Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!prls!pyramid!voder!kontron!cramer
From: cramer@kontron.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: net.followup,net.politics
Subject: Re: Air raid on Libya
Message-ID: <812@kontron.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 23-May-86 13:58:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: kontron.812
Posted: Fri May 23 13:58:24 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 25-May-86 15:39:07 EDT
References: <157@unido.UUCP> <720@ark.UUCP> <122@paisley.ac.uk>
Organization: Kontron Electronics, Mt. View, CA
Lines: 69
Xref: linus net.followup:5410 net.politics:15498

> In article <782@kontron.UUCP> cramer@kontron.UUCP writes:
> 
> >   lots and lots of stuff about Communism and Socialism and UK Labour Party ...
> 
> >The idea that declaring yourself a "nuclear free zone" is going to make
> >even ONE bit of difference whether war is fought on your soil is so 
> >incredibly naive as to be unbelievable.  Since otherwise intelligent
> >people claim to believe this nonsense, I am forced to conclude that 
> >they do so because they are attempting to create a popular support for
> >pacifism.  
> >
> >Clayton E. Cramer
> 
> Ok, firstly have you never in your life taken a symbolic stand over
> something ? Declaring a Nuclear free zone dosen't mean that you don't
> expect people to fire them at you. Nobody would be so stupid as
> to say  
> 
> 	' Under statute blah, para blah blah ....
> 	  It is now illegal to nuke ...... (insert your favourite
> 	  nuclear free zone here)'
> 

That's how the laws are written here.  A number of cities that have
declared themselves nuclear-free zones have made it a misdemeanor to
set off a nuclear weapon within the city limits.  Who's kidding whom?

Symbolic stands are worthless.  You can take all the symbolic stands
against nuclear weapons you want.  Unless you attack the underlying
causes, it does NOTHING.

> The point is that the people who declare nuclear free zones are saying
> that they do not agree with the concept of nuclear war and that they will
> do as much as they can to try to avoid allowing nuclear associated
> actions within their area of influence. This can make it difficult for
> those groups servicing the nuclear industry, or the military, to function.
> 
And of course, if you make nuclear weapons go away, so will war?  No.
Japan was "nuclear-free zone" when the U.S. bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Do you really think the Soviet Union would let the presence or absence
of nuclear weapons affect strategic decisions?

> 
> > ....  Totalitarians have always benefitted from pacifism -- that's
> >why groups like CND exist.
> 
> Are you suggesting from this that CND (and others) are simply a front
> for a totalitarian group of some form? You may say that they are unaware
> of their manipulation and that they are doing it for honest and
> good reasons, but they are being duped. Poor silly people, imagine
> being so easy to manipulate. If you were paranoid like the rest of us
> sane people then you would know that the only way to be safe is to kill
> everybody who doesn't agree with you, it's obvious really.
> 
> 
> Craig.

I suggest that you take a look into the history of pacifist organizations
in Europe and America.  We had a group here called America First who were
isolationists, not really pacifists, but they had roughly the same effect.
After the war, it turned out that the Nazis funded the organization (without
America First or its people knowing it) and manipulated it into doing
what the Nazis wanted.

I suspect that you should look into what happened to all the Britons and
Americans who so nobly took the Oxford Pledge in the 1930s.  When con-
fronted with the evil of Naziism, reality took precedence.

Clayton E. Cramer