Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site tty3b.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!mgnetp!ltuxa!tty3b!mjk From: mjk@tty3b.UUCP (Mike Kelly) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: On peace and weapons Message-ID: <543@tty3b.UUCP> Date: Wed, 28-Nov-84 18:53:18 EST Article-I.D.: tty3b.543 Posted: Wed Nov 28 18:53:18 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 29-Nov-84 06:21:09 EST References: <671@loral.UUCP>, <370@whuxl.UUCP> Organization: Teletype Corp., Skokie, Ill Lines: 35 We all agree that world peace will only come when human attitudes change. THe problem is, will there be any humans around that long? Nuclear war is quite possibly the long-awaited war to end all wars. Faced with that threat, we do not have the luxury of waiting for the redemption of human nature. Yes, we can sit and mull over the human condition, searching for the perfect solution; we can, as Jonathan Schell put it, "doze our way to the end of the world." Or we can act. Short-term solutions are required in response to the (very real) threat of nuclear war. Those who claim that nuclear war isn't going to happen because it hasn't happened in forty years are idealists. I don't share their optimistic view. Neither, apparently, do the 80% of Americans who support a mutual, verifiable Freeze. Former Defense Department analysts, and even a former CIA chief, support the Freeze; perhaps they qualify as well-enough informed for those who consider most of us blithering idiots. As to the oft-repeated claim that Freeze supporters concentrate on pressuring the U.S., not the U.S.S.R., that's because we believe in America. We think the best hope for initiatives comes from the U.S. The U.S.S.R. pursues an essentially paranoid foreign and military policy and is unlikely to make any bold initiatives, although I do think they will negotiate treaties that are in their interest, which the Freeze is; it also is clearly in the interest of the U.S. No one I know ignores the SS-20s and other Soviet weapons. Yes, they are dangerous; so are Pershings and Cruise. It may take two to tango, but it only takes one to lead. I don't know how to pressure the Soviet leadership. I am an American, and I know quite well how to pressure my own government. I think it is very unfair to suggest that Freeze supporters are somehow pro-Soviet. We are Americans pressuring our own government. Europeans are pressuring their govern- ments to refuse to cooperate with American policy on this issue. To call people involved in these issues "loud mouths" suggests, to me, a profound intolerance of dissent. Mike Kelly