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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.

rshow55 - 06:43pm Apr 9, 2003 EST (# 11226 of 11233)
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.

Now would be a very good time for the Palestinians, Israelis, Russians, Germans, Chinese, French, N. and South Koreans, and others to figure out CLEARLY what they want -- really want - and ask for it.

There ought to be a number of deals well worth settling for, from everybody's point of view, if people can be honest, and clear.

Pity poor President Bush. Practically nobody in the international community trusts him entirely. He's made a lot of promises. He's going to have to try to deliver. He's going to have to be pretty careful, and skillful, to steal much significant at all.

http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.mVOba8Hy6zg.0@.f28e622/3043

A nice thing about constraints - facts that rule things out - is that once you know them - the things that are possible stand out. And some of the things that stand out can be very good.

The web is useful - for coordinating levels of detail that couldn't be coordinated until just a few years ago. That's new, and hopeful.

On 5 May 2002, lchic and I did a two hour, 70 post session on negotiation in the middle east in the Guardian thread Anything on Anything from http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.eea14e1/1253 to http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.eea14e1/1318 on negotiating tactics that could use the internet, and then last week, we talked about using the internet and logic to help get to, and explain, facts and ideas that people could agree to. Also Paradigm Shift .... whose getting there? from http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7726f/719 to http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7726f/806

I don't know if these things were useful, or even read -- but they do reflect some of the new opportunities that come with the web.

A lot of people have done a lot of work. I've been especially impressed with the hard work at the UN Security Council and elsewhere since last November. We're at a time where, if people check facts, and move carefully, a lot can converge into patterns that are better for everybody of good faith in the whole world.

almarst2003 - 09:57pm Apr 9, 2003 EST (# 11227 of 11233)

I am glad I was wrong with my predictions about a fight over Baghdad.

However, I am still sceptical about US intentions and eventual outcome.

What is clear is the fact of thousends of death and wounded. The billions of destroyed infrustructure. And the hatered fueled by humiliating defeat and impotence of Arab and Muslim World.

daveybaby0 - 10:57pm Apr 9, 2003 EST (# 11228 of 11233)

abortion is good because you can kill babies! and my girlfriend can have as much babies and get rid of them in the dumpster as much as we want, that's right, i love abortion because i don't like bush, and this is what makes us democrats unite, shame on you bush, kill babies!!!!

mazza9 - 11:38pm Apr 9, 2003 EST (# 11229 of 11233)
"Quae cum ita sunt" Caesar's Gallic Commentaries

Fred, Gisterme, and Jorian. I share your feelings and especially hope that the UN will adopt a new welt anschaung, (sic). I recently reread I Robot by Asimov and given that these stories were written in the '40s there are some interesting societal insights about our civilization.

Asimov was a humanist and, to me, was deliving into the human condition by using his senitent robots as paradigms of intellect and virtue. Yet these magnificent creations were haunted by the ghost of Frankenstein. When the Robots get the upper hand their Robotic Laws are the force by which mankind is capable of reaching the stars and achieving our intellectual maturity.

That their are no robots to shape our future makes it a bit harder. Yet the US history has been one which can guide the world. Our ethics, morality and faith in the rule of law can be displayed again in Iraq. We did it after WWI, WWII and the Cold War. How does the song do, "We did it before and we can do it again.."

April 9, 2003 - Iraq Independence Day

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