🚀 go-pugleaf

>unreasonable.   As many people have observed, the Japanese fifth
>generation project seeks to provide the tools for transition to an
>information society.  This includes lots of things like improving
>quality of life, improving the the production and delivery of good and
>services, and providing better access to knowledge of all kinds.
>I would like to see those who have defended defense research on the basis 
>of our ``imperfect world'' try their hand at explaining why these goals
>are not more important?
>
>Randy Goebel

Of course these goals are more important than the *goal* of defence.
But if defence is necessary at all, it is so that goals like these
can be pursued.  I remember a science-fiction story once about the
late stages of a looong world war "to preserve the West for poetry"
and so forth.  It turned out that to win the war they needed a poet,
but the last one had been drafted and killed long since.

If we don't have a reasonable defence, we may not have much quality
of life;  if we don't remember why we want defence, we may not need any,
because we will have lost anyway.  I don't think there are many people
doing defence research (in Canada) who think of defence as a *goal*.

It is a perversion of language to equate defence with aggression.
Unfortunately, this perversion seems to have a tendency to reflect
nature in some countries.  For some, it may well be a goal to have
their country dominate much of the world.  We don't have to support
that attitude in order to support the increase of our *defensive*
ability.

[I have taken can.general out of the newgroups, and added can.politics].
-- 

Martin Taylor
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