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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.

almarst2002 - 08:05am May 26, 2003 EST (# 12041 of 12076)

"And if things I knew were actually used - we'd live in a much safer, more prosperous world - a world where your interests and needs would be much better served than today."

I remember too many of those who promised the same in the last Century. Do you?

rshow55 - 08:08am May 26, 2003 EST (# 12042 of 12076)
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.

Sure do.

re Carlyle: 9138 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.hpRKbdepbTQ.0@.f28e622/10665

There are good reasons for Americans, and people elsewhere, to be concerned about disproportions between means and ends. And unnecessary carnage. i The things Eisenhower warned about in his FAREWELL ADDRESS of January 17, 1961 have happened . - http://www.geocities.com/~newgeneration/ikefw.htm That needs to be faced.

One good way to face some key things would be to check the assertions about fact on this board - specifically the technically straightforward facts about missile defense that have been evaded - by institutions that have, most times, considerably less ability to predict and face up to consequences and disporportions than NASA does. http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/296

Currently, nations seem prepared to expend tens of billions to engage in fights that look avoidable - kill tens or hundreds of thousands of people - displace millions, and anger hundreds of millions - - but whenever there is any whiff of a reason not to - nations see to it that key facts can't be checked, - even if it could be done for tiny amounts of effort. Strange.

The New York Times, or any other paper - can only expect to change that with some support from leaders of nation states.

almarst2002 - 08:12am May 26, 2003 EST (# 12043 of 12076)

Iraq Sanctions - http://imisite.org/iraq.php#5

Even the most conservative, independent estimates hold economic sanctions responsible for a public health catastrophe of epic proportions. The World Health Organization believes at least 5,000 children under the age of 5 die each month from lack of access to food, medicine and clean water.

Malnutrition, disease, poverty and premature death now ravage a once relatively prosperous society whose public health system was the envy of the Middle East. I went to Iraq in September 1997 to oversee the UN's "oil for food" program. I quickly realized that this humanitarian program was a Band-Aid for a UN sanctions regime that was quite literally killing people.

rshow55 - 08:30am May 26, 2003 EST (# 12044 of 12076)
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 don't deny how ugly sanctions were - but the US was dealing with Saddam - and there are distinct limits to how one deals with such leaders.

Stalin to Saddam: So Much for the Madman Theory By ERICA GOODE

By his word he could kill them, have them tortured, have them rescued again, have them rewarded. Life and death depended on his whim."

If Saddam has been halfway decent or rational as a human being - much better accomodations could have been made.

To me, and a lot of other people - stories like this deal with facts that look every bit as bad as the holocaust - and they deal with problems that the US has only a limited ability to solve.

Afghan Motherhood in a Fight for Survival By CARLOTTA GALL http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/25/international/middleeast/25AFGH.html

There are plenty of messes in the world - many gruesome and wrenching - that take reciprocity and sanity on several sides to sort out. The US makes mistakes - but it has no monopoly on stupidity or callousness - by a long shot.

And a lot of Americans try to do well - when it doesn't cost them too much.

That's about the best you can expect - in the dirty world we inhabit. Russians, for instance, are no better.

We need to change patterns enough to improve on some key things - and that's possible - and moral indignation has only a limited usefulness - justified as it often is.

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense