[IP] Re: Wi Air Force's Scare-Mongering Space Ad Shoves Facts Out of the Airlock

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

________________________________________
From: David P. Reed [dpreed@reed.com]
Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 8:01 AM
To: DV Henkel-Wallace
Cc: David Farber
Subject: Re: [IP] Wi Air Force's Scare-Mongering Space Ad Shoves Facts Out of the Airlock

Right.  It's not your framing - it's the fashionable framing, as I
said.  I personally think it's important to question the assumption that
if some military power makes the world safe, more makes us safer (and
other such taboo questions).

We'll never know, of course, but Churchill bombed and gassed native
tribespeoplein a number of places, such as Iraq and India, *before*
Hitler did similar tests in Guernica, so that might suggest that
Churchill and Hitler were the joint cause of WWII.

It's clear from the historical record that Churchill, even more than
Hitler, loved military action and pursued it whether necessary or not.
It's also clear that he hated "the Hun" - and may have enjoyed provoking
exactly the situation that made him able to tell the story of his own
"heroism".

Did Churchill help stop WWII?   It's hard to escape the thought that
perhaps he "broke it, so he bought it".

He's a greater man than Bush/Cheney.   They can't even end what they
started.



DV Henkel-Wallace wrote:
> Well the question of course framed in military terms from the
> beginning.   But if you accept the idea you must have a military you
> start down that slippery slope.  I think it would have been worth
> forcing the Navy to find a de-icing solution that didn't turn Moffett
> Field into a superfund site.  I think the case is much harder to make
> for active combat.
>
> And your question of keeping space nonmilitarised: my point is that
> armies generally ignore treaties at will as war could be (inadequately
> in my mind) considered a result of treaty failure.  It's really no
> different from having to worry about locking down your
> network-connected computer: those script kiddies aren't _supposed_ to
> try to break in, but they do.
>
> Ironically I watched The Day the Earth Stood Still with my son for the
> (his) first time last week...perhaps that's what moved me to write back.
>
> -g
>
> PS: the observation of the Geneva Conventions by all sides in the
> European theatre of WWII is extraordinary and remarkable and it's
> astonishing that it isn't more widely discussed.
>
>
>> From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed@reed.com>
>> Date: May 12, 2008 3:26:30 PM EDT
>> To: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
>>
>> I find the framing of this discussion in terms of "what military
>> operations require" quite interesting.
>>
>> To eliminate the blinders, consider if we framed inter-governmental
>> economic interactions in terms of "what counterfeiters require" or "what
>> international fraudsters (such as the "Nigerian" cons) require".
>>
>> While it is fashionable to think of "the military" as heroic and
>> "intelligence professionals" as ethical, at least to their own
>> countrymen, to others they are murderers and thieves.
>>
>> Perhaps we can keep space free of activities and people who are (in
>> their own nations) heroic and ethically good only in an extremely narrow
>> contextual perspective.
>>
>> Should we wear the blinders of ultra-nationalists when there are no
>> nations in space?
>

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