New York Times on the Web Forums Science

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.

rshow55 - 09:46pm Feb 25, 2002 EST (#11831 of 11844)

Great questions by almarst 11736 rshow55 2/22/02 3:33pm

out.

almarst-2001 - 10:32pm Feb 25, 2002 EST (#11832 of 11844)

"very few of the people in America -- whether they voted for Bush or not, would be for a "Fascist-theocratic state."

Only if labled and understood as such.

I think very few of the people in Germany -- whether they voted for Hitler or not, voted for what the Fascist state came to produce.

They voted out of rage, fear and desperation for someone ready to give them a "simple" easily understood by average Citizen solution - "The absolute Good vs. absolute Evil" which justified any means to the end.

almarst-2001 - 11:23pm Feb 25, 2002 EST (#11833 of 11844)

The war in Afghanistan and Pentagon efforts to bolster security at home will cost a projected $30 billion this year, far more than Congress has provided, according to Defense Department documents obtained by The Associated Press. - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1191-2002Feb25.html

lchic - 05:56am Feb 26, 2002 EST (#11834 of 11844)

Folks in Isreal voted in Sharon for a quickFix simple solution ... now they're meeting together to work out how to get that solution ... a more complex matter .. and find Sharon's brutal simplicity an embarassment.

Folks in America may be embarassed to know that 2000 people were rounded up (post sept11) and are still in custody http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=139913 .. they're kept in solitary confinement 23 hours per day

At first he was allowed to see his family for four hours a week; now that has been reduced to just four hours a month, and on one recent occasion his wife and children were turned away without explanation. Personal phone calls are restricted to 15 minutes per month.

Russia too has problems | http://news.independent.co.uk/world/russia/ | to the south and east

rshow55 - 11:22am Feb 26, 2002 EST (#11835 of 11844)

Simple solutions, at the level of procedural changes -- changes in behavior -- may be just exactly what the diplomatic sphere needs.

Here are some simple things that would make much that is hopeless and muddled clearer, safer, and more stable.

Nation states should tell the truth - but that can't always be expected. When it is not -- there need to be be ways to find out consequential facts on which decisions and cooperation depends. And the community of nations should insist on getting facts straight, when they matter -- because the alternatives are so often inefficient or grisly.

When mistakes are made by nations, they should be acknowledge clearly enough so that dialog does not completely break down.

The case of "missile defense" offers interesting and very relevant examples of how important these issues are.

The "right to self defense" is not the "law of the jungle" -- where might makes right. That is clearer than it used to be, and the world, dangerous as it is, is safer as a result of that clearer understanding.

The "right to lie," however, is very widely respected in international practice -- and the costs are very, very great. With the "right to lie" respected, very many problems are insoluble.

Facts, and relationships between facts, need to be checked when the consequences of getting the facts right warrant the expense, in the public interest. Deny this, and almost unbelievable excesses, distortions, and crimes can occur -- and go right on occurring, for long times. The "missile defense" boondoggle is an excellent example. Under current rules, people with an interest in maintaining fictions have the upper hand -- and huge amounts of money, and important chances to increase the welfare of the United States, and the safety of the world, are being wasted.

Much else would sort out, by ordinary means, if these "simple" changes were made, in cases where the need for right answers justified the discomfort. There are many such cases.

Our current, very dangerous mess with North Korea is an example of how fictions, and a shutting off of discourse and complex cooperation, can act to the disadvantage of all involved. This is a truly dangerous mess -- part of an ongoing tragedy that has been going on for half a century.

Devils and Evil Axes By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/26/opinion/26KRIS.html

An issue about apologies, and what they are good for, is central here. Sometimes, without apologies, discourse can't go on.

rshow55 - 12:38pm Feb 26, 2002 EST (#11836 of 11844)

In the 1988 presidential election campaign, George Bush Sr. was asked about "an American naval blunder in the Persian Gulf (the shooting down of an Iranian airliner and the abrupt murder of its 242 passangers) . . . . He refused ot answer on the ground that he would "never, never apologize for the United States of America . . . I don't care what the facts are."

Source: Lapham's Rules of Influence by Lewis Lapham, Random House 1999 Introduction,xxvii

George Bush Sr, president and father of the current president, former head of the CIA and diplomat, was expressing some de facto United States "establishment" doctrine.

How many mistakes, muddles, costs, and tragedies are made possible or inevitable by such a doctrine, used in action by Americans, and also by actors representing many, many other nations?

If this pattern were effectively challenged, in cases where results mattered enough, a great deal might change.

. . . .

What might an effective apology for our shooting down of the airliner have done to our relations with Iran?

(8 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense