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From: gjk@talcott.UUCP (Greg J Kuperberg)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reagan's re-election
Message-ID: <116@talcott.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 19-Nov-84 14:47:59 EST
Article-I.D.: talcott.116
Posted: Mon Nov 19 14:47:59 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 20-Nov-84 07:21:29 EST
References: <470@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Organization: Harvard
Lines: 38

> >> Europeans have every right to criticize our defense policies, as it is much
> >> more likely to directly affect them than us.
> > 
> > What is odd in this case is that the Europeans are more critical of their
> > allies than they are of their adversaries [...] 
> > few Europeanse that I've met are very concerned about those inconspicuous
> > SS-20's...
> 
> Maybe Europeans (as well as other `U.S. allies' who feel the same way)
> have reasons not to be `very concerned about those incospicuous SS-20's'?
> Maybe you've been taken for a ride all along about the `Soviet threat'?
> 
> I don't know if you realize how arrogant and patronizing it is to be
> telling others what they should be concerend with, especially when
> it is clear (from their viewpoint, anyhow) that your suggestions of
> who they should consider their friends and who their enemies are hardly
> disinterested.
> 
> Vassos Hadzilacos

I stand corrected:  the majority of Europeans are indeed very concerned
about SS-20's.  It happens to be the case, however, that those who choose
to ignore the existence of the SS-20's are more likely to be political
loud-mouths.  Some of there so-called pacifists actually do not know that
their own governments actually *want* U.S. military support.  Don't you
remember who originally drafted the plan to put Pershing  II's and cruise
missiles in Europe?  (Well, Thatcher, Schmidt, and Giscard all had a big part
in it...)

What is it that makes you so unconcerned with an SS-20 anyway?  The fact
that there are over 300 of them?  The fact that they are triple-MIRV'ed?
The fact that they can hit almost anything in Europe?

Look, I'm no Reagan dupe, as you seem to imply.  I simply don't get my
information from the President, or for that matter from anywhere in the
Federal Government.  I read Time and Scientific American, I watch the news
on T.V., and I talk to people of all political persuasions.  I don't know
how you can say that I've been "taken for a ride."