C70:arms-d (06/19/82)
>From HGA@MIT-MC Sat Jun 19 01:34:25 1982 Arms-Discussion Digest Volume 0 : Issue 124 Today's Topics: Risking death Alleged communist fronts Historical Perspective Sincerity in negotiations About fusion of elements heavier than helium Pacifists not informed about military options? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 18 Jun 1982 0733-PDT From: CAULKINS at USC-ECL Subject: Risking death From Caulkins at USC-ECL: .... I think most people would prefer the 'cancer' of serfdom to the very real cancer which many nuclear survivors would suffer. Rebut: James A. Cox <APPLE at MIT-MC> ...People who are not willing to risk death to preserve their freedom do not deserve it, and usually do not have it for long. Rerebut: Caulkins at USC-ECL I respect people willing to risk death to preserve their freedom; it is one of many things for which I hope I would have the courage to risk my own death. One of my big problems with nuclear war is that a very small group imposes death, disease, malnutrition, etc. on a much larger group that never had any choice at all. ------------------------------ Date: 19 June 1982 03:33-EDT From: James A. Cox <APPLE at MIT-MC> Subject: Risking death From CAULKINS at USC-ECL: .... One of my big problems with nuclear war is that a very small group imposes death, disease, malnutrition, etc. on a much larger group that never had any choice at all. Apparently, you are not talking about this country but about the Soviet Union. Do you forget that the American people elected, if not all the members of your "small group," at least the ones with the real power? It would be simple for the U.S. to reduce the danger of all-out nuclear war to zero. We would only need to unilaterally disarm. If a majority of people ever decides that it loves liberty less than it fears nuclear war, that is what will happen. (That is also the time when I will leave the country.) As long as that does not happen, our leaders must attempt to steer a course that minimizes the danger of war while insuring that our freedoms are safe. Please let us try to remember that no one wants nuclear war. With your talk of a small group "imposing" death, et cetera, upon the population, you ignore that fact. Once we agree on the necessity for risking death to preserve our freedoms (and we apparently do agree), we can then argue whether this strategy or that one guarantees those freedoms best while minimizing the danger of war. It is silly to assert than anyone is going to "impose" nuclear war on anyone else. Our leaders might be bad thinkers, and nuclear war might result, but then humans are fallible, and we have already acknowledged the necessity for the risk. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Jun 1982 11:47:53-EDT From: csin!cjh at CCA-UNIX Subject: Re: alleged communist fronts By your [APPLE's] published delusions concerning the unity of the [left] you've shown yourself incompetent to define what is liberal. For THE NEW REPUBLIC, I would begin by pointing out their "Israel, right or wrong" stance, which reached the ridiculous heights of defining Jordan as a non-country, unentitled to rights of sovereignty, because its sovereignty threatened Israel's. ------------------------------ Date: 19 June 1982 03:44-EDT From: James A. Cox <APPLE at MIT-MC> Subject: alleged communist fronts "Israel, right or wrong," is \not/ a rightist, i.e. a non-liberal, position. Israel is one of those issues on which opinion often does not divide along the traditional lines. Many liberals support Israel fully, while many conservatives voice sharp criticism of that state. (Witness the comments of our own, usually conservative, Jim McGrath.) I think your assertion that "Israel, right or wrong" is not a liberal position shows where the incompetence lies. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Jun 1982 12:00:59 EDT (Friday) From: David Mankins <dm at BBN-RSM> Subject: afsc Would the people out there who seem to know more about AFSC than I comment on their behavior during the thirties and the Viet Nam war era? [Zigurd Mednieks (ZRM@MC)] Sure: the adjectives that most readily come to my mind are: admirable, clear-sighted, and moral. I wish I had been clear-sighted enough (and had the moral courage) to have done what they did in Vietnam (built hospitals in South Vietnam, provided prosthetics and hospital care to the victims of napalm, bombing, and deforestation, provided the earliest documentation of the health effects of Agent Orange). Members of the AFSC continued to work in Vietnam after the Vietnamese victory (and they risked imprisonment to do so--several of the AFSC doctors were arrested by the Vietnamese government when they attempted to leave). To this day the AFSC, and its sister-organizations like the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) (another Commie front, I'm sure) have continued to criticise the Vietnamese for their imprisonment and other harassment of pacifists among the Buddhist and Catholic hierarchies in Vietnam. For evidence of this, read any "Fellowship" (the journal of the FOR) of the last decade. As to the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom-- members of that organization and of the War Resisters' League have been arrested (around the time of the first UN Special Session on Disarmament) in Moscow for unfurling a pro-disarmament banner and passing out pro-disarmament literature. These were Americans who had travelled to the USSR for that purpose. They were held for 24 hours and then put on a plane for New York. I suppose Zigurd will say their light punishment is more evidence that they're just KGB agents in subtle disguise. Mednieks is using an interesting rhetorical ploy. The implication (in the context of our discussion) is that there is something objectionable about the behaviour of the AFSC during those periods. His opponents are left to defend themselves and the AFSC against vague charges of malfeasance. Zigurd, don't you think its time you started relying on facts, rather than innuendo to bolster your argument? When did you stop beating your wife? For an interesting discussion of Marxist/AFSC/WILPF/etc., etc., involvement in organizing the June 12 Rally see the \In These Times/ for, umm, June 12 (or so). The rally was almost not held because in the early spring the traditional peace organizations (Fellowship of Reconciliation, AFSC, the "peace churches") grew alarmed at the "Third World Peoples" [sic] groups, which were trying to use the rally as a platform for their own sectarian causes (always a problem when you have free speech). There was a division, and eventual compromise (the 3rd worlders could provide speakers, but cool it; the traditional organizations would acknowledge the foolhardiness of destroying our society in order to defend it), and the rally was held under many banners. