Re: China ASAT Hits Its Target . . . And it's on West 43rd Street.


"Jim Oberg" <joberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:45bd0bbf$0$28139$4c368faf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Chris Jones" <clj@xxxxxxxxx> wrote
In short, I don't think we have anything to lose, and potentially
something to gain, by engaging in negotiations. Dismissing them out of
hand cedes the moral high ground to our adversaries and gives them the
green light to develop weapons that could pose a threat to our space
assets. If we negotiate and they hold to their initial positions, the
rest of the world sees that they, not we, are not serious about banning
weapons in space.

"The rest of the world sees..."???

Not unless the mass media undergoes a change of heart --
and brains and tongues.

You over estimate the power of the media on this
administration. They don't listen to anyone at all.
They are the 'deciders' and that's it. Which is why
so many of their policies have gone belly up.
Because of a lack of the time-honored methods of
concensus building, debate and oversight which
results in a full understanding of an issue.


This is a lose-lose-lose proposition for the US, or else, why
would the Chinese have made such a provocative and
inflammatory gesture

Your position that we have no space weapons
and your opposition to a space treaty are
not compatible with each other.

A 'space weapons' treaty benefits the side that doesn't
have many 'space weapons'. And harms the side that
already has boatloads of them, and would have to answer to
'any crusading judge', as you say. Ya know that pesky legal
system of ours that keeps getting in the way of our foreign
policy objectives - wiretaps, torturing and god know's what
else..well..treaties now too I guess.

You are correct this would normally be a lose-lose situation
for the US. As our objection to a treaty would be an open
admission that we started the space weapons race, that
we are way ahead in the race, and from political pressure
it would generate from the opposition.

But this isn't a normal situation. This administration doesn't
care what other countries think. They don't care what
the opposition or American people think. And their
unabashed and distorted crusades only see these
kinds of situations as opportunities for a 'Big Lie'.

Such as... "we need to dramaticaly increase missile defense
spending to ..catch-up with the Chinese."

Or shift resources meant for domestic use to
the military. Such as what's been happening
to Nasa...for instance.


s
















replete with
short-term
infamy (they'll be forgiven within a few weeks -- just wait and see!).
<grin>



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