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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.

almarst-2001 - 11:51pm Feb 22, 2002 EST (#11771 of 11781)

North Korea says Bush 'a politically backward child'... - http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020222/ap_to_po/bush_asia_215&printer=1

Carter Rips Bush on 'Axis' Label... - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48679-2002Feb21.html

lchic - 01:11am Feb 23, 2002 EST (#11772 of 11781)

What Enron did was Mark-To-Phony Projection vince12345 "The Collapse of Enron (A Moderated Forum)" 2/20/02 6:12pm Claims for MD are also phony projections that absorb dollars.

lchic - 01:15am Feb 23, 2002 EST (#11773 of 11781)

The death of Wall Street Journal Reporter Daniel Pearl may turn out to have been a fundamental error of judgement for Pakistan Fundamentalists. When 'good journalists' fear going into an area - then who is there to act as an Observer and Witness if the Government determine to clean the Fundamentalists out?

lchic - 01:23am Feb 23, 2002 EST (#11774 of 11781)

Congress+People v The Presidential Administration

"Vice-President Dick Cheney has repeatedly declined to release documents relating to meetings he had with energy lobbyists when the government was formulating its industry policy.

Congress is investigating whether the Bush Administration had inappropriate links to Enron and thinks the documents may provide insight into the relationship.

Vice-President Cheney with the full backing of President Bush argues that to concede to the GEO's demands would be to set a precedent.

That would mean that no administration would be able to get confidential advice." http://www.abc.net.au/news/2002/02/item20020223101601_1.htm

lchic - 10:25am Feb 23, 2002 EST (#11775 of 11781)

One of America's brighter Skeptics
http://www.michaelmoore.com/2002_0222.html

lchic - 10:37am Feb 23, 2002 EST (#11776 of 11781)

UK: ROBERTSON’S REVIEW: MODERN FORCES FOR THE MODERN WORLD : In the post Cold-War world we must be prepared to go to the crisis, rather than having the crisis come to us. http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/uk/doctrine/sdr98/keypoint.htm

Thread GU talk.guardian.co.uk End this "Punching above our weight" ... . This Labour Government is making the biggest investment in the Armed Forces since WW2. International - 23/2/02 03:25pm

rshow55 - 10:43am Feb 23, 2002 EST (#11777 of 11781)

World politics is changing -- the need for arrangements based on checkable facts, and reasons that can stand the light of day, is very great. Erlanger has written an important piece:

Europe Seethes as the U.S. Flies Solo in World Affairs By STEVEN ERLANGER http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/23/international/europe/23NATO.html

"Europe's solidarity with the Bush administration, declared so quickly after Sept. 11, has faded almost as suddenly."

"Behind the heated accusations of unilateralism, arrogance, bad manners and oversimplification lie cultural and ideological differences made wider by the Afghan war and more vivid by the prospect of a new war in Iraq.

"Mr. Bush, awake to new dangers, wants to change the world, American officials say; Europe, preoccupied with its own growing pains in a deepening and expanding union, wants to continue to manage it.

"The Europeans, moreover, are not convinced that military means are the best way of doing either, and they complain that their offers of military aid were in any case largely spurned, and not always graciously.

"They are trying, as best as they can, to influence Washington's debate

"Missile defense" has been a dominant theme of international debate.

MD11764 rshow55 2/22/02 9:32pm MD11765 rshow55 2/22/02 9:41pm MD11766 rshow55 2/22/02 9:51pm

In a lot of logical sequences, it would make a difference to show clearly that the "technical foundation" of the Bush administration's "missile defense" is no foundation at all.

It would be practical to do this. The technical facts are clear - and widely understood among experts. The discourse, exposition, and illustration would have to be done -- to the sort of standards that work reliably in courts of law.

If political leaders (who have a stake in truth here) wanted this to happen, it would happen.

Facts matter, and agreements about facts matter in practical politics. Not even the United States is comfortable with a "right to lie" when things can be questioned. No patriotic American, who values the core traditions of this country, would have it otherwise.

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