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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.

fredmoore - 11:19pm Jun 4, 2003 EST (# 12311 of 12341)

Buck ...

Does our Kiki find Alarmist ... palatable or .... unpalatable?

Hmmm!

Sic em Kiki!

It's so nice to have a Komodo around the house:

Leaders of seven key Komodo groups held an emergency meeting today on the decision by BBBuck, the head of the Komodo occupation authority in USSuburbia, to select between 25 and 30 Komodos to serve on an interim political council whose powers would largely be limited to eating forumites on the basis of policy issues and nominating Komodos to serve in senior positions in government ministries. The organizations refrained from issuing a joint condemnation of Alarmist's posts because they hope to persuade him to change course, but some of the groups made it clear they disapproved of this decision as they wished to invite him to lunch instead.

CC A A Milne.

....D D Eisenhower

....Milton Freeman

....W Casey

....J M Keynes

.....E A Poe

.....S Clemens

.....C Dickens

rshow55 - 07:56am Jun 5, 2003 EST (# 12312 of 12341)
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.

great, Fredmoore !

I'd add a cc to Thomas Edison, maybe, too.

Sometimes, you not only have to "make the best of the situation" in human terms - you need to change it.

Sometimes "mundane" things - like technical solutions - matter. And sometimes there really are some "iron logics" that "dictate" what reasonable or optimal solutions can be.

A lot of progress is possible, it seems to me. Including a lot that would go a long way towards adressing Almarst's core concerns - of which this seems to me the most fundamental - Almarst feels that you have to take care of people - and feels that neither capitalism, or American power, do that decently.

Which is partly true - partly false.

There's a lot of progress possible, I think. Some of it "contradictory". Talking, communicating, sorting out are essential. Fighting is to be avoided. Except that sometimes - things have to be resolved - and at one level or another, for sufficient reasons, with enough controls, "there has to be a fight."

rshow55 - 07:58am Jun 5, 2003 EST (# 12313 of 12341)
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 stuff! The Times is saying the "obvious" things that need saying - and, seems to me, covering them well.

Mideast Leaders Look Homeward By JAMES BENNET http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/05/international/middleeast/05MIDE.html

AQABA, Jordan, June 4 — Locked in conflict, fearing for their very existence as nations, Israelis and Palestinians have for generations prized national unity, deferring or papering over internal disputes about the means and ends of their struggles.

But before even hoping to end the conflict with each other, each side must first face up to these conflicts within itself, according to the iron logic of a new international peace plan. Today, President Bush secured commitments from Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian prime minister, to begin doing just that.

- - - -

Confronting Mideast Spoilers http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/05/opinion/05THU1.html

One of the most distressing elements of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians has been the self-centered way in which each side has viewed the dispute. The Israelis have insisted on their need for security without acknowledging the damage their West Bank settlement program has done, while the Palestinians have focused on lost land and personal suffering as they dismiss the ruinous impact of their terrorist attacks. Neither side has even seemed to try to grasp how the other feels.

That is why yesterday's meeting of President Bush and the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers in the Jordanian resort of Aqaba was a powerful omen of potential change. As President Bush told reporters afterward: "The prime minister of the Palestinian Authority talked about the suffering of the Jewish people. The prime minister of Israel talked about a Palestinian state." What may set the current peace effort apart from previous failed attempts is the insistence that each leader face the concerns of the other by coming to terms with his own peace spoilers.

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