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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 - 08:59am Sep 8, 2001 EST (#8654 of 8662)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

A limerick I like. ... MD3870 rshowalter 5/14/01 9:53pm

An issue that ought to be discussed is oil , still a cause of conflict and a source of corruption. And other "good reasons" for conflict, secrecy, and deception.

We should work to reduce or eliminate these causes, by solving technical and organizational problems. We could do so.

MD3869 armel7 5/14/01 9:48pm ... MD3870 rshowalter 5/14/01 9:53pm
MD3871almarst-2001 5/14/01 10:32pm

MD8298-8300 rshowalter 9/1/01 2:14pm

MD6553 rshowalter 7/4/01 3:28pm

applez101 - 10:49am Sep 8, 2001 EST (#8655 of 8662)

Here's a suggestion:

If this administration moves ahead with a missile defense plan, ignoring the objections of its own citizenry, I suggest that:

Someone starts two non-profit donation funds:

-A 'Nuclear Armament Fund'

and

-A 'Missile Proliferation Fund'

designated for distribution to needy nations that haven't the security edge against America's war machine.

"To produce a balanced future for *all* the children of the world." :)

-Hey, it worked for the IRA for decades, and donors can escape the moral objection of actually providing arms or secrets: that'd be up to the receivors to achieve. Plus, since donors will want progress reports, National Day parades with the missiles on flatbeds would be recommended. :)

lunarchick - 11:34am Sep 8, 2001 EST (#8656 of 8662)
lunarchick@www.com

applez101 9/8/01 10:49am

If this administration

Raises the question
- what exactly is 'this administration'
- it seems to be something the people G E T
- not something ordered by the people
- and seemingly not something under the control of the people
- this administration
- equates with a 'loose canon'
- make that a misguided missile
- "Waiter there's a fly in my soup!"
- "No! Not a second helping - a refund!"

rshowalter - 11:39am Sep 8, 2001 EST (#8657 of 8662)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Needy nations, all nations, have to learn to negotiate better, and a part of that is that they have to learn to deter each other, amply, proportionately, by nonnuclear means.

It shouldn't be that difficult.

Cooperation is a big part of it. Clean accounting of facts is a big part of it.

Query: How many lawyers, in stable communities, have much problems with physical threats? They don't look well defended, and in their communities, any number of people have the physical capacity to hurt them.

But in a world with interlocking connections, people who are parts of stable communities are protected -- within the framework where the community is built to function.

There needs to be a "community of nations" with some of the skills and connections that lawyers, and other professionals, often have in communities. The world has to get beyond a "hobbsean" standard, where there is no morality. The standard our military doctrines now assume. In the last few months, to a quite remarkable degree, formation of such a world community is happening.

Such communities can defend themselves, comfortably and without excessive force, with respect to many things. And police standards among their own members.

Question:

What does it cost a lawyer to really, and publicaly, violate the standards of honor in his profession? Not the ideal ones, the ones that are actually there. What might this cost her?

The answer is

"It would cost the lawyer practically everything. Costso much that lawyers are not as completely cynical or uncontrolled as outsiders sometimes think."

The United States has been a member, a leader, of a (still too Hobbsean, but real) "community of nations" and it is now violating standards of honor that are expected.

The fiasco with our fraudulent "missile defense" , and related machinations, are much more expensive than their "sticker price" cost. The US is facing penalties in the world community that, in their smaller world, lawyers don't want to face.

The Bush administration shouldn't either. It is making the United States a pariah nation, at the same time that human standards, all over the rest of the world, are rising.

There are reasons why this is happening -- but not reasons that the control group of the US wants to see the light of day.

Not reasons the American public could stomach, if they came to actually understand what was being done, and had been done.

The Bush family left Connecticut, and moved to the far more tolerant land of Texas, because, even for a Senatorial family, they'd shown NAZI connections that "wouldn't wash."

They're doing things now that "won't wash" either.

rshowalter - 11:49am Sep 8, 2001 EST (#8658 of 8662)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Notions concerning honorable conduct.
MD8350 rshowalter 9/2/01 5:35pm

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