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Jun 1982 16:00:43-PDT From: rabbit!wolit at Berkeley Subject: Historical Perspective >From the July, 1932 issue of Scientific American, 50 years ago: Just what may happen if physicists succeed in making available the incomparable energy within the atom -- enough of it in a dime to drive a steamship across the Atlantic and back -- is anybody's guess. In the famous Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University, Drs. Cockcroft and Walton have split the atom, releasing on a minute scale, but nevertheless releasing, far more energy than was put into the process. Although science cherishes and treasures every fragment of new knowledge of nature it can gain, in the present case there is unfortunately a possible by-product that might prove to be a doubtful asset to humanity. Sir Oliver Lodge thinks the young human race is still too primitive for this dangerous present. Perhaps humanity would not handle it judiciously. The control of such stupendous forces might also fall into the ruthless hands of the soldier-minded, and what fun it would provide for them while the human race and civilization lasted! ------------------------------ Date: 18 Jun 1982 16:02:24-PDT From: rabbit!wolit at Berkeley Subject: Sincerity in negotiations The June 14 issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology reports that U.S. negotiating strategy in the upcoming START talks will be to press for a ceiling of 5,000 nuclear-armed reentry vehicles per side. This is HIGHER than the current U.S. deployment, but lower than the Soviet inventory. Further, we plan to ask for a ceiling of 2,500 warheads on land-based ICBMs. (This is also higher than our current levels, and runs counter to the Soviet strategy of reliance on ICBMs over SLBMs.) It seems to me to be particularly insincere to label as "arms reduction" a plan which requires the other side to disarm, while allowing oneself to increase present stockpiles. On another front, the concept of "no first use" has been getting a lot of attention lately, having been proposed both by Andrei Gromyko (the USSR's man at the U.N.) and by Herman Kahn (certainly no peacenik or Russian stooge) in last week's NY Time magazine. While a fine idea, NFU can (and must, to be credible) be implemented in a real, physical way, to wit, the elimination of weapons with a yield/accuracy ratio that makes them "first-strike" capable (i.e., able to take out hardened targets). Neither of these two has proposed such a plan, making these NFU declarations just so much hot air. While the accuracy of ICBMs is hard to verify by "national technical means", and a throw-weight limit would probably be rejected by the Soviets (since, again, such a ceiling would limit them and not us), a ban on flight-testing of ICBMs would go a long way toward a realization of NFU, since, without hard data, neither side could rely on predictions of the accuracy of its missiles. How about it, guys? Let's start talking about REAL arms reductions, both in numbers and capabilities, rather than empty pledges and ceilings that are higher than our roofs. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Jun 82 17:59:48-EDT (Fri) From: J C Pistritto <jcp@BRL> Subject: Re: Arms-Discussion Digest V0 #123 About fusion of elements heavier than helium Yes, fusion of hydrogen atoms into elements heavier than hydrogen is possible, as a matter of fact, during the last phases of life of a red giant star, I read that a phenomenon known as 'Oxygen Flash' occurs, where helium atoms fuse into oxygen atoms. This releases A GREAT DEAL of energy, and the fusion proceeds much more rapidly than normal hydrogen fusion. In supernova explosions, considerably heavier elements are formed, (some theories postulate Supernova's as the source of all elements other than hydrogen). I believe that somewhere below Lead (atomic #82), a transition occurs beyond which fusion is endothermic, rather than massively exothermic (the reason Hydrogen bombs blow up...) -JCP- ------------------------------ Date: 19 June 1982 03:05-EDT From: James A. Cox <APPLE at MIT-MC> Subject: Pacifists not informed about military options? Julian Davies, in his recent message, states the following: I believe that non-violent resistance and non-cooperation by the whole population would be more effective and much more positive as a way of reaction [to a supposed Russian invasion of North America than would military resistance]. Unfortunately, history teaches us otherwise. Military occupation by one country of another almost always ends through one of two occurrences: (1) the internal collapse of the occupying force, or (2) armed resistance from either the occupied country or a third country. While non-violent resistance may indirectly influence either (1) or (2), it has no necessary relationship to them. A clear example of a country which has been occupied for centuries and which has only rarely been able to expel the occupying force is Poland. Intervention by a third country has usually been the explanation of the expulsion those few times it has occurred. The Polish people have always been resistant to the occupations. Unfortunately, without weapons, that has not helped much. A pacifist ignores history if he thinks that non-violent opposition is more effective against an occupying country determined to stay than is armed resistance. Pacifism is simply not justified on "practical grounds." ------------------------------ End of Arms-D Digest ********************