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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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gisterme - 08:44am Sep 11, 2003 EST (# 13600 of 13603)

Will -

"...Has Showalter ever changed your mind about anything? Or the mind of anybody you know in high or low places?..."

No, not that I can recall.

"...Have you ever taken any action based on anything Showalter or Ichic have ever published in this forum?"

Not other than responding on the forum and...considering moving permanently to some other forum.

gisterme - 08:46am Sep 11, 2003 EST (# 13601 of 13603)

"...Gisterme, you have the floor, sir."

See previous post. :-)

rshow55 - 09:15am Sep 11, 2003 EST (# 13602 of 13603)
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 , your corpus will stay behind you. http://www.mrshowalter.net/sequential.htm

- - -

We're Two Years On http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/11/opinion/11THU1.html from the 9/11/2001 attack.

Here's the Front Page of NYT on the Web September 12, 2001 - http://www.mrshowalter.net/NYTWebFrontPage_9_11_02.htm

A historical - ethical - even religious perspective is set out in

Two Years Later, a Thousand Years Ago By ROBERT WRIGHT http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/11/opinion/11WRIG.html

"In other words, the age-old tradeoff between security and liberty increasingly involves a third variable: antipathy. The less hatred there is in the world, the more security we can have without sacrificing personal freedom. Assuming we like our liberty, we have little choice but to take an earnest interest in the situation of distant and seemingly strange people, working to elevate their welfare, exploring their discontent as a step toward expanding their moral horizons — and in the process expanding ours. Global governance without global moral progress could be very unpleasant."

Wright is too optimistic, in some ways, because he assumes that people have logical problems solved that they don't in fact have solved. The solving takes some sorting out - something Lchic and I are working hard to do.

There's plenty to worry about - this piece could hardly be more serious:

Foreign Views of U.S. Darken Since Sept. 11 By RICHARD BERNSTEIN http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/11/international/11OPIN.html

. Contributing to this report were James Brooke, Frank Bruni, Alan Cowell, Ian Fisher, Joseph Kahn, Clifford Krauss, Marc Lacey, Jane Perlez, Craig S. Smith and Michael Wines.

BERLIN, Sept. 10 — In the two years since Sept. 11, 2001, the view of the United States as a victim of terrorism that deserved the world's sympathy and support has given way to a widespread vision of America as an imperial power that has defied world opinion through unjustified and unilateral use of military force.

"A lot of people had sympathy for Americans around the time of 9/11, but that's changed," said Cathy Hearn, 31, a flight attendant from South Africa, expressing a view commonly heard in many countries. "They act like the big guy riding roughshod over everyone else."

In interviews by Times correspondents from Africa to Europe to Southeast Asia, one point emerged clearly: The war in Iraq has had a major impact on public opinion, which has moved generally from post-9/11 sympathy to post-Iraq antipathy, or at least to disappointment over what is seen as the sole superpower's inclination to act pre-emptively, without either persuasive reasons or United Nations approval.

Many of Gisterme's positions have served the United States very poorly.

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