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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Amy J who wrote (133293)	2/22/2001 12:28:35 PM
From: pgerassi	Respond to of 1570344

Dear Amy: Re: "I think Pete's well-articulated post correctly applies to the early days of USSR, however many aspects of his post does not apply correctly to the USSR of the 80's, because times had changed." But, Amy, the point is that the military buildup was started and planned in 1980 just after the invasion of Afhganistan. Once the contracts were signed to build all of these systems, the US was committed to to do that and Congressional pressure would force it to continue (why do you think all these plants are mostly spread out over the US?). What happened later in his term, after Brezhnev, Andropov (forgot him?), and Chernenko (him too?), when Gorbachev came to power in 1988 at the end of Reagan's term, is not relevant to the complaints against SDI and the buildup. At the end of his term, the buildup had already complete and SDI was being researched. Thus, your disconnect is that you and Scumbria apparently assumed that the buildup and the hollowing out that was readily apparent to that analyst occurred simultaneously, and they were separated by 8 years with the buildup first and then the hollowing out at the opposite ends of his term of office. If someone points a gun at you and asks you for your purse, you do not think that it may be a prop, empty, or a toy. You assume it is real and the person will use it. If it turns out later that the gun was a fake, you still were hurt by the threat. I would not consider you stupid and wasting your money by giving it to the thief. Scumbria thinks you wasted your money on an obvious fake but, how were you to know? Should have known does not matter. What you knew and when are the real points. The same is true of this period. When the USSR invaded Afhganistan in 1979, there was not many people who thought that the USSR was a paper tiger or ineffective. Our help of the rebels made the USSR advantages shrink to a somewhat more level playing field. That they were hollow by 1988 was to our great advantage but, they still had that "Sword of Damoclese" over our heads. Most of the people were worried that the collapse would cause anarchy and chaos. That would have left many dead as a power struggle would spread to the entire region. That was always a possibility that they would collapse with a BANG rather than a sigh. Would you have taken that risk? Pete