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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?

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rshow55 - 04:14pm Mar 29, 2002 EST (#941 of 960)

almarst , how about modifications of what you're saying that are more incremental, less violent? .... Just for the sake of dialog, let me replace some of your words and phrases with indented ones.

"Unless the US shadow "ruling class" is rejected. Unless the America's mass culture of arrogance, ignorance, self-rightness and messionic zealot, coupled with feeling of invencibility and allmightness is substantially moderated."

It seems to me that those are reasonable things to hope for, and cold be accomplished without massive suffering and without any really terrible consequences to the American public. Most Americans might feel a lot better about a lot of things, pretty quickly, if those things happened.

Almarst , as you know, I've been very concerned with a "vast right wing conspiracy" -- dating from Eisenhower's time at the latest, and going far beyond Scaife. I was glad to see The Smoke Machine By PAUL KRUGMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/29/opinion/29KRUG.html which carries an important message: "that the "vast right-wing conspiracy" is not an overheated metaphor but a straightforward reality, and that it works a lot like a special-interest lobby." Krugman writes in the NYT, a careful newspaper, with many working alliances with the "American ruling classes" - and a paper which is reasonably careful not to "bite the hand that reads it"

Injustices that seem entrenched and unchangeable sometimes change very completely -- for a corpus showing such a process as it has unfolded see the articles collected in Understanding Enron http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/1/Transcripts/721/4/business/_ENRON-PRIMER.html

rshow55 - 04:15pm Mar 29, 2002 EST (#942 of 960)

Almarst , it seems to me that there are more people in the world working to get some of our concerns adressed than there have ever been before, and that sometimes reasonable compromises get fashioned, even between very imperfect people and groups.

Deal Revises Iraq Penalties By PATRICK E. TYLER

MOSCOW, March 28 - Russia and the United States reached broad tentative agreement today on how to revise penalties against Iraq by lifting controls altogether on thousands of food products, aid supplies and medicines.

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Baghdad-Kuwait Accord - Support Is Rebuff to Bush's Efforts By NEIL MacFARQUHAR http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/29/international/middleeast/29IRAQ.html

BEIRUT, Lebanon, March 28 - Saddam Hussein secured broad Arab support today in heading off any American military action against his country when the region's leaders declared here that an attack on Iraq would be considered an attack against all Arab states.

In return for this support, given at the close of a two-day Arab League summit meeting, Iraq accepted policies it had vehemently rejected in the past.

The Iraqi government agreed to recognize Kuwait as an independent state and to not invade again.

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I was impressed by this article:

A solution is possible now Middle East negotiations have failed. But the US can make a final deal stick by Hussein Agha and Robert Malley Friday March 29, 2002 The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,675784,00.html

"Negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians have now reached the point of diminishing - even negative - returns. Rather than bringing the two sides closer, negotiations serve to play up remaining disagreements and to play down the broad scope of actual convergence. The time for negotiations has ended. The parties must be presented with a non-negotiable final agreement."

It seems to me that a lot of things are sorting out - or moving into a condition where they can be sorted out - by the real, imperfect people who have to be involved.

Because of communications, military situations, dangerous as they remain, are in many cases much more damped -- much less likely to be explosive -- than they used to be. Some things are getting better -- some much better -- and there is reason to hope -- and work.

In many, many cases, "missile defense" included, there would be much progress if people could face more facts, and lie less.

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