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From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.followup
Subject: Re: Soviet Reaction to Pershings
Message-ID: <3401@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 5-Dec-83 21:05:00 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.3401
Posted: Mon Dec  5 21:05:00 1983
Date-Received: Mon, 5-Dec-83 21:05:00 EST
References: <399@reed.UUCP>, <5535@mcvax.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 43

Piet Beertema asks:

  Besides, why is it that the NATO still doesn't want to declare it
  will never be the first to use nuclear arms?

The answer to this is very simple:  because NATO would have a very hard
time defending Western Europe without them.  NATO's fundamental reliance
on nuclear weapons is a result of Europe's unwillingness to commit 
adequate resources to non-nuclear defences.  And you are in a very poor
position to complain, Piet, because the Netherlands is one of the worst
offenders in this regard.  (Just to make it clear that I am not saying
this out of any anti-Netherlands bias:  Canada is another one.)  If you
want nuclear weapons out of Europe -- a sensible idea -- you should be
campaigning for more money and resources for your army, navy, and air
force.  When was the last time you made any effort toward this?

(If you want a specific example of military underspending and gross
unpreparedness:  practically none of the European air forces give their
pilots the NATO recommended minimum flying time per year.  The basic
cause is that the fuel costs too much.  Nobody counts the cost of pilots
who simply don't have adequate practice to do their job in a crisis.)

 "Now if all of you Americans would look at the situation as indicated
 in the original article, you would certainly understand why there is
 such massive opposition in Europe against your missiles...
 You would understand why the Peace Movement here in Europe is growing
 and growing.
 You would understand why in Britain a couple of thousand (UK and US!)
 military and policemen are needed to keep a few hundred peace movement
 women out of the Greenham Common base..."

Well, I'm not an American, but I understand quite well why all this
is happening.  Baby wants papa to give him the moon:  he doesn't want
those nasty nuclear weapons, and he doesn't want to pay for reasonable
non-nuclear defences, so he pretends that he doesn't need any of these
things anyway, and that the people who claim otherwise are evil warmongers.
This sounds remarkably like what everybody (the US too, by the way) was
saying in the late 1930s.  I'm sure that you can find people in the
Netherlands who were alive then and can tell you about it.  And about
what happened next.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry