Kislyakov (Novosti): Bleak outlook for Russian-U.S. space cooperation

In article ,
Rand Simberg wrote:
It comes down to a very simple concept... do we obey international law
or not?

There's no such thing as "international law"...

Oddly enough, the State Department disagrees with you. Now, I have no
love for the US State Dept. :-), but on this particular topic, I think
they are more likely to be correct. For that matter, the US Constitution
itself refers to "offences against the law of nations".

In case you haven't noticed, we've been at war with the Iranian regime
for over a quarter of a century...

When did Congress declare war on them? (That being one of the powers the
Constitution assigns to Congress, not to the President.)

It sure doesn't look like we do.
In fact a lot of what we do looks like war crimes to the rest of the world.

Who cares what the rest of the world thinks?

The US does, because it often wants favors from the rest of the world.
Notably, it often wants help of various kinds from the other major
advanced nations, most of which are democracies and hence care seriously
about public opinion. Even nations that one might not think of as
advanced sometimes have inconvenient democratic tendencies; for example,
one consequence of the Administration's obvious contempt for anyone else's
opinion before the invasion of Iraq was no access to bases in Turkey.

Much of the rest of the
world is run by dictators and other governments unaccountable to their
own people, who control their own press.

Ah, and the US's strategy for spreading democracy and freedom is to ally
itself with those dictators (since it can't be bothered keeping the
goodwill of the free nations)?
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

Joe Strout wrote:
No no, blowing it up increases the orbital debris problem. If you want
to kill something, pushing it into a reentry is the far more considerate
way to do it.


These are the Russkis...they set off fragmentation bombs in orbit on
their ASATs and put a cannon on one of their space stations.
They also sprayed molten radioactive sodium/potassium all over the place
from their atomic-powered RORSATS:
http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/trackind/...#The%20reactor
Many things they are...considerate they're not. :-D
(I've never read up on if they detonated atomic bombs in space like we
did, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if they did.)
If you could figure out a way to cheaply launch this widget though, it
might have real uses in cleaning up major pieces of orbital debris, and
that sounds like something the Russians might try to make a buck at.
Back in the bad-old-days of the Soviet Union, anything the Soviets did
in space was rightly looked at carefully in regards to what it
potentially meant militarily. With good reason as it turned out, as they
were doing stuff weirder than even we knew.
Nowadays, I think it makes more sense to look at anything they are doing
in both regards to military and economic possibilities
Sure, this widget might well have some military capabilities, but it
also might have some economic ones.
How many times over the past decade has a expensive satellite ended up
in the wrong orbit?
Having a fairly low-priced system that could go up and latch on to it
and move it into the right orbit, or into a place where it can get into
the right orbit on its own might be a money maker in regards to a
commercial satellite rescue ability.
If you have a twenty-five million dollar satellite up there in the wrong
orbit, and you can fix it for around five million dollars, then the
insurance companies might well foot the bill to do that. It would also
be a economic adjunct to the Russian commercial satellite launch
services, by giving them a way to say that they have the ability to fix
problems with their launches, thereby getting them more business.
If it's something sneaky, they're sure doing it in plain sight.
As far as XSS-10 and XSS-11 go, here's a drawing of XSS-11:
http://www.vs.afrl.af.mil/Factsheets...oSatellite.jpg
Which looks just like you'd expect.
XSS-10 on the other hand looks odd:
http://www.vs.afrl.af.mil/Factsheets...oSatellite.jpg
Note the size of those thrusters sticking out of its sides. Those
thrusters can move this thing around fast.
This looks a lot like a "Brilliant Pebble" kinetic kill vehicle.


Pat

On Wed, 17 Jan 2007 00:50:54 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(Henry Spencer) made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

In article ,
Rand Simberg wrote:
It comes down to a very simple concept... do we obey international law
or not?

There's no such thing as "international law"...

Oddly enough, the State Department disagrees with you. Now, I have no
love for the US State Dept. :-), but on this particular topic, I think
they are more likely to be correct. For that matter, the US Constitution
itself refers to "offences against the law of nations".

In case you haven't noticed, we've been at war with the Iranian regime
for over a quarter of a century...

When did Congress declare war on them? (That being one of the powers the
Constitution assigns to Congress, not to the President.)

I didn't say that we declared war on them. Nonetheless, they've been
making war on us since 1979.

Much of the rest of the
world is run by dictators and other governments unaccountable to their
own people, who control their own press.

Ah, and the US's strategy for spreading democracy and freedom is to ally
itself with those dictators (since it can't be bothered keeping the
goodwill of the free nations)?

Ummmm...no.

On Tue, 16 Jan 2007 13:20:30 -0600, in a place far, far away, "Jim
Oberg" made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

gag Feeling sympathy for Iran regarding violation of its 'diplomats'
has got to soar to the top of the list of 2007 anti-Bush phony-whining...

Actually, it just occurs to me that Iran complaining about violation
of diplomatic sovereignty should peg one's irony meter, if one has
one. It's clearly something that Pat lacks.

Rand Simberg wrote:
On Tue, 16 Jan 2007 17:19:22 -0600, in a place far, far away, Pat
Flannery made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

Rand Simberg wrote:
There's no such thing as "international law," despite the hopes and
dreams of the tranzis.


Well... in that case Saddam couldn't be guilty of anything could he?

On what basis would you make such an absurd and foolish statement?

You said there is no such thing as international law. What about crimes
against humanity like what Saddam did? Is a crime against humanity NOT
an international crime? You can't have it both ways!

Is deliberately murdering tens or hundreds of thousands of people not a
crime, regardless of any fictional legal regime?

