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From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.followup,net.politics
Subject: Re: Star Wars Defense...
Message-ID: <1114@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 13-Sep-84 17:47:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: dciem.1114
Posted: Thu Sep 13 17:47:17 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 13-Sep-84 18:50:57 EDT
References: <1782@ucbvax.ARPA>
Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 33

====================
All the more reason, I think, for giving it [the CIA] more power so that
 it can effectively challenge the KGB in these countries (and
 undermine USSR-sympathetic governments). You have to fight fire
 with fire, and if half the country knows exactly what the CIA is
 up to all the time, and whether or not it will do some espionage
 must be determined by a vote of congress, it can't be very effective.
  
         Wayne
=======================
I've always thought the metaphor "fight fire with fire" rather strange.
Water usually works best, although there are occasions when you have
to burn a firebreak to contain a conflagration.

Whether the current state of the world could be considered a conflagration
depends on your particular demonology.   My feeling is that the best defence
against the Communists is to make our own way of life evidently attractive,
not to copy them.  If our principles (and practices) are obviously better
for another country than the Communist principles (and practices), why
should any country go their way.  The problem is that both Russia and the
USA are seen as big bullies, and their rhetoric sounds better to poor
people.  It isn't self-evident that our way is better when you are
starving and without effective ways of sampling either possibility.  Who
offers most apparent opportunity for improvement?  For lots of people
oppresed by dictators supported from Washington, the Russian offers of
support must sound mighty attractive.

We must not only be better than them; we must be seen to be better.
-- 

Martin Taylor
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