Missile Test Success

[Toad]

Well, Lars, do tell how they are going to even start to go about that.

This is a country with borders so huge and unguarded that bales of contraband MJ enter by land, sea and air every single day.

We're open to this threat and always will be. The best defense in this area is intelligence work. That method will always be "hit and miss"; even more so than a defensive missile or airborne laser.

[leonid]

If Bush is so sincere about sitting down and talking about renegotiating why in the world is he carrying on these ABM tests before these talks?  The timing of such a public action indicates either an ignorance in diplomatic skills, or an assumption that diplomacy serves no purpose.  In either case, this will only harm his credibility as an international leader.

[Toad]

Leonid, you'd b*tch if they hung ya with a new rope!  

Recall that he's been in office about 6 months, that this last test was almost certainly scheduled before that under <ahem> a previous administration.

Recall that he JUST met with Putin and set up this negotiation straight away.

Then there's the other side of the coin. Maybe after a successful test you are negotiating from a better position.

If one side wants you NOT to produce such a system and you are not averse to that idea in exchange for something you might want yourself, are you not in a better negotiating position if the system has been shown to work, albeit in a limited test?

It isn't going to harm his credibility. According to you he has none already.  

[MrLars]

Originally posted by Toad:

We're open to this threat and always will be. The best defense in this area is intelligence work. That method will always be "hit and miss"; even more so than a defensive missile or airborne laser.

The millions and millions of dollars spent on this technology should be shared with the intellengence agencys..that is one way to combat it. How that money is spent is the key. Do we want the US's intellegence agencys to play by the rules when investigating known terrorist groups and not be effective or should they be given free reign to root out all possible sources of nuclear devices and materials that would likely be used by a terrorist group.
Tough questions and the answers will be even tougher. You can't always wear a white hat when dealing with those type of fanatics.
 In the meen time I feel we should address all possible delivery systems 'cause if we make one delivery system obsolete then the aggressors will just choose other meens of delivery.

[Paxil]

I think people are hitting on an important fact... and that is, is this the best use of billions and billions of dollars? Is there another way we could spend this money that benefits us more or makes us more secure? Without a doubt. What is most amusing to me is that it won't even accomplish what it is supposed to do. It will not make us immune to attacks... be they by missiles or otherwise. It WILL piss off other countries. We don't need a billion $$$ false blanket of security.

[Boroda]

Looks to me that Leonid is right about Bush's support for military-industrial comlex.

Toad, yes, Bush met Putin and all that blah blah about negotiations, but on the next day Putin declared that if US withdraws from 1972 treaty - Russia will deploy MIRVs again. It frightens me.

Who will probably launch the first massive nuke attack? Some hints: "Attack will start in 5 minutes", was it a Russian president who said it? USSR declared that we'll never use nukes first, it was in 1983. Did US join? Nope. Who was the first to suspend nuclear tests?

American government is traditionaly unpredictaple, and usualy lacks any kind of common sence in foreign politics decisions. Can anyone tell me a sane reason for Yugoslavian war in 1999? What did it end up with?

I understand Europeans who are against NMD program too. Remember US middle-range missiles deployment in Europe in 1983? Looks like the same thing now: who cares about Yurop, and who the hell are that "loosers who's bellybutton we saved in WWII" to tell us what we, Americans should do!?

I think that if Bush will stop abusing other nations opinions like ABM test when Chairman of PRC was in Moscow, and will suspend all tests and programms for true international negotiations, with all nuclear countries, maybe even including India and Pakistan at the round table - the truely international programm can appear. Long range detection radar sites, sattelites and other control facilities worldwide in one network, under international control to prevent sabotage, several ABM models for different ranges and purposes, produced by Russians and Americans, etc.

Now American administration acts as if it needs to unite the rest of the world against the US. Confirms the world-wide stereotype of Americans unable to be polite and respect others. Sad.

[Eagler]

Damn
Where's Clinton when you need him? We should follow his example and SELL our military secrets for political contributions. Seems both Russia and China were happy then. Oh yeah, and the world was a safer place when our leader's first concern was his latest publicity poll and his donut. Usually not in that order.
 I say let them both pound sand. They sure as hell don't consult us at every turn, why should we? America has to stand up for herself and do what is best for it's future and her allies. It's their choice, join us or not, shouldn't sway our course of action.

[Toad]

Putin says he will deploy MIRVs again and agrees to hold negotiations to work on "an early and substantive dialogue with the U.S. on the START [treaty] and ABM problems".

So you are saying that there is really no intent on Russia's part to reach a mutually satisfactory agreement at these talks? Sham negotiations?

Putting MIRVs back on missiles now is more dangerous now than it was back when your much larger MIRV-equipped rocket forces were fully mission ready before the collapse of Communism? Because Russia is more likely to use them now or what?

The idea that the US is the destabilizing force in World Peace is simply laughable. You know it too. Do a little thinking.

What does the US have to gain by initiating a nuclear exchange? The US isn't a country with a collapsed economy, dependent on food handouts from other nations. The US isn't a country with a paranoid fear of invasion by its geographic neighbors. The US isn't the country conducting a brutal civil war against one of its own republics.

The US most likely is the country that gives the most aid overall to multiple nations in distress around the globe. The US is the country with the longest history of aiding both its former allies AND adversaries. We're the destabilizers?  

The "Yugoslavian War"? It seems to have essentially ended the mass slaughter in the area doesn't it? At least for now.

Refresh your memory:
 http://www.ihf-hr.org/ar97bos.htm

International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights

ANNUAL REPORT 1997

"Open military confrontation in Bosnia-Herzegovina ended with the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement on 14 December 1995. The conflict had resulted in more than 160,000 deaths, and 2.5 million refugees and displaced persons."


But the Dayton Peace Agreement didn't really end it, did it?

 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/archive/1995/950731/950731.bosnia.html

TIME Magazine

July 31, 1995 Volume 146, No. 5

"BOMBS AND BLUSTER

With another "safe" area at risk, the allies threaten to strike the Serbs and say they mean it this time

"The catalyst for the London conference was the brutal Serb assault on the eastern enclave of Srebrenica two weeks ago. The Serbs made captives of men and boys of military age and, in a new wave of "ethnic cleansing," sent the rest of the town's 42,000 Muslims fleeing to government lines. U.N. officials collecting the testimony of refugees are convinced that the Serbs committed appalling acts of rape and murder.

The Serbs then moved on Zepa, and Mladic staged a surrender ceremony with some Bosnian civilians at an abandoned U.N. observation post outside town.

As the Serbs attacked Zepa and then Gorazde, French President Jacques Chirac proposed a counteroffensive, or at least a reinforcement of Gorazde, with French troops to fly in aboard American helicopters...

Secretary of Defense William Perry and John Shalikashvili, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, convinced Clinton that Chirac's proposal was unacceptable, an idea prompted more by the French sense of honor than by a serious assessment of the situation in Bosnia. "Shali's ultimate argument," says a senior White House official, "was that you would have to have an air campaign to get the troops into Gorazde anyway, so why not try an air campaign first?"

Sane reason? How about to stop the mass rape and murder of civilians and the "ethnic cleansing" of the entire area? That "ethnic cleansing" send any shivers down your spine?
Maybe not.

Perhaps the US/Russia upcoming negotiations are the beginnings of the "true international negotiations"? Have to start somewhere, right? The US and Russian in agreement would be a good foundation for International talks, wouldn't it?

[Boroda]

Toad, why the hell all the "human rights watchers" forget about another side of Helsinki agreements, the one about the borders in Europe?

And why the hell does US feel right to interfere into anyone's internal affairs!?

Toad, links to that pro-wetern bastars who play the same sick games to cover genocide of Serbs make me sick.

Even Croats admit the facts of genocide in Srbska Krajna now.

Forget about human rights. If I hear "human rights in Western media - I already know that someone fed from Washington plays dirty political games. That very paragraph was added to Helsinky agreements ONLY to have another instrument of pressure against USSR.

And don't tell me about american assistance. Do you play preferance? Then you have to know what american assistance means there.

Go on, hire another bunch of collaborators who'll sale what America wants for almost nothing. Or use "assistance" to kill competing industries or agriculture.

Look at the history: US always plays on wars and disasters, they always benefit from such things.

What was the US before WWI? A provincial undeveloped country compared to Russian Empire. Then WWI starts, and America gets great profits from selling arms and goods, joins the war at the end and then occupies Northern Russia and Far East, stealing Russian gold.

In WWII US was the only coutry that could say it won the war. Minimal losses, ridiculous "campaign" in the Pacific and mass bombings to prevent Soviets from taking German industry intact.

One of the soviet aces, Arkhipenko, said that he talked to a B-17 crew that landed in Soviet territory. They had whole regions marked on their maps as industrial objects that they couldn't bomb because there was American capital invested. BTW, I do believe him, and want to hear your opinion - looks like you have answers ready for all my quastions  

Toad, countries that invest in wars and consider only wars as instruments for profit are most dangerous for international peace and stability.

Sorry, you really made me angry by mentioning all that crap about Bosnia. Why not to look at the Serbian sources? Religious/cultural prejudice?

[Eagler]

Boroda

It's the mind set out of Russia like yours that makes me think Patton was right at the end of WW2. Yep we bombed German industry just so you couldn't use them. Nothing to do with slowing the GE war machine.
Is everyone over there as paraniod as you?

[Boroda]

Eagler, what industrial objects were desroyed in Dresden?

