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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 - 03:47pm Sep 17, 2001 EST (#9302 of 9312)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

We're having problems where "simple humanity" isn't simple. We're finding situations where people are showing profound barbarism.

How, as a matter of mechanics, can it be

" possible to widen the moral circle" . . to shift "the boundary between us and them" in workable ways that permit more "win-win" situations, and less horror?

. How can "widening the moral circle" be done, consistently enough, predictably enough, on the personal levels where it has to happen, so that the widening works on a worldwide scale?

When Natalie Angier says that this is "all that matters today" she's on to something vital.

She's probably right, at many levels, that

" simple humanity will do."

But we have to know what "simple humanity" takes, under circumstances of complication and conflict, when we now see horrors occuring, with wrenching but monotonous regularity.

ledzeppelin - 04:29pm Sep 17, 2001 EST (#9303 of 9312)

Indeed it is being said to night in Islamabad that Osama bin Laden wants the Taliban to accept the US [via Pakistan delegation] offer to save the lives of at least the 6 millions Afghans who will die now without the resumption of the UN food aid programme to them! Given that within the next 12 weeks all will die without its resumption!

Hence the reason for the Taliban Cleric’s majlis on Tuesday! Some also say it gives time for OBL to return to Afghanistan?

OBL will become a martyr of unimaginable power if he sacrifices himself for these 6 million Muslims?

I really fear the atrocities that will be executed to the glorification of his name that will make our worse nightnares of Armageddon seem just like a teddy bears picnic......?

rshowalter - 05:06pm Sep 17, 2001 EST (#9304 of 9312)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Maybe we're better prepared to deal with that, psychologically, than we suspect at first.

The Producers is a play with a subplot that "laughs" at people's reaction to Hitler, and Nazism.

People tolerate ambiguity pretty well, sometimes.

If Bin Laden can save six million lives by giving himself up, why shouldn't he do it? Why shouldn't he do it even if he is guilty of organizing the horrors and crimes of September 11th?

If he did, fully guilty of his other crimes, why should that be so difficult for us? We know Bin Laden was a trusted soldier, on our side in the "noble battle against the Soviets."

Why can't he be a monster and a hero at once, in different aspects of his relation to life, and at different times?

What would be so strange or unusual about that?

I bet there are plenty of Nazi war criminals, including some of the worst, who have done some very nice, sensitive things at some times in their lives. Many of them, to save enough of their fellows, might well have sacrificed themselves.

That wouldn't make them any less guilty. People, even the worst of us, even the most terrible, remain people.

rshowalter - 05:07pm Sep 17, 2001 EST (#9305 of 9312)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

How do we remain people if, to force a nation to give up a man, in a way that nation may not be able to do, we let six million of them die?

rshowalter - 05:08pm Sep 17, 2001 EST (#9306 of 9312)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

That's sixty times more people than died in the WTC.

The old "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth" begins to sound positively humane.

lunarchick - 07:56pm Sep 17, 2001 EST (#9307 of 9312)
lunarchick@www.com

the old adage actually reads:

No more than ... an eye for an eye ... No more than a tooth for a tooth

It was a qualitative step along the road of impovement of humanity.

lunarchick - 07:58pm Sep 17, 2001 EST (#9308 of 9312)
lunarchick@www.com

Turn the other cheek

Was a further qualitative step ... as per

All you need is love, love, love is all you need .. (JohnPaul & the boys)

lunarchick - 07:59pm Sep 17, 2001 EST (#9309 of 9312)
lunarchick@www.com

WTC the World-country that took the greatest loss was Pakistan. 650 dead.

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