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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.

(637 previous messages)

lchic - 12:24pm Mar 17, 2002 EST (#638 of 646)

UK non-ethical investments - arms trade - pensions http://www.observer.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,668941,00.html

_{Campaigners say the holdings in arms companies - in
the pension funds of at least 50 councils, charities and dozens of
educational institutions - are hypocritical.}

'These are organisations that are meant to be promoting social good and social welfare yet are making money from companies involved in weapons manufacture,' said Richard Bingley of the Campaign Against the Arms Trade. 'That cannot be right.' The Government is already facing criticism from campaigners after new figures revealed that the value of British arms sales to Africa will more than quadruple by next year. This year more than £200m of business is expected with African nations, up from £52m in 1999. Other bodies holding BAe shares include pension funds for most of London's local councils, many other local authorities across Britain, universities including Edinburgh and Birmingham, several unions and the Trades Union Congress (TUC). The London Borough of Lambeth, Unison, the public sector union, and the National Trust of Scotland, who between them hold nearly 800,000 BAe shares, said last week they would look at their holdings again.

almarst-2001 - 12:33pm Mar 17, 2002 EST (#639 of 646)

Better Late Than . . . By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

A good one.

If only Mr. Friedman could show more consitency and integrity...

Stiil, it is Better Late Than ...

lchic - 12:45pm Mar 17, 2002 EST (#640 of 646)

How to cut down on chicken imports .. http://www.observer.co.uk/foodmonthly/story/0,9950,662799,00.html ... turns them vegetarian :) FAST!

_{How to grow vegetables in cold climates seems of more
significance than how to put 'lead' into your neighbour.}

Travellers riding the rails into Mongolia note the premium placed on vegetables .... leave the compartment for a moment .. returning to find it filled with vegies ... the real 'gold' of this world.

rshow55 - 01:04pm Mar 17, 2002 EST (#641 of 646)

If we were more clear about our animal natures - we could do a lot of things better. Sometimes, it is critical to remember how important it is to see things for ourselves.

rshow55 - 01:09pm Mar 17, 2002 EST (#642 of 646)

Here is VERY good thing:

SENATORS INSIST ON ROLE IN ATOMIC ARMS DEALS by Thom Shanker http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/17/international/17ARMS.html

Especially good if the Senators are actually informed about the things that matter. The questions set out in MD634 rshow55 3/17/02 9:04am .. might help, because they can be treated completely in the open literature - and inform a great deal.

In the past, Senators have NOT been informed on absolutely key issues - so that the substance of "advice and consent" has been lacking, even when the form was there.

I agree with former Senator Bob Kerrey in ARMED TO EXCESS http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/02/opinion/02KERR.html that "The risk of a nuclear attack (or accident) still poses the greatest single threat to our survival."

But Senators and Congressmen have been held in near-total ignorance about key issues -- including the viscerally important facts that would strike anyone looking at some key maps - even from a distance. (see Kerrey).

As of now, it seems to be only a "small" political issue that the technical missile defense programs the Bush administration is committed to can't work tactically. If leaders of other nations WANTED this issue to be considered more seriously -- they could get it to be. -- If they made it an issue. The issue ought to be vital to the credibility of a great deal. Credibility, in this context, is a vital matter in every reasonable sense - - and the people in the Senate, when they are paying attention - can be responsible and sophisticated to very high standards.

lchic - 01:18pm Mar 17, 2002 EST (#643 of 646)

read the above as - at last Senators start to do THEIR JOB after a half century vacation!

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