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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 - 08:51am Mar 18, 2003 EST (# 10157 of 10161)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

Superb Editorials and Op Eds today !

War in the Ruins of Diplomacy http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/18/opinion/18TUE1.html

"The country now stands at a decisive turning point, not just in regard to the Iraq crisis, but in how it means to define its role in the post-cold-war world. President Bush's father and then Bill Clinton worked hard to infuse that role with America's traditions of idealism, internationalism and multilateralism. Under George W. Bush, however, Washington has charted a very different course. Allies have been devalued and military force overvalued.

"Now that logic is playing out in a war waged without the compulsion of necessity, the endorsement of the United Nations or the company of traditional allies. This page has never wavered in the belief that Mr. Hussein must be disarmed. Our problem is with the wrongheaded way this administration has gone about it.

. . . .

Cassandra Speaks By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/18/opinion/18KRIS.html

On the eve of a new war, the remarkably preserved citadel at Troy is an intriguing spot to seek lessons from history.

. . .

Things to Come By PAUL KRUGMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/18/opinion/18KRUG.html

Victory in Iraq won't end the world's distrust of the United States, because the Bush administration has made it clear that it doesn't play by the rules.

. . .

Here's another fine variation on the Cassandra theme from last year - on the weekend where I met at a reunion in Ithaca NY with a many from the Cornell 6-Year Ph.D. Program - only two of whom, in the whole group, I had ever met before. At that meeting, where I thought the piece below influential - because one of the people I knew told me so. Schwartz's piece eloquently uses the Cassandra them Kristof uses so well today:

Playing Know And Tell By JOHN SCHWARTZ http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/09/weekinreview/09BOXA.html

But Cassandra's curse was one of the most ingenious of Greek myth.

There she is, desperate to be understood, treated as if she is mad or insensible, but actually cursed. The god Apollo, in a twist, gave her the power to see the future but not the ability to communicate it to others: nobody believed her warnings.

In the "Aeneid, " she tries to tell the Trojans that the giant wooden horse outside the gates was going to be a problem. "Cassandra cried, and curs'd th' unhappy hour/Foretold our fate; but by the god's decree,/All heard, and none believed the prophecy."

Poor Cassandra. In Aeschylus's play "Agamemnon," she even has to predict her own murder.

We all know the type: the kind of person who spoils a party by glaring at everone and muttering imprecations. By some accounts, Cassandra was a colossal pain, harping constantly in her frustration; one big, grating "I told you so" ever in the making. The fact that she turns out to be right seems only to make her even more irritating to those around her.

Whistleblowers of either sex are a difficult breed, tending toward the quirky, anxious and irritable. Such is often the way with truth tellers. After all, if truth were easy or pleasant, it would not be in such short supply.

Which brings us back to Coleen Rowley, determinedly unfashionable and determined to be heard, grinding away at the truth as she sees it at great length and accusing the top levels of the F.B.I. — at a time when the Bush administration has been stung by criticism that it did not act on warnings it did receive before Sept. 11.

. . .

Her prediction: "Until we come clean and deal with the root causes, " she told Mr. Mueller, "the Department of Justice will continue to experience problems fighting terrorism and fighting crime in general."

rshow55 - 08:54am Mar 18, 2003 EST (# 10158 of 10161)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

Some interesting things happened at that Phud reunion on June 9 2002, and there was a particularly Cassandra-like scene. One of the people I knew - and liked - had done his Ph.D. thesis on connections within the Cornell 6-Year Ph.D. program - (when I asked to see it, I was told he'd lost it). This guy was closely associated through consultancies with the US Army. We talked usefully - but just when it seemed that I might be able to actually have some time with him alone - and convey my need to debrief on some classified information - under circumstances that would have been easy for him - he ran away. Later, at gisterme's suggestion, I did debrief that information. I would have preferred a chance to do so privately - though under the circumstances taken as a whole - I felt it was my duty to do so publicly when I did.

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