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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.

rshow55 - 10:28pm Mar 13, 2002 EST (#506 of 522)

MD130 rshow55 3/2/02 6:59pm

On soldiers and responsibility

rshowalter "Science in the News" 8/29/00 7:26am rshowalter "Science in the News" 8/29/00 7:27am

THE 'EATHEN by Rudyard Kipling
rshowalter "Science in the News" 8/29/00 7:56am ... rshowalter "Science in the News" 8/29/00 8:00am
rshowalter "Science in the News" 8/29/00 8:01am ...

rshowalter "Science in the News" 8/29/00 8:03am

More Kipling: Mesopotamia .....1917 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee74d94/3625

Soldier an' Sailor Too http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?13@@.ee79f4e/1702

THE VIRGINITY http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee79f4e/1295

THE 'EATHEN http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b085/18

Our Fathers of Old http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?13@@.ee79f4e/241

http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b085/129

Erica Goode's IDEAS AND TRENDS piece Hey, What if Contestants Give Each Other Shocks? deals with issues of concern to most people I know, and shows a case where scientific information can give evidence on an issue about humanity, and one particularly troubling. During WWII, what did the Germans know, and when did they know it?

I key the argument to a great Rudyard Kipling poem - The 'eathen rshowalter "Science in the News" 8/29/00 7:56am

and ended with a discussion of military and civilian responsibility and knowledge, keyed to the Germans, that I was proud to write. rshowalter "Science in the News" 8/29/00 8:03am

Shortly afterward, there followed posts, written indirectly but usefully for their purpose, that meant a great deal to me, and were of practical help, in a circumstance where my humanity had been called into question.

lchic - 10:29pm Mar 13, 2002 EST (#507 of 522)

From Showalter links above on Soldiers :

They might have ideological reasons and believe that they are fighting a just war.

rshow55 - 10:33pm Mar 13, 2002 EST (#508 of 522)

Never. What possible justification can there be for indiscriminant slaughter of civilians -- if knocking down the WTC is wrong -- and of course it is wrong - - - then nuclear weapons are more wrong.

People need to COUNT - - or at least have some sense of proportion. There is NO justification for the use of nuclear weapons -- they are obsolete menaces and we should take the damn things down.

rshow55 - 10:35pm Mar 13, 2002 EST (#509 of 522)

People should surely be shamed about the "missile defense" boondoggle -- both because it is massive technical and financial malfeasance -- and because it provides the ideological cover for nukes -- maintaining the pretense that they can somehow be "safe for Americans."

Fraud is a fair word to apply. Fruadulent justification of murder, as well.

almarst-2001 - 10:39pm Mar 13, 2002 EST (#510 of 522)

"Our elections are free and fair" ... therefore we are Democracy...

Only on two additional conditions:

1. There is a real public understanding of a clearly defined problem supported by all available verifiable facts honestly and sufficiently presented by a mass media.

2. There is a choice of more then one significantly different alternatives vigorously presented in an open debates by the mass media.

In short, for the Democracy to function, the Mass Media plays the most critical role.

For the reasons we have already touched, both major parties hold olmost identical positions on the US foreign policy. And that situation hardly bothers the US mass media. Those are the very complicated issues interwooven with US secret interests and durty laundry collected by the decades. Not a good staff for the 30sec. patriotic presentation between commercials. Not to mention the "friendly" suggestions for the good behavier from the very powerful corners and interested corporate advertisers.

lchic - 10:40pm Mar 13, 2002 EST (#511 of 522)

DOCUMENTARY - WHO IS PUTIN? – A lifelong judo enthusiast whose trainer hoped he would become an Olympic champion. A former KGB spy who was forced to flee Germany when he failed to realise the Iron Curtain was collapsing. An enigmatic introvert who even at school was remembered as a “grey cardinal” who shunned the limelight. A loyal, cautious official who stunned his Kremlin colleagues when overnight he was anointed as Boris Yeltsin’s heir and swept to political superstardom on the back of a brutal war in Chechnya. Who is Vladimir Putin? And where is he taking Russia? The BBC Correspondent team investigates.

lchic - 10:41pm Mar 13, 2002 EST (#512 of 522)

Wonder if they have a docco on Bush?

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