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Bye-bye INF treaty?



 
 
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  #31  
Old February 17th 07, 12:02 PM posted to sci.space.history
Darren J Longhorn
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Default Bye-bye INF treaty?

On 16 Feb 2007 18:03:17 -0800, "Quadibloc" wrote:

But do I feel like lording this over the United States? No. Countries
like Israel, Taiwan, or South Korea are not as comfortable to live in
as Canada. The lives of people in those countries are regimented in
some ways that our lives are not. Young men have to serve a term in
the armed forces in those countries (and in Greece, Britain, and in
much of Continental Europe, in fact, too).


Not in 'Britain'.

--
Darren J Longhorn
It's all faked, I tell you, all of it!
You want proof? I'll give you your stinkin' proof...
http://www.geocities.com/darrenlonghorn/proof/nasa2.jpg
  #32  
Old February 17th 07, 01:29 PM posted to sci.space.history,sci.space.policy
Stephen Horgan
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Default Bye-bye INF treaty?

On Feb 16, 11:54 pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
Rand Simberg wrote:

Yes, you can't imagine that they might actually believe the
apocalyptic rants that they spout daily, and are actually interested
in immanentizing the eschaton.


(Hint: MAD only works when both parties want to survive)


The ayatollahs may chant a lot, but they are as keen to get destroyed as
TV evangilists are to have Christ really show up and start passing out
the judgments on people.


You do not base the safety of your people on such simplistic
psychological analysis. These are the people who run mass
demonstrations where the chant is 'death to America'. It is possible
that they mean it.

Imagine what people would think of America if they thought we really
were going to do things the way Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell wanted
us to.
We want the end of the world to occur ASAP, that's what they'd think.

Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell do not run the USA. The Ayatollahs
actually do run Iran.

Has it ever occurred to you that you're a living parody of the
conspiracy leftist?


Yup, me and Time magazine:http://www.time.com/time/world/artic...576593,00.html

It is the working assumption that when other nations say they want to
destroy you they can't really mean it that worries me.


  #33  
Old February 17th 07, 01:52 PM posted to sci.space.history,sci.space.policy
Pat Flannery
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Default Bye-bye INF treaty?



Henry Spencer wrote:
In article ,
Pat Flannery wrote:


Is there something funny going on with your computer's clock,or your ISP
BTW?
Your messages are showing up several hours after you have written them
over the past few days.

Pat
  #34  
Old February 17th 07, 02:16 PM posted to sci.space.history,sci.space.policy
Pat Flannery
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Default Bye-bye INF treaty?



Rand Simberg wrote:
Ahhhh...yes, Henry, but you forget that this also demonstrates that
Pat is a solipsistic narcissist,


Jeeze, Mr. Simberg! You can do fancier things with your tongue than a
ten-dollar whore !

Pat
Rock Ridge
  #35  
Old February 17th 07, 03:35 PM posted to sci.space.history
Quadibloc
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Default Bye-bye INF treaty?

Darren J Longhorn wrote:
On 16 Feb 2007 18:03:17 -0800, "Quadibloc" wrote:

But do I feel like lording this over the United States? No. Countries
like Israel, Taiwan, or South Korea are not as comfortable to live in
as Canada. The lives of people in those countries are regimented in
some ways that our lives are not. Young men have to serve a term in
the armed forces in those countries (and in Greece, Britain, and in
much of Continental Europe, in fact, too).


Not in 'Britain'.


I'm glad to hear that the United Kingdom has been able to abolish
national service for the time being. I had thought that even after
they did not need large forces for Northern Ireland, they were still
maintaining it for various purposes.

John Savard

  #36  
Old February 17th 07, 04:18 PM posted to sci.space.history,sci.space.policy
Quadibloc
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Default Bye-bye INF treaty?

Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:
"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 16 Feb 2007 06:28:14 -0600, in a place far, far away, Pat
Flannery made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

Remember how I said pulling out of the ABM treaty was a dumb move,
because the Russians would think that any treaty we had with them wasn't
worth the paper it was written on?


No, but I can imagine you saying such a silly thing. We didn't
abrogate the treaty. We withdrew, which was completely within the
bounds of the treaty.


Your imagination really must be working over time. He never said we
abrogated it.

But hey, don't let what he actaully said get in the way of what you want to
say.


You are factually correct in your statement, as far as it goes. Pat
Flannery indeed did not claim that the U.S. acted in direct violation
of the terms of the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty.