You answer whether it is an international crime? A crime regardless
where you are. International...


BTW, I thought you weren't going to respond to me any more.

He didn't get 10. I'm still holding out...


But beyond that, when one is at war, one has no qualms about arresting
people aiding the enemy on enemy territory. In case you haven't
noticed, we've been at war with the Iranian regime for over a quarter
of a century. It's about time we shut down crap like this.


Yup, we were at war with them them when we brought them the key-shaped
cake, and started selling them weapons for our hostages, so that we
could then take the money to finance the Contras in Nicaragua without
Congressional approval, thereby throwing Danial Ortega out of power..
for a while at least... right until he got voted back into power.

If you're asking me to defend the government policy in that case
you're (as usual) on a fool's errand.

And? Sounds like the job for you.


Wasn't bringing democracy to Nicaragua wonderful?

Beats Soviet Marxism. But maybe a "political scientist" like yourself
doesn't agree...

Both are bad.


It sure doesn't look like we do.
In fact a lot of what we do looks like war crimes to the rest of the world.




Who cares what the rest of the world thinks? Much of the rest of the
world is run by dictators and other governments unaccountable to their
own people, who control their own press.


Once we had these things called "Allies"... we won't have to worry about
that for a while again, will we?

We did. They went over to the other side.

Are you saying our European allies support the terrorists? We had
better hope it doesn't come down for us to pick between Israel and
Europe regarding who our allies are.

rest of insanity snipped

Yes, it is always insanity when you simply disagee with a post.

Rand Simberg wrote:
On Wed, 17 Jan 2007 00:50:54 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(Henry Spencer) made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

In article ,
Rand Simberg wrote:
It comes down to a very simple concept... do we obey international law
or not?

There's no such thing as "international law"...

Oddly enough, the State Department disagrees with you. Now, I have no
love for the US State Dept. :-), but on this particular topic, I think
they are more likely to be correct. For that matter, the US Constitution
itself refers to "offences against the law of nations".

In case you haven't noticed, we've been at war with the Iranian regime
for over a quarter of a century...

When did Congress declare war on them? (That being one of the powers the
Constitution assigns to Congress, not to the President.)

I didn't say that we declared war on them. Nonetheless, they've been
making war on us since 1979.

Rand, if that is true then the Reagan Administration commited treason
with Iraq/Contra.

I have already spelled out how we installed the Shah as our puppet back
in 1953. The history of Iran and us didn't start in 1979. I'm not
suggesting that Iran run by a bunch of religious ayotollahs as being a
good thing, quite the contrary. However, we share as much
responsibility for that as do the Brits by forcing policy there over 50
years ago. We got what we got based upon what we did. Now we have to
deal with it the best we can.


Much of the rest of the
world is run by dictators and other governments unaccountable to their
own people, who control their own press.

Ah, and the US's strategy for spreading democracy and freedom is to ally
itself with those dictators (since it can't be bothered keeping the
goodwill of the free nations)?

Ummmm...no.

Yeah, Darfar is ignored and we're trying to supress civil war in Iraq.
Only an idiot would think that democracy means more to us than oil..

Eric

Rand Simberg wrote:
On what basis would you make such an absurd and foolish statement? Is
deliberately murdering tens or hundreds of thousands of people not a
crime, regardless of any fictional legal regime?


But they were his people, so if it was a crime it was an internal Iraqi
crime that should have been dealt with by Iraqi law.
It can't be a international crime or crime against humanity, because, as
you said, there is no basis for any real existence of international law.

BTW, I thought you weren't going to respond to me any more.


I only got eight votes.


Wasn't bringing democracy to Nicaragua wonderful?


Beats Soviet Marxism. But maybe a "political scientist" like yourself
doesn't agree...


In this case the Nicaraguans seem to prefer the evil dictator as they
voted him back into power.

Pat

On Wed, 17 Jan 2007 18:28:52 -0600, in a place far, far away, Pat
Flannery made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:



Rand Simberg wrote:
On what basis would you make such an absurd and foolish statement? Is
deliberately murdering tens or hundreds of thousands of people not a
crime, regardless of any fictional legal regime?


But they were his people, so if it was a crime it was an internal Iraqi
crime that should have been dealt with by Iraqi law.
It can't be a international crime or crime against humanity, because, as
you said, there is no basis for any real existence of international law.

BTW, I thought you weren't going to respond to me any more.


I only got eight votes.

I know you have problems with the logic thing, but the votes you were
asking for were for me to put you in *my* killfile, not for you to put
me in yours. And even if you'd gotten ten, it would have meant
nothing (like most of your posts), since I hadn't agreed to such a
proposition. And of course, you can put me in your killfile any time
you want, regardless of the number of "votes."

Rand Simberg wrote:
Ah, and the US's strategy for spreading democracy and freedom is to ally
itself with those dictators (since it can't be bothered keeping the
goodwill of the free nations)?


Ummmm...no.


Here's a list of the dictators who we supported politically or economically:
http://www.omnicenter.org/warpeaceco.../dictators.htm


Pat

On Wed, 17 Jan 2007 19:58:23 -0600, in a place far, far away, Pat
Flannery made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:



Rand Simberg wrote:
Ah, and the US's strategy for spreading democracy and freedom is to ally
itself with those dictators (since it can't be bothered keeping the
goodwill of the free nations)?


Ummmm...no.


Here's a list of the dictators who we supported politically or economically:
http://www.omnicenter.org/warpeaceco.../dictators.htm

Which has nothing to do with what I wrote.

But thanks for playing.