ISS Heads of Agency Meeting ...Crew Expansion?

Perplexed in Peoria wrote:

"Henry Spencer" wrote in message ...
In article ,
wrote:
[Henry wrote]:
There are some countries, like Denmark, which officially are not threats.
Sweden, however, is. So is Canada.

Eh? Where's this come from?

The only countries which are officially non-threats are those with no
significant aerospace technology. Export "leaks" can't enhance what isn't
there.

Are you saying, Henry, that our (US) export control bureaucrats
think that the Danes don't talk to the Swedes? ;-)



Hey! You just used "export control bureaucrats" and "think" in teh same sentence!

Almost third of the list is stuff you would go somewhere else than US for the
latest expertise.

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

Rand Simberg wrote:
redneckj wrote:

It doesn't help that a significant part of the Canadian population
(particularly of school age) now believes that the US is a force for
evil in the world...


Rand, I tend to agree with Henry on this one, it's rediculous.

I agree. I was just pointing out one more barrier to doing anything
sensible about it.

Its not an additional barrier - the attidude of Canadians to US has about
as much influence on this as how many groundhogs there are in Canada.

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

Henry Spencer wrote:

It doesn't help that a significant part of the Canadian population
(particularly of school age) now believes that the US is a force for
evil in the world...


Anyone who claims that's something *new* is trying to sell you something,
probably involving ballot boxes. The US has long had a somewhat checkered
reputation in Canada, with many Canadians approving of the country in
general but deploring its blundering excesses, especially when it's
overcome with crusading zeal and declares jihad against the enemy du jour.

Thirty-odd years ago, a good many Canadians were cheering for the North
Vietnamese, not because they preferred slavery to freedom, but because
those weren't the choices on offer -- the US intervention in Vietnam was
rather obviously being run so ineptly that the outcome was not in doubt,
and the only question was how many people would die before the US faced
reality.

There's a difference between thinking someone misguided, and thinking
them evil, Henry.

I think that may be new.

In article ,
Sander Vesik wrote:
Are you saying, Henry, that our (US) export control bureaucrats
think that the Danes don't talk to the Swedes? ;-)

Hey! You just used "export control bureaucrats" and "think" in teh same
sentence!

A good point. :-) The export-control people are notorious not only for
being irrational, but for believing there's nothing wrong with that.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

In article ,
Phil Fraering pgf@AUTO wrote:
the US intervention in Vietnam was
rather obviously being run so ineptly that the outcome was not in doubt...

Henry, in '72 and '73 the S. Vietnamese Army was doing fine...

The ship was slowly sinking on a perfectly even keel. The situation was
militarily fine and politically unsupportable...

until the Democrats in the US won their war against South Vietnam and got
the support cut off.

In other words, the S. Vietnamese Army was doing fine only with massive
outside help, which was rather obviously a precarious position at best.
And having that support coming from a tired and disgusted US wasn't by any
means "at best", since that made it highly vulnerable to the shifting
winds of US politics, and the low opinion a lot of Americans had of the
South Vietnamese government. It was pretty predictable that sooner or
later, that support would be sharply cut back.

"Americans do not like long, inconclusive wars. This is going to be a
long, inconclusive war." -- Ho Chi Minh

North Vietnam seldom made the mistake of thinking that the military
situation and the political situation were separate issues. A strong
South Vietnamese Army that was strong only by virtue of a heavy stream of
US aid obviously wouldn't *stay* strong for very long. It was only
necessary to continue mild pressure, avoid being worn down by pushing
too hard, and wait for the US to get fed up.

The US, as you put it, then "faced reality"...

Specifically, the reality that the US was not willing to either invade and
conquer North Vietnam, or to fight (directly or by South Vietnamese proxy)
an indefinite defensive war, and thus was almost certain to lose to a
patient and determined opponent who never "bet the farm" on a single
offensive.