However, he *did* claim that what the U.S. actually *did* do would
lead the Russians to conclude "that any treaty we had with them wasn't
worth the paper it was written on", as is shown by what you have
quoted. The implication, therefore, is that the U.S. did something
naughty.

Thus, for Rand Simberg to explain in explicit detail what "pulling out
of the ABM treaty" meant, and that it involved withdrawal from the
treaty in accordance with its stated provisions, is a legitimate
clarification in preparation for the argument that hence in no way
should this withdrawal from the treaty lead to the conclusion that the
United States is less than conscientious in abiding by the treaties it
signs.

John Savard

  #37  
Old February 17th 07, 04:48 PM posted to sci.space.history,sci.space.policy
John Schilling
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Default Bye-bye INF treaty?

On Fri, 16 Feb 2007 19:35:16 -0600, Pat Flannery
wrote:

Henry Spencer wrote:


You'll say: "But yes! But a nuclear war could wipe out all of our nation."
Oddly enough, anyone it wipes out _after_ me isn't of much concern to me
in any concrete form. :-D


By that I meant that I didn't want to get killed in one, nor do I
imagine much of the population does.


After I get vaporised, whatever the fate of the rest of Earth's history
is like is pretty moot as far as I'm concerned.


And you think, e.g., the Ayatollah Khamenei is any different? Or that it
is specifically *nuclear* death that invokes the "who cares about anyone
else?" reaction?

If the mob is about to put his head on a pike outside the palace, what
does he care that nuclear war would kill the mob? Once he's dead, the
fate of the rest of the world's history would be pretty moot as far as
he's concerned.

Except:

Some people do kind of sort of want to know that the people what did them
in, will get theirs not long afterwards. A nuclear war between Iran and
the United States, would accomplish that very nicely

And:

He might have better odds in the nuclear war. First off, it will give
the Iranians a nice common enemy to unite against, under whatever leader
they can find - even if it's one they were about to kill yesterday. Note,
e.g., the massive spike in Bush II's popularity right after 9/11. Second,
Iran is a big country, with lots of room for him to hide. Probably too
big for the United States to actually invade and conquer so long as we
can convince ourselves we don't have to. And we're probably too nice,
we certainly *appear* to be too nice, to engage in a literally genocidal
nuclear counterstrike. We might just nuke the place a little bit, with
him arranging to be someplace else when the missiles hit. Then he can
play Mullah Omar for many years to come.


Iran's aggressive foreign policy isn't some arbitrary whim of its present
leaders, it's an almost necessary consequence of the country's domestic
political problems. Which are severe enough that "head on a pike" is a
constant threat to pretty much any Iranian politician, and which really
are alleviated by providing foreign enemies for the people to unite
against.

Which means there is a real threat that after too many iterations of
"Yes, food is scarce and expensive but LOOK, OVER THERE, JEWS, KILL
THEM ALL!" or "I assure you that concerns about the fairness of the
last elections are AIEEE! GREAT SATAN! DESTROY!", the Iranian people
are going to insist on more than words or token gestures before they
put away the torches and pitchforks.


--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
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  #38  
Old February 17th 07, 05:34 PM posted to sci.space.history
Darren J Longhorn
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Posts: 57
Default Bye-bye INF treaty?

On 17 Feb 2007 06:35:32 -0800, "Quadibloc" wrote:

I'm glad to hear that the United Kingdom has been able to abolish
national service for the time being. I had thought that even after
they did not need large forces for Northern Ireland, they were still
maintaining it for various purposes.


National in the United Kingdom ended on 31 December 1960, before 'the
troubles' began in Northern Ireland.

--
Darren J Longhorn
It's all faked, I tell you, all of it!
You want proof? I'll give you your stinkin' proof...
http://www.geocities.com/darrenlonghorn/proof/nasa2.jpg
  #39  
Old February 17th 07, 06:52 PM posted to sci.space.history,sci.space.policy
Eric Chomko
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Posts: 2,630
Default Bye-bye INF treaty?


Quadibloc wrote:
Eric Chomko wrote:
I don't know what is worse, those that are brainwashed into thinking
that the US and Israel are the worst countries in the world or those
that are brainwashed into thinking that they are best countries in the
world.


Canada and New Zealand are much nicer! They are more friendly and
peaceful. Dishonest police officers running "speed traps", or framing
black motorists for traffic offences in order to search their vehicles
without being accused of racial profiling, are unheard of! Citizens of
these countries of Arab origin can go from place to place without
harassment! Universal health care is paid for by the government!


