Bye-bye INF treaty?

On 1 Mar 2007 17:43:56 -0800, in a place far, far away,
" made the phosphor on
my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:


Rand Simberg wrote:
On 28 Feb 2007 18:25:52 -0800, in a place far, far away,
" made the phosphor on
my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Not that it was the right thing to do. It certainly wasn't done for
noble or admirable reasons. And as I said, whether they behaved
rightly or wrongly, it wasn't the behavior of an ally.

Lets see, French soldiers are fighting and dying for you in
Afghanistan

Really? How many are fighting? How many have died?

2000 fighting 9 died. Yahoo.com is your friend. Does it really
make a difference? How many times must a soldier die to
prove that he is sincerely fighting?

I admire the French soldiers who gave their lives for the cause. The
fact remain that the numbers here are trivial, in context.

but you can't consider them to be allies because they have also voted
against the US going into a quagmire in Iraq.

No, they voted against removing Saddam Hussein.

I have a hard time
understanding this line of reasonning. I think that France really
thought it was a bad idea for the US to go in Iraq.

Of course they did. It meant cutting off their corrupt gravy train.

France thought it was a bad idea "for the US" to go in Iraq.
Not France thought it was a bad idea for France that the
US go into Iraq. Well yes, it was also bad news for France
because it helps the insurgency in Afghanistan to be able
to say with some credibility that the crusaders are fighting
Islam not just fighting the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks.
But though it is bad news for France it is much worse for
the US. And France did not want that much worse to happen
to their allies for whom they are fighting and dying in
Afghanistan even if those allies are bickering about France
not being an ally.

In other words, you obscure reality, and competely ignore the
corruption of the "Oil for Food" scandal...

Jordan wrote:

I'm not sure what you mean by "Russian crap its deployment could bring
down on Europe's heads." Are you seriously trying to argue that
Russia would be insane enough to respond to the deployment of a
defensive ABM system by launching an atomic war against Europe?

Not launching an attack; just starting to redeploy a whole pile of IRBMs
aimed at Europe.
"You want to defend against something?
We'll give you something to defend yourself against.
If I were you, I'd suggest getting around 500 of those ABMs."

Pat

In article om,
Jordan wrote:
...Are you seriously trying to argue that
Russia would be insane enough to respond to the deployment of a
defensive ABM system by launching an atomic war against Europe? I
have seen _no_ indication of the Russians being this irrational...

_The Economist_ recently noted, in a piece on this very topic, that
despite assorted fearmongering about a "new arms race" when the US
withdrew from the ABM Treaty, what the Russians *actually* did was to
promptly strike a deal with the US on still greater strategic-weapons
*reductions*.

(The same piece did note one unfortunate sign of Russian irrationality:
they've been obstructing attempts at diplomatic action against Iran, when
they ought to be leading the charge -- as worrisome developments among
their neighbors go, nuclear weapons in Iran would be far more serious than
missile interceptors in Poland.)
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

In article ,
Fred J. McCall wrote:
:If you insist that someone who disagrees with you can't be your friend,
:you're using the wrong word: you're looking for toadies, not friends.

I'm afraid I have to insist that anyone who takes decisions that lead
to my people being killed is NOT my friend, particularly when the
alternative decision costs them nothing.

I agree -- the USAF commanders who insisted on sending in the F-111s with
inadequate support, instead of just letting the Navy do the job, are not
your friends. But what has that got to do with France?

Hints: (1) France was not the only US ally that refused to cooperate.
(2) There was no particular rush, yet the US insisted on going ahead at
once rather than taking the time to talk one of its allies around.
(3) There was no particular reason to use F-111s for the strike, except
that the USAF insisted on being involved despite being poorly equipped
for it.

So why are you now blaming the *French* for this? The decisions which
resulted in those men being killed were made in the Pentagon, not in
Paris. Is it just that you don't want to admit that, and would prefer
to find a foreign scapegoat?
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

"Hyper" wrote:

:On Mar 1, 6:22 am, Fred J. McCall wrote:
:
: :While you decry France's "treason"
:
: I never used the word you elect to put in quotation marks above.
: You've merely descended to dishonesty at this point.
:
:The post was addressed to you.
:The quotes were to underscore the word not make you look bad to
thers.

