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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 - 07:57pm Jul 20, 2003 EST (# 13062 of 13068)
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.

Top Democrat Criticizes Bush on N. Korea Policy By REUTERS Filed at 7:06 p.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-korea-north-usa.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A top Senate Democrat said on Sunday that the Bush administration did not have a coherent policy on North Korea amid reports that the Asian nation might have built a second secret facility for producing weapons-grade plutonium.

``There is no policy,'' said Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on NBC's ``Meet the Press.''

North Korea Hides New Nuclear Site, Evidence Suggests By DAVID E. SANGER and THOM SHANKER http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/20/international/asia/20KORE.html

Officials with access to the latest intelligence say strong evidence has emerged that the country has built a second reprocessing unit.

BLACK OPS The Departments of Disinformation By MILT BEARDEN http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/20/weekinreview/20BEAR.html

Disinformation - quotes "in error": http://billmon.org.v.sabren.com/archives/000172.html

U.S. Unprepared for Iraq Order Collapse - Wolfowitz By REUTERS Filed at 11:51 a.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-iraq-wolfowitz.html

On planning: From the Preface to STRATEGIES FOR CHANGE: Logical Incrementalism by J. B. Quinn ........... 1980 http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md01000s/md1436.htm

Note that human organizations have to adjust gradually and have to make decisions on the basis of information.

It is vital that the information be correct.

That means we have to ask

. Who's Accountable? By PAUL KRUGMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/10/opinion/10KRUG.html

and look carefully at the answers.

We're in a war of ideas and it hurts us when we lie. There are always short term advantages that go with deception. But we have to face up to the costs, in lost credibility, and our own incoherence, that come when we don't state things clearly.

. War of Ideas By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/02/opinion/02FRIE.html

I'm glad that frustrated F.B.I. agents are banging away at all the missed signals that might have tipped us off to 9/11, but we need to remember something: not all the signals for 9/11 were hidden. Many were out there in public, in the form of hate speech and conspiracy theories directed at America and preached in mosques and schools throughout the Muslim world. If we are intent on preventing the next 9/11, we need to do more than just spy on our enemies better in secret. We need to take on their ideas in public.

The Bush administration is setting up some terrible examples, and it is expensive to us all.

Looking back at this thread, and especially dialog with gisterme since January - and discussions with the UN, I'm asking "what does good faith in the Bush adminstration mean?"

Anything?

We need good answers, and the costs of not getting them are much greater than the embarrassments involved in getting them.

fredmoore - 12:59am Jul 21, 2003 EST (# 13063 of 13068)

Robert

If the FBI followed up on every possible lead pre 9/11 the whole planet would be either working for the FBI or else in a Gitmo prison.

Think about it.

I love that old Terry Stafford song 'Suspicion' .... but suspicions are not what run healthy economies. You need trust ... you need a plan, Stan and that plan must have verifiable benefits for everyone on the planet so that people don't feel disenfranchised.

You need a KAEP.

rshow55 - 09:25am Jul 21, 2003 EST (# 13064 of 13068)
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.

"You need trust ... you need a plan, Stan and that plan must have verifiable benefits for everyone on the planet."

A major step would be energy independence from the Middle East - independence from Saudi Arabia. I have a plan for that - but it requires, not only ideas, but some power. For instance, in the ways that matter, I have to be "out of jail."

13039 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.2Kj5bis2rPK.137355@.f28e622/14716

13040 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.2Kj5bis2rPK.137355@.f28e622/14717

13041 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.2Kj5bis2rPK.137355@.f28e622/14718

That plan falls a good deal short of KAEP in some ways - but it would work technically - could produce energy independence and stability for the whole world - and that would do more to improve the strategic security of the United States than anything else could.

I can't do it alone. I can't do it isolated - in effect, under house arrest.

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