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From: mat@hou5e.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Whither the Peace Movement?
Message-ID: <609@hou5e.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 29-Jun-83 23:00:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: hou5e.609
Posted: Wed Jun 29 23:00:42 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 1-Jul-83 06:29:16 EDT
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Organization: American Bell ED&D, Holmdel, NJ
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After reading a long article about the need to support the Peace Movement
I have the following remarks:

Almost everybody wants peace.  There are a few who don't -- and they kill
and hurt many people.  Against them, we are almost helpless.  But people
who want peace can be the unwitting agents of people who hurt, as well.

Remember a Prime Minister of England named Chamberlain?  After he had
``brought peace in our time'' (*bought* peace, more likely) a fellow
by the name of Churchill was heard to say that what lay ahead was
``nothing but blood, toil, tears, and sweat''.  He was more right than
anyone was willing to dream.

Consider the Viet Nam ``Peace with Honor''.  What became of it?  A
bloodbath that put to shame the bloodbath that we blamed ourselves for.
(I don't think that it was quite that simple.)


I don't want nuclear war.  I want to get rid of most nuclear weapons.
(Most for reasons that may become clear later)


Some months back, Libya was threatening free passage in international waters
in the Mediteranean Sea (the Gulf of Sidra incident)  The US sent a carrier
battle group down that way.  A couple of Libyan pilots flying ground support
planes took a potshot each at a couple of Navy pilots flying Tomcats, and got
blown out of ths sky.  End of incident.

Two things come to mind.  First, many of the emblems used by F-14 (Tomcat)
squadrons show a well armed cat (the furry kind) standing around, minding
his business, and everybody elses as well.  One of these carries the legend:
``Anytime, Baby!''

We could condemn the US, or the mentality of the people who assign
devices to aircraft squadrons.  Before we do this, however, let us
consider a little history.

and Next: this is the SECOND time that the US has been called upon to
defend the freedom of the southern Mediteranean, and from more or less
the same folk.  In the early part of the last century, under, I believe,
President James Madison, we did about the same thing in just about the
same place.  The government of Tripoli was protecting, harboring, and
sponsoring pirates (making them privateers, I know ...) who preyed on
shipping.  These were the infamous Barbary Pirates, and for many years
they held the world in terror.  I don't know why it was the US that got
involved; I do know that with two respectable warships and about twenty
(Yes, 20.-) Marines and, no doubt, the implied threat of more, an agreement
to cease and desist was extracted from Tripoli.  I don't know how successful
it was in the long run. (Remember the Marines hymn: ``From the Halls of
Montezuu uuu uuma to the shores of Tripoli/").  It did gain the infant
US a good deal of credibility in international affairs, and it probably
helped develop our world power base. And, for what it may be worth, this
loathsome, human-rights violating capitalist swine nation, standing on that
warmongering power base, pulled the world out of the two most frightening
brushes with world totalitarianism (sp?) that our parents and grandparents
and other ancestors ever had the misfortune to see.

There is, then, a reason for militarism and the availability of force:
It can, if properly used, protect against bullies who are smaller than
you, but who prey on your citizens or friends.  This is what carrier
battle groups, and Tomcats, and other things that kill people are
good (yes, Virginia, GOOD) for.

And thus the reason for keeping a half-a-dozen or so quarter megaton
bombs (without the outer light-metal fission layer, if you please --
these should do minimum damage to the ecosystem of the world at large).
Should some smaller bully decide to threaten use of such weapons, we need a
credible means of damaging them -- of hurting them so badly they are not
willing to pay the price for the fun of hurting us.

All of this assumes that the enemies we fear are much smaller than we
are.  The applicability of this reasoning to the perceived (and probably
real) threat posed by the USSR is open to serious question.  The USSR
is not some penny-ante dictatorship with a couple of Exocets bought at
a fire sale.

What is truly terrifying is a situation that occurs if both sides have a
first strike, non-survivable force aimed at the other.  We get a situation
that is not unlike the Prisoner's Dilemma.
In simple terms:
	* If he decides to blow me away, I am certainly better off doing
	the same to him.  Whatever small part of my nation survives will
	do so without having to worry about being subjugated.
	* If he does not blow me away, then I improve my situation
	even more by blowing him away, since I am almost certainly going
	to come out of it almost unhurt.
	** And if he is thinking the way I am, then I better shoot quickly.

I seem to recall that in the 50's this mentality was frighteningly
popular over here.  John von Neuman was all in favor of getting rid of
the Russkies just as fast as we could.  So were some generals, some
congressmen, and not a few journalists.

***The Disclaimer:

I don't propose solutions.  I condemn them.  The real way out of this
lies much deeper.  It has to do, I fear, with something called Love.

Unfortunately, no one seems to know how to make it come to pass.  In
the mean time:

	Gentlemen! Please keep your hands in plain sight and move VERY
	slowly.  I'll do the same.  And stay away from that gun on the table,
	if you don't mind, and away from Afghanistan, and Gedansk.  And ...


Let's not have ANY sudden moves.  Not to arm, not to disarm, not to
play bocci on the lawn.  Rather than trying to move farther and faster
than we can see, let's try to see a little farther, and one hell
of a lot deeper.



Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled, as to console.
To be loved, as to love.
To be understood, as to understand.

For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.
And it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.


And then, maybe, we can get rid of those last few quarter megaton bombs.


					Mark Terribile
					Duke of deNet
					hou5e!mat

PS - No flames about the Prayer of St. Francis, please.  All except the
last line is valid humanism or sound psychology.  The last line is included
for completeness.  If it were in net.religion it would be a religious
statement. -mat