST (#8351 of 8359)
RGBrasel@hotmail.com

I'm assuming that one of the President's functions as CINC of the armed forces is to prevent possible dangers to our men and women in uniform. Though I seriously doubt that China will use nuclear weapons against us in the future, Bush is guilty of blatantly encouraging a "cool war" situation in Southeast Asia. If this does happen--and it is more likely now--the continued presence of the Pacific fleet in a region with increased political and military tension places our sailors in harm's way, needlessly. And to my knowledge, our AEGIS systems have never been fully tested in battle. Remember: it's possible that a tense situation could evolve into a shooting war, without the use of strategic or theater nuclear missiles.

The Bush administration must be operating in a near-total vacuum to give an okay to any buildup of nuclear arms. Speaking for those of us who were relieved that we reached the year 2000, I am completely bewildered that the President would even hint at such a thing. I hate to say it, but I'm convinced that the Oval Office is occupied by an idiot.

rshowalter - 06:11pm Sep 2, 2001 EST (#8352 of 8359)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

And ad hominem dismissal doesn't help, and isn't at all likely to be true. But Bush and company DO think differently -- and somebody's wrong, about some basic stuff (maybe me -- maybe them -- but somebody.)

We're dealing here with a number of complications, and motivations, but the situation definitely involves paradigm conflict.

With Dawn Riley, I've done a lot of work on paradigm conflict - and this link deals with things that I think are important in such cases. The key point is that - - when different people have very different world views, and it matters - - key differences can be resolved by determining questions of fact.

MD6013 rshowalter 6/25/01 4:05pm

A key insight, that I believe is new -- is that when answers matter, checking needs to be morally forcing.

These days, it isn't. But that needs to change.

kacameron3 - 06:23pm Sep 2, 2001 EST (#8353 of 8359)

This is insanity. Now this administration advocates missile proliferation.

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