Gee, most folks use UNDERSCORES to 'underscore' things. When you put
something it quotes, it generally means it's a quote. You asserted
that someone had made the claim. Your assertion was false. Now you
are wriggling.

: :I regret the fact that their
: :actions did not trigger any meaningful debate that could have lead to
: :saner decisions.
:
: That's because you don't understand the timing and what was going on.
:
:Of course not. It's "you're with us or you're agains us" (this was a
:quote or possibly a paraphrase - but I'm confused).

Yes, you are. About a lot of things, including the timing of that
quote, which was immediately after 9/11 and not related to Iraq at
all.

--
"Every nation, in every region, now has a choice to make.
Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.
-- President George W Bush

" wrote:

:
:France thought it was a bad idea "for the US" to go in Iraq.
:Not France thought it was a bad idea for France that the
:US go into Iraq. Well yes, it was also bad news for France

Because it cost France a very large oil concession that they'd already
cut a sweetheart deal with Saddam for.

Follow the money...


--
"False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the
soul with evil."
-- Socrates

"Rand Simberg" a écrit dans le message de
news: ...
On 1 Mar 2007 17:43:56 -0800, in a place far, far away,
2000 fighting 9 died. Yahoo.com is your friend. Does it really
make a difference? How many times must a soldier die to
prove that he is sincerely fighting?

I admire the French soldiers who gave their lives for the cause. The
fact remain that the numbers here are trivial, in context.

That 'trivial number' is still the fourth highest contigent in ISAF ( after
US, Uk and Canada ) and about 20% of the US contingent. If one is trivial,
the other isn't really significant either.

And that's discounting the undisclosed number of french SF under direct US
command. There are still some left after France retired 200 of them ( at
least in part in disgust because the US command structure stopped said
french SF to kill OBL twice - either through personnal gloryhunting or
military disfuntionment ( to use charitable interpretation -) -.


snip


In other words, you obscure reality, and competely ignore the
corruption of the "Oil for Food" scandal...

And you completely ignore that the amounts of money involved in this scandal
are trivial compared to the amount which dissapeared in US hands after under
the direct US administration in Iraq - and this still goes on -. We're
talking tens of billion of $ here.

If you think that french opposition to the war came from the Oil for food
money, you must also think that all US reasons for the war was to get that
money in corrupt hands.

No? Then rethink your position on the former.


Bottom line : don't get all your news from Fox and its ilk.

Henry Spencer wrote:
(The same piece did note one unfortunate sign of Russian irrationality:
they've been obstructing attempts at diplomatic action against Iran, when
they ought to be leading the charge -- as worrisome developments among
their neighbors go, nuclear weapons in Iran would be far more serious than
missile interceptors in Poland.)


They're doing that also; they say the Iranians haven't been paying the
bills on the reactors they were building them, so no reactor fuel till
they do: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/19/news/nuke.php
Pity if the Iranians have all those centrifuges and nothing to put into
them, wouldn't it be, comrade?

Pat

On Mar 2, 7:19 am, Fred J. McCall wrote:
:The post was addressed to you.
:The quotes were to underscore the word not make you look bad to
thers.

Gee, most folks use UNDERSCORES to 'underscore' things. When you put
something it quotes, it generally means it's a quote. You asserted
that someone had made the claim. Your assertion was false. Now you
are wriggling.

Use of quotes to UNDERSCORE a word/expression is ortographically
correct.
Avoiding the point and quibbling over insignificant stuff is what's
dishonest.

:Of course not. It's "you're with us or you're agains us" (this was a
:quote or possibly a paraphrase - but I'm confused).

Yes, you are. About a lot of things, including the timing of that
quote, which was immediately after 9/11 and not related to Iraq at
all.

Check Bush Doctrine.
--
"Every nation, in every region, now has a choice to make.
Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.
-- President George W Bush

On Fri, 2 Mar 2007 07:25:49 +0100, in a place far, far away, "frédéric
haessig" made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:


If you think that french opposition to the war came from the Oil for food
money, you must also think that all US reasons for the war was to get that
money in corrupt hands.

No, I don't have to think that at all.

No? Then rethink your position on the former.


Bottom line : don't get all your news from Fox and its ilk.

I don't.