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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 - 11:53am Apr 3, 2003 EST (# 11009 of 11019)
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.

I feel like reposting this:

rshowalter - 04:48am Jul 29, 2001 EST #7562

http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee86193/42 contains this:

" There's a problem with long and complex. And another problem with short. . . . . The long and the short of it, I think, is that you need both long and short."

From the long, with work, the short condenses .

This thread is in large part about showing how that happens - and I think that it has been worth the effort - and is working pretty well. One thing it has helped to do, I believe, is significantly increase the usage of, and changed the cultural meaning of, the phrase "connect the dots."

9238 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.CqwSaezh6lC.242968@.f28e622/10764 deals with the notion of "connecting the dots" - and whether that notion has gained in meaning, and frequency, since Erica Goode's Finding Answers In Secret Plots http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/10/weekinreview/10GOOD.html . . which speaks of:

"a basic human urge to connect the dots and form a coherent picture."

9238 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.CqwSaezh6lC.242968@.f28e622/10764 includes a number of links - these among them

. We need both long and short statements: http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.CqwSaezh6lC.242968@.f28e622/4168

. Statistics and logic: 4166-7 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.CqwSaezh6lC.242968@.f28e622/5255

. Emergent properties: 4365-66 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.CqwSaezh6lC.242968@.f28e622/5517

Lchic and I are producing a model, analogy, and demonstration of some basic things about how human logic and discourse works - both in cultures and within brains.

I'm hoping that a few short, clear ideas will condense from it that make the effort very, very worthwhile. Logically, in literary terms, philosophically, politically, militarily.

Practically.

I think that's happening.

jorian319 - 11:55am Apr 3, 2003 EST (# 11010 of 11019)

Obviously we are already paying a "horrible, bloody price". The only question is what we are getting for that price. The removal of a brutal regime that has already murdered over a million of its own citizens is no small benefit.

Alarmst would have us turn our back on this tragic brutality, to preserve some purity of non-involvement.

almarst2003 - 11:57am Apr 3, 2003 EST (# 11011 of 11019)

US drops new high tech cluster bomb in Iraq - http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s823003.htm

US forces have dropped on Iraq "for the first time in combat history" a new version of a cluster bomb that adapts to wind and weather to hit targets more accurately, Central Command said.

Six CBU-105 Wind Corrected Munitions Dispensers were dropped by B-52 bombers at 5:15am local time (12:15pm AEST) in central Iraq "to stop an Iraqi tank column from continuing on its route towards coalition troops," a Central Command statement said.

It said the CBU-105 features "wind-compensating technology that steers the munitions from a known release point to precise target coordinates while compensating for launch transients, winds aloft, surface winds and adverse weather conditions".

Human rights groups have long protested the use of cluster bombs, which they say cause undue risks to civilians.

On Tuesday, an AFP correspondent at Hilla south of Baghdad saw what seemed to be the parts of cluster bombs peppered over a large area.

Hospital officials and witnesses said 48 civilians had died in US-British bombardment of the area since late Monday.

New York-based Human Rights Watch, in a report days ahead of the start of the current conflict, said cluster munitions dropped in the 1991 Gulf war were to blame for the deaths or injuries of more than 4,000 civilians after the fighting ended.

almarst2003 - 11:58am Apr 3, 2003 EST (# 11012 of 11019)

"turn our back on this tragic brutality, to preserve some purity of non-involvement."

Jorian,

Do you sincerely believe this war is about a better future for Iraqi people?

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