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Missile Defense

Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

possumdag - 06:53am Jun 4, 2001 EST (#4484 of 4489)
Possumdag@excite.com

Pearl Harbour critiques, internationally, shed light of understanding on US culture.

rshowalter - 07:01am Jun 4, 2001 EST (#4485 of 4489)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

MD2320: rshowalter 4/17/01 12:15pm reads as follows:

MD1793 rshowalter 3/30/01 2:22pm .... MD1795 rshowalter 3/30/01 2:34pm

MD1796 rshowalter 3/30/01 3:18pm cites a VERY interesting article http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/30/science/30NIF.html

March 30, 2001 Laser Project Hits a Snag; Court Hints At Conflict by JAMES GLANZ

" A federal judge has temporarily barred backers of an Energy Department laser project from citing an expert panel's evaluation, a decision suggesting that the panel may have been improperly stacked with people who have a stake in the project. . . . .

" The department says the laser project, called the National Ignition Facility, will help ensure the reliability of the nation's nuclear stockpile without actual nuclear tests, by simulating conditions close to those in bombs. Opponents say the project was built only to give Livermore weapons scientists a mission after the end of the cold war.

" The suit was filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington and a local organization critical of the laboratory. It charges, in effect, that the department filled the panel with scientists who had a financial and professional stake in the laser, in violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act.

" This court injunction suggests that D.O.E.'s review is not independent and is not even legal," said Senator Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat who opposes the project, referring to the Department of Energy. "We should not continue to pour money into N.I.F. without a rigorous, independent review." I don't see, personally, how such a review can possibly justify the facility on defense grounds. The physics problems in nuclear weapons are of a mathematical nature that data from the facility, even if it were perfect, would not help with. That shouldn't be hard to show.

Could it be that the entire US military is now engaged in an exercise, much like that suggested for the National Ignition Facility, that is nothing more than a boondoggle?

Could "missions" and "threats" be inflated, or invented, or manufactured for no other reason?

Could this be reinforcing fraud at other levels -- all protected by "expert endorsements" that are not questioned?

It seems to me that the question is worth some attention.

When I had a conversation with a person at CIA, last september, related to the proposal, this thread, MD266-269, rshowalt 9/25/00 7:32am it was clear that after the committee discussion, they wanted to be especially clear that I advocated nuclear rather than total disarmament. So far as I could gather, they didn't have a clue what the United States needed such a large military for.

rshowalter - 07:11am Jun 4, 2001 EST (#4486 of 4489)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Dawn's reference, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=005139338660687&rtmo=0KbXs2eq&atmo=rrrrrrrq&pg=/et/01/6/1/bfohag01.html is well worth the time. It starts concisely: Its jingoistic self-belief contrives to make Pearl Harbor a crude travesty of the actual events. It is a lump of pure idiocy decrees Andrew O'Hagan

O'Hagan cites some interesting numbers, that put the movie's message in better proportion.

O'Hagan's piece works well beside John Dower's fine OpEd piece of yesterday. The Innocence of Pearl Harbor http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/03/opinion/03DOWE.html discussed in MD4471 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?7@174.DooZaIE1pSl^588283@.f0ce57b/4777

rshowalter - 07:22am Jun 4, 2001 EST (#4487 of 4489)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

On crucial matters of life and death, and issues central to our hopes for reasonable decency and stability in the world, there are paradigm conflict issues -- problems at the level of perception, where facts matter.

MD1073 rshowalter 3/16/01 12:56pm includes this:

"We can't expect to solve all problems, we will probably never be brothers (our cultures are different, and even our ideas of "beautiful" and "ugly" are often different.) and we cannot right all wrongs, or solve all misunderstandings. We can live together better, and much more safely, than we do.

"I think there are great possibilities of progress.

"There are ways in which I think people are being too patient, when they could be more pro-active. There are other ways where I think more patience, and more tolerance of ambiguity and perceptual difficulty, would be helpful.

" It is vital that we do a better job establishing facts.

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