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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 - 08:52am Jul 15, 2003 EST (# 13027 of 13030)
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.

The TIMES is doing its duty - and I hope people pay attention.

Uranium Quicksand http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/15/opinion/15TUE2.html

By clinging to a weak legalistic argument to defend its depiction of Iraq's nuclear weapons program, the White House is only compounding its mistake.

16 Words, and Counting By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/15/opinion/15KRIS.html

The Niger uranium hoax is only part of the picture. The bigger the picture gets, the more it looks like a pattern of dishonesty.

Pattern of Corruption By PAUL KRUGMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/15/opinion/15KRUG.html

The case of the bogus uranium purchases was part of a broad pattern of politicized, corrupted intelligence.

Krugman asked a key question: How did we get into this mess?

12955-8 <a href="/webin/WebX?14@13.Pe5db5qFqKA.1375078@.f28e622/14631">rshow55 7/11/03 1:48pm</a> deals with reasons why the issues involved are so important - because the defense of the United States, and the honor of the United States, depend on right answers and straight dealing.

12958 includes this:

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md11000s/md11634.htm :

"In news stories, people speak of the "5W's + H" approach.

Who? . . . What? . . . Where? . . . When? . . . Why? . . . and How?

HOW, exactly, did the world get into this mess?

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Krugman phrased the question better. But is is a central question we ought to face - if we're to survive and avoid mistakes. And preserve our values.

12955 also includes this:

" I had reason to know a great deal about the Watergate matter - where impeachment was fully justified - and happened much too late. This is more serious."

I was interrogated, with torture and an expectation that I would die, by the order of Richard Nixon. It was a stupid order - and a muddled business. Bill Casey got called in to sort out the mess.

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Patterns of deception that characterize this administration are terribly serious.

U.S. Will Defy Court's Order in Terror Case By PHILIP SHENON http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/15/politics/15SUSP.html

WASHINGTON, July 14 — The Justice Department said today that it would defy a court order and refuse to make a captured member of Al Qaeda available for testimony in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui.

The department acknowledged that its decision could force a federal judge to dismiss the indictment against Mr. Moussaoui, the only person facing trial in the United States in connection with the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

In court papers, the department said Attorney General John Ashcroft had determined that testimony from the accused terrorist Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a confessed participant in the Sept. 11 attacks, "would necessarily result in the unauthorized disclosure of classified information" and that "such a scenario is unacceptable to the government."

Is anything that is embarrassing because it is true "unacceptable ?

rshow55 - 09:00am Jul 15, 2003 EST (# 13028 of 13030)
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.

12955-8 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.Pe5db5qFqKA.1375078@.f28e622/14631 deals with reasons why the issues involved are so important - because the defense of the United States, and the honor of the United States, depend on right answers and straight dealing.

Questions for a 4th of July discussion bear repeating:

2860 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.Pe5db5qFqKA.1375078@.f28e622/3566

3585 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.Pe5db5qFqKA.1375078@.f28e622/4518

In Oliver Twist , by Charles Dickens, there's a great scene. The scene is effectively done in the movie "Oliver." Oliver Twist, like all the kids in the orphanage, is hungry. The food isn't any good, but it also isn't enough.

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The things Eisenhower warned of in his FAREWELL ADDRESS of January 17, 1961 http://www.geocities.com/~newgeneration/ikefw.htmb have happened. The subversive, cancerous patterns developed, after much borrowing from Germany, to fight the Cold War have evolved, and now diffused all through government, politics, and business.

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We need to fix some things.

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