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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.

almarst2003 - 03:28pm Mar 30, 2003 EST (# 10796 of 10801)

The stable cyclical pattern: ARROGANCE-IGNORANCE-FAILOR

The fierce resistance that British and American troops have encountered must have come as a very unpleasant surprise to Tony Blair and George Bush. They assumed Saddam Hussein was so unpopular and isolated that the Iraqi people would welcome the troops as liberators and help them to overthrow his regime. But the popular uprising has not materialised. However much they detest Saddam's regime, a great many Iraqis view the coalition forces as invaders rather than liberators. Our leaders gravely underestimated the force of Iraqi nationalism.

Blair and Bush seem unaware, or only dimly aware, of the crucial role Iraqi history plays in shaping popular attitudes to the conflict. Iraqis are not an inert mass whose sentiments can be switched on and off to serve the agenda of outside powers.

They are a proud and patriotic people with a long collective memory. Britain and America feature as anything but benign in this collective memory. Blair has repeatedly emphasised the moral argument behind the resort to force to depose an evil dictator. Over the past century, however, Britain rarely occupied the high moral ground in relation to Iraq.

The US has even less of a claim on the trust and goodwill of the Iraqi people after its calamitous failure to support the popular insurrection against Saddam and his henchmen in March 1991.

Iraq was only one element in the victors' peace which was imposed on the Middle East in the aftermath of World War I without any reference to the wishes of the people. Iraq's borders were delineated to serve British commercial and strategic interests.

http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,925666,00.html

lchic - 03:43pm Mar 30, 2003 EST (# 10797 of 10801)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

The torture

The beatings

The rape

The killings

The repression

imposed by Saddam and Sons

was hidden

unseen

--

People from Iraq

dare not speak the name of Saddam

in case someone is listening

knowing

the punishment

------

The media are picking up pictures of civillian dead, some young in age, and hitting the hearts of the 'world'

The media didn't pick up images of people being beaten on the soles of their feet

whipped

hit with rifles in front of their families

------

There needs to be a sense of proportion

as to why Iraq

needs a clean-up

rshow55 - 04:05pm Mar 30, 2003 EST (# 10798 of 10801)
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.

U.S. Officials Vehemently Counter War Doubts By JOEL BRINKLEY http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/30/international/worldspecial/30CND-POLI.html

Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, added, "Nobody ever promised a short war."

In fact, several senior members of the Bush administration did expect a short war last year during the internal debate over whether to attack Iraq.

"Support for Saddam, including within his military organization, will collapse with the first whiff of gunpowder," Richard Perle, who resigned last week as chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, predicted last summer. Vice President Dick Cheney and others made similar statements, some as recently as two weeks ago, helping to set up the problems the administration is facing now.

What Perle and Cheney said wasn't Gen.Myers' fault. Still, the attitude, as also shown vividly gisterme - 06:43pm Mar 14, 2003 EST (# 9944 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.4qGpaSyu6vx.2374764@.f28e622/11489 seems to be behind some very questionable decisions.

People at gisterme's civilian level can put military people into awkward circumstances. Circumstances that are more difficult when officers, in the heat of the moment, forget what key civilians said and argued. 10766 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.4qGpaSyu6vx.2374764@.f28e622/12316

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