From: donb@tamri.com (Don Baldwin)
Subject: War and Peas
Organization: TOSHIBA America MRI, San Francisco
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 92 17:15:27 GMT

Geoff posted:
>>I think that the level of restraint for ANY armed intervention should
>>be a whole lot higher than it has been here, over the past 12 years.

>That's a valid opinion, but as I see it, it's really irrelevant to the
>question of nuclear weapons, since nukes have become weapons of last resort
>almost by definition.  The major powers aren't going to use them against
>smaller powers because of the practicalities of world opinion, and they're
>not going to use them against each other because doing so would very likely
>precipitate a war far more total than what anyone would prefer.

It seems to have branched off into a conventional weapons thread.  Maybe
the thing to do is tie them together and wrap them up.  I'm enjoying this
discussion myself but maybe other folks are getting tired of it.

------

>>However, you have to realize that any two intelligent people can look at
>>the same problem and come up with radically different opinions about it.

>Oh, I do, and all kidding aside, I don't doubt your intelligence.  (And if
>quoted, I'll deny ever saying that. :)  But intelligence isn't the whole
>story -- it's simply one's capacity to use knowledge.  And if one's knowledge
>is incomplete, the conclusions one draws will be flawed.  GIGO, right?

Hmm, the media are so fucked up these days that it's pretty hard to know
what or who to believe.  I'd be the first to admit that the Left-wing
magazines are as biased as the NY Times...although, they tend to break
stories quite a bit before the "mainstream" media admit that anything
happened.  Then, when the Times say, covers the same story, the contrast
can be quite enlightening.  But you can't take either at face value.

If you can suggest a more efficient way of getting the scoop, I'd sure
appreciate hearing about it! :v)

-------

>>Personally, I also hold the view that the government needs to be
>>subservient to the people and not vice versa...that people should have
>>some voice in the decision about whether a situation warrants the use
>>of military force.

>True. And you'll recall that a majority of Americans favored our involvement
>in Desert Storm.  They weren't the noisiest faction, perhaps, but they were
>definitely the majority.  Continuing with that example, do you think Bush
>would have gone ahead with the war if that hadn't been the case?  Democracy

Careful, that's the same argument they're using in Jersey to ban firearms!

------

From another post by Geoff:
>I think that's overstating the case a bit.  We had every reason to be
>asserive, and since we had the resources (e.g., the CIA), every reason
>to try and manipulate world events to our advantage.  Within certain
>limits, of course.  As I've said before, I didn't support our policy
>against Nicargua, for example.  And I was against the war in Vietnam.
>Chile was definitely a mistake, too.  But in general, I see nothing immoral
>about supporting certain governments when it's to our potential advantage
>to do so, or to exert dimplomatic pressure for various reasons, e.g., the
>issue of Israel's West Bank settlements.

Hmmm, we seem to agree more than I thought we did (if I were you, I'd
be worried).

You see, if the actions you mention being against hadn't happened and
if Bush hadn't been so transparently hungry in his desire to go to war
with Iraq (who we had been in bed with 6 months earlier and who we helped
arm), I could even have believed that the Persian Gulf War was a
necessary thing.  As it was, though, it seemed to be just another case
where the administration played a sleazy little chess game with the
lives of innocent civilians in a Third World Country.  And the worst
part is, THEY PAID FOR IT WITH MY TAX DOLLARS!!!  And the media didn't
tell the truth about what was going on over there.

Thanks for an enjoyable discussion...I'd better shut up now, before I
end up in everyone's kill file!

    don
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Don Baldwin  -  Software Engineer  - e-mail to:  donb@tamri.com