With as much snow as Buffalo, NY was gotten this year and Canada is
north of that, no thanks. I'd take living in the Caribean over Canada
any day simply due to the difference in weather.


But do I feel like lording this over the United States? No. Countries
like Israel, Taiwan, or South Korea are not as comfortable to live in
as Canada. The lives of people in those countries are regimented in
some ways that our lives are not. Young men have to serve a term in
the armed forces in those countries (and in Greece, Britain, and in
much of Continental Europe, in fact, too).

That's because countries like Israel, Taiwan, and South Korea happen
to have hostile neighbors close beside them. They are under a genuine
threat of attack. So the problems of life in *those* countries are not
the fault of their regimes... they are the fault of their enemies.

All right, so what is the United States' excuse?

One of your former Presidents, Harold "S" Truman, kept a notice on his
desk with the wording of which you may be familiar.

Before World War II, the American people thought that they could
practise the policy of isolationism. Let foreigners squabble over
their silly differences and kill each other; America is far from these
squabbles, and strong enough to defend itself, so it need not court
trouble. It can just mind its own business, and enjoy peace forever.


How do you explain the claims of imperialism of the US it was getting
at the turn of the 19th to 20th centuries?

It took Pearl Harbor to shock America out of that thinking. And then
the liberation of Belsen caused many to question the morality of
isolationism.

Then the Soviet theft of the secret of the Atom Bomb meant that the
world was a small place, and the Atlantic and Pacific oceans no more
guaranteed security than the Rhine, the Elbe, or the Danube. The
strangling of the infant democracies of Eastern Europe, so soon before
freed from the Nazi jackboot, made it clear that Stalin was an enemy
of freedom.

To preserve its own freedom, the United States had to fight the Cold
War itself. Unlike the rest of the world, it didn't have a bigger
democratic superpower that would hold off the Communist menace so that
it could irresponsibly bask in low taxes.


Do you realize how big the front of the former USSR was as compared to
what the west could protect in Europe during the Cold War? Canada to
Mexico vs. Kansas City to Oklahoma City, respctively. There was no way
that the west could have won a conventional war in Europe during the
Cold War.

Best country in the world? The United States has its internal
problems. Because it had certain international responsibilities to
live up to, however, it has not had the luxury of concentrating
exclusively on fixing them.


Not to mention that our public transportation is lousy compared to
many other counties and that the oil industrialists run the country.

Eric


John Savard


  #40  
Old February 17th 07, 07:09 PM posted to sci.space.history,sci.space.policy
Eric Chomko
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Posts: 2,630
Default Bye-bye INF treaty?


Henry Spencer wrote:
In article ,
Pat Flannery wrote:
After I get vaporised, whatever the fate of the rest of Earth's history
is like is pretty moot as far as I'm concerned.


Exactly. Which means that if you're the Maximum Leader of Flanneristan,
and you expect that reversing your "reclaim those lost provinces even if
the US objects" policy would lead to your being deposed and executed, then
deterrence is useless against you. Going head-to-head with the US,
despite the risk of starting a nuclear war, is your smartest move. It
might work, and the alternative is certain death.

Changing that "might" to "probably won't" would be a big, big improvement.

I could almost picture North Korea being whacko enough do do something
like this, but not Iran.


I actually am inclined to agree with this... today. The current Iranian
government probably *can* be deterred.

However, that wasn't always the case. In particular, even though he was
theoretically the US's buddy, the Shah was a dangerous man, who wanted to
re-establish the Persian Empire and wasn't above taking some big chances
to do it. Despite the odious nature of the regime that replaced him, I'm
not sorry to see him gone. However, there are more like him around, and
ten years from now, one of them might be in charge again.


Clearly the Shah would never have replaced Mossadegh in 1953 without
the help of the US and Britain. As bad as the Shah was he was not
trying to nationalize Iran's oil as Mossadegh clearly was trying to
do.


And note that I said "(and its neighbors)". That general area is not
noted for its stability. Given the lead times, establishing a missile-
interceptor base is more about tomorrow's politics than today's.

which leaves us with Crazy Islam standing in the line-up of the usual
suspects.


Right beside Crazy Imperialist -- both the Shah and Saddam Hussein being
recent examples of would-be Mideast Hitlers whose motives had little or
nothing to do with Islam.


And from our perspective they are judged on, will they sell us oil or
not. I'm afraid we'll judge future leaders in the exact same manner
regardless of those leaders' other motives.

Eric

--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |


 




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