THEN roughly 150,000 people died in reeducation camps.
According to the UN High commissioner on refugees, about 900,000 boat
people reached safety, and about 250,000 died trying to reach safety.

And this could have been prevented... how, exactly?

That wasn't one of the choices being offered. The claim was not that the
North Vietnamese were saints, but that the US -- within the constraints it
put on itself -- could not prevent their victory.

The really pitiful thing is that a very large number of the refugees were
people expelled by the Vietnamese government, not for being associated with
the S. Vietnamese government, but for being of Chinese descent...
(And China was one of N. Vietnam's major allies during the war).

If (dim) memory serves, China actually did not contribute a lot of real
support, particularly later on when it was clear that N. Vietnam was
unlikely to lose. China and Vietnam are historically enemies, and China
preferred an ongoing Vietnam War over any sort of conclusion that would
leave Hanoi free to turn its attentions elsewhere.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

In article . net,
Rand Simberg wrote:
...with many Canadians approving of the country in
general but deploring its blundering excesses, especially when it's
overcome with crusading zeal and declares jihad against the enemy du jour.

There's a difference between thinking someone misguided, and thinking
them evil, Henry.
I think that may be new.

No, similar rhetoric is often heard at jihad time, especially from
factions which aren't keen on the US at the best of times.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

Henry Spencer wrote:

Specifically, the reality that the US was not willing to either invade and
conquer North Vietnam, or to fight (directly or by South Vietnamese proxy)
an indefinite defensive war, and thus was almost certain to lose to a
patient and determined opponent who never "bet the farm" on a single
offensive.

Actually, they did with Tet. Fortunately for them, while they lost on
the battlefield, they won in the US media.

THEN roughly 150,000 people died in reeducation camps.
According to the UN High commissioner on refugees, about 900,000 boat
people reached safety, and about 250,000 died trying to reach safety.


And this could have been prevented... how, exactly?

That wasn't one of the choices being offered. The claim was not that the
North Vietnamese were saints, but that the US -- within the constraints it
put on itself -- could not prevent their victory.

Well, actually the claim was that the US was evil. Vietnam may have
ultimately been futile, but our purposes there were not ignoble. I
expect to hear chants of "The Great Satan" from the mullahs in Iran, but
when a large number of schoolchildren in Windsor and Winnepeg think the
same thing, it makes me a little concerned for Canada's future.

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message ink.net...
Henry Spencer wrote:
That wasn't one of the choices being offered. The claim was not that the
North Vietnamese were saints, but that the US -- within the constraints it
put on itself -- could not prevent their victory.

Well, actually the claim was that the US was evil. Vietnam may have
ultimately been futile, but our purposes there were not ignoble. I
expect to hear chants of "The Great Satan" from the mullahs in Iran, but
when a large number of schoolchildren in Windsor and Winnepeg think the
same thing, it makes me a little concerned for Canada's future.

Makes me a bit concerned for the US future.

(Henry Spencer) writes:

In article . net,
Rand Simberg wrote:
...with many Canadians approving of the country in
general but deploring its blundering excesses, especially when it's
overcome with crusading zeal and declares jihad against the enemy du jour.

There's a difference between thinking someone misguided, and thinking
them evil, Henry.
I think that may be new.

No, similar rhetoric is often heard at jihad time, especially from
factions which aren't keen on the US at the best of times.


A significant segment of the Canadian population considered the United
States to be actually evil, as opposed to just misguided, during the
Vietnam War era?

I'll take your word for it, but I am somewhat surprised.


--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
* for success" *
*661-718-0955 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *

"John Schilling" wrote in message ...
A significant segment of the Canadian population considered the United
States to be actually evil, as opposed to just misguided, during the
Vietnam War era?

I'll take your word for it, but I am somewhat surprised.

Hmmm.
"The misguided empire".
"The axis of misdirected rotation".

Somehow, "misguided" doesn't have enough resonance.
We need to oppose "evil". I'll bet that Canadians are much the same.