Was the German war machine realy slown down by bombings? Maybe it was, but German chemical industry still produced perfumes in 1944...

Have you read "Slaughterhouse Five"?

As for Patton - after reading Bradley's memoirs I made a conclusion that he was hmmm... not very smart.

There is a legend that in 1945 Soviet marshalls came to Stalin with the proposal to attack "allies", with all plans attached.  Stalin refused...

[Toad]

[ 07-18-2001: Message edited by: Toad ]

[Eagler]

Originally posted by Boroda:

There is a legend that in 1945 Soviet marshalls came to Stalin with the proposal to attack "allies", with all plans attached.  Stalin refused...

One of Stalins few bright moments  
But then again, where would you be with 46 years of American/European backed capitalism under your country's belt? I'd imagine alittle more comfortable than you are now  

[Boroda]

Air strikes achieved new contracts for US weapon production companies and Euro currency going down 30%.

Then (the side that noone cares for) it ended in another genocide of Serbs and spreading terrorism and Muslim fundamentalism over Balcans. KFOR does nothing as a peacekeeping force, or even helps Albanian gangs.

Now the same scenario develops in Macedonia. Exactly the same, with the same Solana now telling Macedonians not to abuse poor peacefull Albanians, who just want Macedonians to leave their houses and belongings and run away, and promises another NATO force to make the process peacefull and avoid casualities.

Someone "up there" has his share in Albanian heroin business in Europe.

[Toad]

Boroda,

Last post first. DRESDEN was bombed by the Allies as a result of a request by the Soviet Union. Go look it up. Start with the ARGONAUT Conferences of January-February 1945. However, I'm sure the Stalin machine long ago manufactured an "amazing alternative history" to deny the truth here as well.

..as for the rest.

160,000 is the total casualties on BOTH sides. There's been plenty of pointless killing on BOTH sides.

You asked what the air war achieved. Pretty simple. It's been essentially quiet ever since, hasn't it? The slaughter has ended.

Unfortuntely for the Serbs, they were the ones on the offensive and doing the slaughtering when action was finally taken. Too bad for them, eh? No one denies their were atrocities and pointless killing on the other side as well.

But FOR NOW the slaughter has stopped. That's what the air war achieved.

I'll also remind you that the US citizen was very reluctant to even send troops to the region.

In a televised speech in late November or December of 1995 Clinton pleaded that vital U.S. interests and the cause of peace were at stake. USA Today, CNN and Gallup conducted a poll of 632 adults immediately after the speech. When asked "Does sending troops protect U.S. interests?" 52 percent answered "No."

The House of Representatives voted 243 to 171 on Nov. 17, 1995 to prevent money from
being spent to send U.S. peacekeeping troops to Bosnia.

Continued polling?

July 25, 1997  "Gallup polls have asked about the U.S. troop presence in Bosnia since December of 1995, and approval for the deployment has consistently hovered at about 40%. In the most recent poll, 39% of Americans approve, compared with 53% who disapprove."

Hard to make a case that the US was eager to be involved in that mess.

Interfere in anyone's internal affairs?

Better ask the UN, I think. That's the organization that started the Yugoslavian intervention, by issuing UN Security Council Resolution 1031.

 http://www.nato.int/ifor/un/u951215a.htm

Your attempts to pin this all on the US are pretty amusing. We didn't want in on this; we wanted to stay as far away from it as possible.

However, as Rumsfeld recently said: "It is a lot easier and cheaper for people to use American military than it is to take the tougher steps of seeing that the civil order side is developed and that there is an opportunity for the military to step away."

BTW, which nation took the lead in getting both sides to sign the Dayton accords? Who was that again?

You insult with your clear, totally unsubstantiated bias.


We always benefit from wars and disasters?

Lord, you do have it bad, don't you? Next you'll be telling us that the US started WW1 and WW2 as a business opportunity! You're getting pretty pathetic now, Boroda.

As far as your hearsay evidence on bombing in Europe: I'll wager I've talked to far more WW2 US military than ANYONE you've met. I just talked with a B-17 Navigator at the 8th AF museum in Savannah last week for example. Absolutely no mention of the crap you're spewing. My father-in-law was a B-17 tailgunner; absolutely no mention of the crap you're spewing. Those are two of probably DOZENS of people who "were there" that I've talked to.

I see you choose not to discuss your own country's instability that has your entire nation teetering on the political abyss once again.

You think the US is a threat to World Peace? LO-F-L! The disaster-in-the-making that has existed since 1917 may not yet have reached its full potential. Perhaps you WILL finally be able to destroy the entire world instead of just your own homeland and that of your immediate neighbors. What an achievement, eh?

But go ahead an place the blame on someone else. It can't be your recent ancestors and present leadership that has so well and truly screwed what should be a great and vibrant land.