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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

lchic - 09:27am Jan 30, 2002 EST (#11125 of 11131)

Noting that the Egyptian builders stood huge obelisks upright to denote pharohs having power that 'reached' up into the sky .. one wonders if the launch pad statistics and technology of MD has held similar mistique and charm?

mazza9 - 09:34am Jan 30, 2002 EST (#11126 of 11131)
Louis Mazza

lchic:

For the record, each and every penny spent on BMD is the results of a legislative process called "The Budget". The last time I looked Congress IS civilian. All citizens of the United States have the right and duty to remain knowledgeable about legislative issues and communicate their opinions, beliefs to their representatives.

Our military is not the SS or Republican Guard, or the Peoples Liberation Army. Certain politicians may try to disenfranchise the miilitary, (Hello Al Gore and the absentee ballot), but no US military has ever tried to disenfranchise the politicians.

Gisterme is right. You speak alot and say very little.

Now it's your turn to think up some cutsy response.

LouMazza

lchic - 10:02am Jan 30, 2002 EST (#11127 of 11131)

'no US military has ever tried to disenfranchise the politicians'

Yet !

lchic - 10:09am Jan 30, 2002 EST (#11128 of 11131)

The military 'check' leaderships for two reasons.
1. A military leader has ambitions to lead.
2. A judgement is made that current leadership is out of line with the best interests of a nation.

Coups may be overt or covert.

One notices 'divisions in thinking' even within the US Admin, bringing us back to 'MIND' being more important than the mere MD matter.

rshow55 - 10:11am Jan 30, 2002 EST (#11129 of 11131)

Classification rules and military-industrial complex procedures can easily have an effect quite close to "disenfranchising politicians."

And sometimes very basic information is denied, for long times. Armed to Excess -by Bob Kerrey.

A reason why this forum has moved slowly, but a reason why it can lead to effective clarification on major issues on which the national welfare depends, is that it has argued in ways not blocked by those rules and procedures.

We've made progress since MD11080 rshow55 1/27/02 10:19am , posted after Russian Foreign Minister Ivanov's Op Ed piece of Sunday!

rshow55 - 10:23am Jan 30, 2002 EST (#11130 of 11131)

Things can be checked . . . with umpires who would have broad credibility - - not like the "phony umpires" that the accountants were for Enron.

These issues can rise above enronnation.

MD11045 rshow55 1/25/02 2:34pm

Since there are many honorable and competent people in the House of Representatives and the Senate, on both sides of the aisle, and in supporting staff positions, that may turn out the be interesting.

Gisterme and I are agreed, after all, about some central issues about the national interest.

Institutions matter. Infrastructure matters. And right answers matter.

There are ways to get them, and to check them, and to make them persuasive, given decency on the part of the people involved.

lchic - 10:28am Jan 30, 2002 EST (#11131 of 11131)

If the Politicians can't access information - less so the public - as i said GI: you didn't answer my question.

Quote from Bob Kerry's piece

Part of the reason that Congress has not been pressing for steep reductions is that members of Congress have never seen the actual missile targeting plans developed by the military in response to presidential directives. For twelve years in the Senate — eight of which I served on the Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence — I tried without success to get this briefing. In fact, I was unable to find a single member of the Senate who had been briefed. Mr. Bush should order his military commanders to brief members of Congress on the targeting plans.

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