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Science
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
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  (208 previous messages)
lchic
- 12:36am Mar 5, 2002 EST (#209
of 216)
US soft-pedals on allies' human rights record
Annual report slates Russia and China, but tones down
criticism of countries vital to war on terror
lchic
- 06:41am Mar 5, 2002 EST (#210
of 216)
Invest in a sustainable world
Good News for a Change : Hope for a Troubled Planet by
David Suzuki, Holly Dressel Hardcover - 272 pages (February 2002)
Stoddart Pub; ISBN: 0773733078
In this book David demonstrates that the public will regarding
sustainabilty can be undertaken by former 'old style' companies
and systems. http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/s497116.htm
(transcript)
lchic
- 06:58am Mar 5, 2002 EST (#211
of 216)
This Media 'LAW MAN' would be quite capable of running a debate
on taking the Missiles down. Hypotheticals (his program) took
senarios as in a court:
... the BBC TV series "Hypotheticals". It was a program in
which situations with a lot of ethical dilemmas were presented.
The dilemmas often called for controversial decisions, and these
decisions were then examined. A group of experts and other
involved parties were assembled.
The host (Geoffrey Robertson, BBC) asked the questions
and controlled the situation. The unwritten rules constantly
changed, because new information constantly came forward. No one
but the program host had a comprehensive view of the whole
situation in advance. It got revealed slowly, with many surprising
twists and turns, with questions such as: “Would you lie, cheat or
steal in this or that situation?” “Would you condemn the one that
did?” And
so on.
lchic
- 08:05am Mar 5, 2002 EST (#212
of 216)
1. Noted Robertson was slated by the far|left|left press
for views on Yugoslavia.
2. A Novel - author visualises a
nuclear future gone wrong 'AMERICAN ARMAGEDDON - WHEN THE UNITED
STATES LOST WORLD WAR ... ' http://members.tripod.com/~djkuba/index-4.html
rshow55
- 10:11am Mar 5, 2002 EST (#213
of 216) 
last year, almarst made this excellent post, asking a key
question:
almarst-2001 - 10:56pm Mar 14, 2001 EST (#998
I think today, after the Cold War, we may indulge ourselve in
asking the most basic question - What are the reasons today for
hostility between nations?
Today we lost the luxery option of hiding behind the great
ideological war of Communism vs. Capitalism, where the "aims
justified the means" and where the victory was all importand.
What I would suggest is to try and create a list of existing
hot-spots, the players involved and the possible reasons for
hostility, including official versions. If you agree, I would
exclude what I call "internal problems" of a
terrorism/nacionalism/separatism. I also don't know enough about
African wars to effectively discuss them.
I would start with a list and we can expand/modify it as we go
and discuss it.
Cuba vs. US
Iraq vs. Kuwait/Saudi Arabia/US/Britain
Iraq vs. Israel
Iraq vs. Iran ?
Iran vs. US
Iran vs. Israel
Libia vs. US/Britain
Sudan vs. US
Serbia vs. NATO
Greece vs. Turkey (over Cyprus)
N. Korea vs. S. Korea/US
N. Korea vs. Japan
China vs. Taiwan/US
Total of 13 hot spots, where US is involved in at least 7 of
them.
*********
the question "What are the reasons today for hostility between
nations? is an absolutely fundamental one - and it is becoming
clear that we don't know enough, now, to answer it in the detail we
need for decent action.
rshow55
- 10:38am Mar 5, 2002 EST (#214
of 216)
If we knew the answer to almarst's question, we could do a
lot of things better than we do.
The Angola Mirror By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/05/opinion/05KRIS.html
is a wrenching, impressive, problematic piece. It includes lessons
which, in detail, the human race is not clear how to keep.
Lesson No. 1: Be wary of warlords who parrot back our own lines.
Lesson No. 2: Support democracy as a whole, not simply elections.
Lesson No. 3: Land mines often last longer than our alliances.
. . . We should be twisting arms to try to bring
about peace in Angola.
Kristof ends with this
. . . . And rather than just anointing a
winner, let's promote institutional changes — like schools,
liberties and free markets — that are the third world's real
freedom fighters and "authentic heroes."
Americans don't know how to do this, in the step-by-step details
needed to help real societies. They've given up trying. A key reason
is that they haven't been able to make humanitarian interventions
work. Some things, that we need to understand, we dont. And because
we don't, we don't know how to make peace - or build societies
according to humane values.
The problem is connected to morality, but I'm especially
concerned about the purely intellectual part of it. Even if we
wanted to do good things, quite often we don't know how. We
don't know enough about how our own systems work, and malfunction--
or about the human systems we are interacting with.
We don't know how to make peace. We need to learn.
Some of the things we do poorly, the Communists knew how to do
fairly well. And vice versa. Many, many matters of life and death,
and matters of human comfort hinge on this.
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