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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 - 01:17pm Jun 6, 2003 EST (# 12356 of 12363)
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.

There has been some progress in some key technical areas that concerned and frustrated Eisenhower since Eisenhower's time, and lchic and I have been responsible for some of that progress, working on this board. And a point that we've emphasized again and again - that the truth safer than fiction when you're looking for stable answers is absolutely essential - and too often forgotten by President Bush and other leaders who forget that, even if it is sometimes expedient for any leader to lie - there are also times where telling the truth is fundamentally important - and it is important for leaders and forces involved to know that the leader is telling the truth. Which means that facts and ideas that matter enough must be checkable to closure.

Here's a quote from James Reston, (with a few comments of mine in parenthesis and italics.)

The U-2 fiasco, caused by Ike's absentmindedness and poor staff work, ruined his disarmament conference with Khruschev, who acted as if the Soviet Union never engaged in espionage. He ( Khruschev ) mocked Eisenhower's spying and lying for their "clumsiness." ( In a way Almarst might also do. ) The president stuck around Paris for a couple of days to prove that he hadn't been responsible for breaking up the conference, but he couldn't hide his depression, even from the press."

. . . . from Chapter 22, Deadline

( Eisenhower tried everything he could think of to make workable contact - and found he had no effective way to communicate stably about anything at all. )

( Reston also comments on Ike's "baffling way of expressing or concealing his thought. )

With the internet, and procedures either demonstrated or demonstrated in prototype on this thread, there's been progress in the technical aspects of talking to the Russians or talking to other groups where there are problems of paradigm conflict.

Some conflict theory has been clarified, too (or anyway, I've tried.) Eisenhower had decided not to cancel the U2 flights, flights he followed closely, because he thought them important and thought that the controlled, minor threat they constituted worked for US interests rather than against them. He hadn't thought carefully enough about what to do if a U2 was lost - and he made a technical mistake - maybe a "clumsy" mistake - lying on a point that couldn't be concealed - and shouldn't have been.

America was threatening the Soviet Union and trying to arrange for a workable, stable peace at the same time. There was no contradiction. Fictions made any approach to workable dealmaking impossible.

Eisenhower wasn't workably clear about that at the time.

Truth that can be checked to closure is sometimes absolutely essential.

My first day on this thread, Sept 25, 2000 - my first act was to set out an answer to a question Eisenhower put to me:

" How, even if both sides desperately want to - can disarmament happen?

My answer was not based on a fiction of trust - but on the reality of distrust. I still think it was a pretty good answer - and I made it assuming that "becq" - who I thought was Clinton or close to Clinton - would have enough paperwork on me to know that giving that answer was my "job 1."

12300 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.hRspbsqKdXg.0@.f28e622/13948

rshow55 - 01:27pm Jun 6, 2003 EST (# 12357 of 12363)
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.

There are some things - including essential things - that specific leaders and specific organizations can't do because of the connections they have in place.

As a technical matter, it would be relatively straightforward, and economically good business from the perspective of properly placed and protected investors, to get the world self sufficient in energy using solar energy - and the technique discussed on this board, with gisterme involved, could work technically.

But for obvious reasons, Bush, where he is, and the oil companies, where they are - couldn't be reasonably expected to get the job done. Connections with existing oil interests are too many and too deep.

Saudi Arabia Cancels $15 Billion Gas Project By REUTERS Filed at 4:40 p.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/business/business-energy-saudi-gas.html

DUBAI ( Reuters) - Saudi Arabia told Exxon Mobil Thursday that it had closed talks on a $15-billion gas project, the biggest Saudi energy opening in nearly 30 years, oil company and Saudi sources said.

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Germany or China would not be so constrained. I'd like a chance to talk to them effectively - with prior restraint censorship on issues reasonably censored - but an ability to function. A meeting with Deutsche Bank Securities - would be a good start.

When I suggested doing so, there was a posting easily interpreted as a threat on my life.

In fun?

I can't afford to think so. Though some progress has been made since.

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