spazmodeus
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posted on September 2, 2001 10:55:58 AM new
(This isn't a political thread, per se. It's more like a "they're getting ready to blow our planet to s**t" thread. I would link you to the story, but it's on the New York Times site and I don't feel like going through the rigmarole of signing up over there. The following paragraphs are quoted from my Sunday edition of the Times, though it is not the full story. If anyone wants to link to an online version of the story, feel free)
WASHINGTON, Sept. 1 -- The Bush administration, seeking to overcome Chinese opposition to its missile defense program, intends to tell leaders in Beijing that it has no objections to the country's plans to build up its small fleet of nuclear missiles, according to senior administration officials.
One senior official said that in the future, the United States and China might also discuss resuming underground nuclear tests if they are needed to assure the safety and reliability of their arsenals. Such a move, however, might allow China to improve its nuclear warheads and lead to the end of a worldwide moratorium on nuclear testing.
Both messages appear to mark a significant change in American policy. For years the United States has discouraged China and all other nations from increasing the size or quality of their nuclear arsenals, and from nuclear tests of any kind ...
... Today Condaleeza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser, offering a more nuanced explanation of the administration's strategy, emphasized that the United States was not seeking a deal with China ...
... Other officials say that while there may not be an explicit agreement, both American and Chinese strategists know that China needs more weapons to ensure that it could overwhelm a missile defense system ...
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I guess the Born Again Christian in our President just can't live without the thrill of Armageddon in the offing, or the possibility of a seven year tribulation of wars and suffering.
I can't believe this is happening without anyone being able to stop it. Can't the Democrats step in and put the brakes on this? Actions like the ones described in the article are turning back the clock by decades.
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kraftdinner
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posted on September 2, 2001 11:07:03 AM new
This is scarey. Bush seems to think this is some kind of game. I truly believe that Bush thinks the way to peace is by giving in to what the Chinese want, therefore making friends with them. Maybe I'm prejudice, but if the U.S. goes to war, I believe it will be with the Chinese. Yuck.
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krs
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posted on September 2, 2001 11:58:58 AM new
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/02/international/asia/02CHIN.html?todaysheadlines
They send it to me three or four times a day and I link it in here all of the time. People have to sign up to read it too.
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Borillar
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posted on September 2, 2001 12:49:53 PM new
I think it's a perfect example of Conservative thinking and what is wrong with it.
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toke
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posted on September 2, 2001 01:28:47 PM new
It sounds like our administration knows the Chinese plan to do as they please anyway...and this is merely a somewhat craven method of saving face.
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spazmodeus
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posted on September 2, 2001 01:36:05 PM new
Sounds to me like this bogus missile defense system is giving certain countries the justification they've been lacking to go ahead and increase their arsenals. The missile defense system is now giving their excuses credibility that wasn't there before.
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krs
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posted on September 2, 2001 01:48:22 PM new
Why does any other country have a lesser need to defend themself than we do? To most of the world the United States is as a great looming monster that might attack them at the drop of a hat.
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kraftdinner
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posted on September 2, 2001 02:00:25 PM new
Isn't that the way it's played? In order to keep peace, you have to have to biggest supply of weapons?
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toke
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posted on September 2, 2001 02:17:30 PM new
I'm past worrying about this kind of thing...realizing no matter how I rave...nothing whatsoever will be affected. Even though I know full well AW's RT is being watched. 
If I were to worry though...the economy is going down the tubes, Bush is suffering a lot of heat, Congress doesn't want to mess with Social Security or take any responsibility for doing anything the electorate might find unpleasant...yadda yadda into infinity.
Sounds like war, to me.
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spazmodeus
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posted on September 2, 2001 02:30:16 PM new
I'd have more sympathy for these other countries if they weren't governed by barbarians and populated by zealots.
On second thought, we have Bush and the Republicans so maybe we're not so different after all.
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gravid
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posted on September 2, 2001 02:38:44 PM new
The problem is that the difference in governments means that where in the United States the use of nuclear weapons is very unlikely to occur without a massive assault against Americans in China one person in authority could force a consensus of opinion in the tiny group that rules by decree and release the use of these weapons.
There is so little understanding between the two cultures that they might actually think a demonstartion of limited force - perhaps one city - would bring the US government to heel.
I doubt if they could visualize the return fire that would destroy half their population outright and remove every city and industrial center of any importance within a week. I CAN imaigine 1/8 of the human race gone in a flash and another 1/16 dying in the next month from radiation/hunger and disease. It is a nightmare but one for which the military has a series of game plan books to execute on demand.
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krs
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posted on September 2, 2001 02:39:03 PM new
At least with this "isn't a political thread, per se  " you've shown a glimmer of caring. Complacency in business, and love, and government is a tyrant's dream. It's so easy to manipulate a pushover, and probably an ostrich is better still as he'd never have to look them in the eye.
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krs
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posted on September 2, 2001 02:41:34 PM new
" they might actually think a demonstartion of limited force - perhaps one city - would bring the US government to heel".
Why wouldn't they think that? They watched it done before.
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spazmodeus
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posted on September 2, 2001 03:52:14 PM new
It's never been a matter of not caring. I simply prefer not to talk about politics. I follow everything rather closely, but like toke I am stricken with the belief that no matter how much we talk about it, no matter how much we complain, no matter how worried we become, it makes not an iota of difference.
This country is governed by the wealthy, the powerful, and the unscrupulous. The rest of us just live here. Democracy is camouflage for what's really going on in America. Sometimes, as in the last election, the camouflage is blown and it's right there for everyone to see in all its tyrannical ugliness.
But you know what? Nothing's going to change. Because we're a nation of sheep. We don't even hang politicians in effigy anymore, let alone take to the streets and protest, or tar and feather the bastards as they deserve.
Arguing here about politics is pointless, IMHO. I only brought this matter to this forum because I thought it something everyone should be aware of.
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gravid
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posted on September 2, 2001 05:16:23 PM new
You are correct krs - That has been the case for the last 40 years. It is just there is a line nobody has ever crossed since WWII that would put the US in the mode it has historically assumed in war - the demand for unconditional surrender.
I think if a US city were touched it would bring that back. The Military is aware of the tradition and there are planning elements that assume it. The war plans for Russia assumed that the entire infrastructure of the country would be redundantly destroyed. It was a case of not "Do you want the city or base gone?" -- but "Do you want it pounded into gravel or sand?" Very scary.
When the Russians found out after the cold war that our plans were to hit everything in third and fourth waves until there was nothing left but villages under fallout they were chilled. Nobody has destroyed a country like that since the Romans. They would pull down all the walls of the towns, cut down every tree, salt the land so you could not farm it and lead the entire population off in chains.
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Microbes
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posted on September 2, 2001 05:34:01 PM new
. Because we're a nation of sheep. We don't even hang politicians in effigy anymore, let alone take to the streets and protest, or tar and feather the bastards as they deserve.
Read an interesting piece of Science Fiction one time about making politicians wear explosive collars that recorded "off with their head" votes, and if it got to 51% the collars decapitated the politician.
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krs
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posted on September 2, 2001 05:42:22 PM new
"I only brought this matter to this forum because I thought it something everyone should be aware of"
Really? And everyone else who does the same thing is only argueing, pointlessly as you say.
'Fraid not. I think that what Borillar does and know that what I do is for the same purpose that you say you had in this. This is an abhorrent example, but only one, of a systematic disruption of many aspects of life in this country and of the relationships of this country in the world which have been forged through many years and at a high cost.
So very happy that you could join with us this once, and I hope that your having brought this awareness here has given even one person a cause to pause a second before they cast their vote next time by rote as they have so often in the past, knowing that it doesn't matter what they vote or for whom.
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kraftdinner
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posted on September 2, 2001 05:43:04 PM new
gravid, what about chemical warfare? Maybe these small, out-of-control countries will try something along these lines....not quite the same as dropping a bomb, but do you think this would start a war?
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gravid
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posted on September 2, 2001 06:52:01 PM new
There are so many alternative weapon systems.
Who is to say that the US would even be able to ID who attacked them if they don't see an actual trajectory leading back to another country?
An attack may be launched from a ship at sea - it does not have to be an expensive nuclear submarine. A cheap old freighter would be fine to launch something as common as a Scud from a hundred miles outside LA or N.Y. So it is sunk - big loss. They might sink it themselves to cover up the evidence.
You could attack this country with biological weapons as easy as sending out a couple dozen people in a big city to spend money contaiminated with bacteria.
A truck with a sprayer like they use to fog for mesquitoes would do a pretty good job running around at night.
If you sent a bunch of people out who left postage stamp books all over behind them in hotels - restaurants etc. The people who found them would all lick them and never worry about it.
It could be very difficult to be sure who the ultimate sponser had been. There are all sorts of false trails one could lay.
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kraftdinner
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posted on September 2, 2001 09:15:01 PM new
I meant to include biological warfare...thanks gravid 
I know it's just a guess, but do you think Bush is closer to the thought of a possible war than other Presidents?
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krs
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posted on September 3, 2001 12:08:57 AM new
Some of the sheep gather in protest:
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Borillar
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posted on September 3, 2001 12:20:32 AM new
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be."
quoted from Thomas Jefferson
Does this sum up the conservative POV? Is this why the GOP hates to fund Public Education -- so that they can end up with more supporters in the long-run?
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