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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 - 08:53am Jul 23, 2003 EST (# 13109 of 13112)
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.

gisterme says

"government officials at the level that you're talking about have better things to do than screw around with web forums."

Well maybe, but strange things do sometimes happen, and this forum may be an exception - it isn't typical in every way. The idea that gisterme is "just an interested party" doesn't fit for me. What he says is too well informed.

I posted on Psychwarfare, Casablanca - - and terror yesterday,

428 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/463

429 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/464

430 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/465

429 includes this:

I've been working hard on the NYT Missile Defense board - and the significance of the effort depends on a judgement of how much rank and connection gisterme has. My own guess, based on what gisterme cares about, posts about, and effort level - is that gisterme is either George W. Bush, or very close to him. For a lot of reasons, including some expressed in 10063 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.ban2bnbgscx.66814@.f28e622/11608 .

( 13105 - 13106 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.ban2bnbgscx.66814@.f28e622/14784 offer additional reasons and it is surely true that If gisterme does not have high government connections -- and is not speaking with authority --- gisterme has often written to convey a sense that those connections exist. )

"What did he know, and when did he know it?" is an interesting question, and when I pointed out that the questions

What did gisterme think and say, and when?

and

Is gisterme President Bush?

are coupled, and answerable, questions, gisterme came on the NYT Missile Defense board with some serious effort 16 (mostly evasive) postings just thereafter: http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.ban2bnbgscx.66814@.f28e622/14752

To paraphrase Shakespeare, "I think he protests too loudly." http://www.handlebars.org/?a=article&articleid=174 - but that's something that journalists or politicians, if they wished, could check.

Not that checking is easy. 430 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?8@@.ee7a163/465 offers reasons why it isn't easy.

In Chicago , it is much too easy to get reporters to believe anything - but when intelligence agencies are involved, it is especially easy to get away with murder.

They Both Reached for the Gun By FRANK RICH http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/23/arts/23RICH.html

All the ordinary safeguards are far less reliable than usual.

Evidence is hidden, and hidden in layers.

. Code Name: Retract Larch by WILLIAM M. ARKIN http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20001203mag-lexicon.html

When things are sensitive enough, and communication difficulties (or legal difficulties) are significant enough - - nothing at all is written down.

In addition, it is illegal, in both UK and the US, to so much as name operatives - so that the procedures of ordinary detective work are classified out of existence.

Under such circumstances - people have every reason to know that the government can "get away with murder."

WORD FOR WORD The C.I.A.'s Cover Has Been Blown? Just Make Up Something About U.F.O.'s By STEPHEN KINZER http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/weekinreview/06WORD.html

But there is a problem that makes checking important. Lies poison our ability to make good decisions. They paralyze and degrade societies. And with the internet - crosschecking is much better than it used to be - even forgeries can sometimes be detected by simple logic and a google search.

. .

Not that Bush, or gisterme , are wrong all the time. But if they were more honest and responsible, I think we'd do much better.

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