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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 - 08:10pm Sep 23, 2002 EST (# 4490 of 4496)
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.

When I came on this thread, in Sept 25, 2000 rshow55 4/21/02 3:14pm , I was terribly concerned about nuclear dangers - and felt, for reasons that still seem sensible in retrospect - http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@247.xGHYaq2NAKx.2@.ee79f4e/1556 Here are some postings from that time:

lunarchick - 02:46am Oct 3, 2000 EDT (#370

A question regarding time. It's been Five and a half decades since two A-bombs were released over Japan, which knows nuclear is a non-sustainable concept. Why don't other countries accept this stance?

A second question to ask is 'why haven't the bodies established to eliminate missiles worldwide achieved this goal via knowledge dissemination'?

lunarchick - 09:23pm Oct 3, 2000 EDT (#371

I note the big DEBATE is on in the States (debate between Bush and Gore) today ... from a distance it's not easy to determine their respective policies re ND.

rshowalt - 04:48am Oct 4, 2000 EDT (#372

There was dead silence on the point. A silence that the people at the Global Security Institute; the Fourth Freedom Forum http://www.fourthfreedom.org/ ; http://www.responsiblesecurity.org/ ; the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation http://www.wagingpeace.org/ and many other organizations (not least, the United Nations ) are trying to penetrate.

In the NE edition of the NYT, on page A7b there was a very impressive full page ad from Alan Cranston's Global Security Institute with an enormously impressive list of people, including senior military, nuclear arms talk, and CIA people, many Republicans, in support of a statement that read as follows.

"An Appeal to End the Nuclear Threat: Concerned Americans Speak Out Now is the Time

" The end of the Cold War has offered the most promising opportunity since the advent of nuclear arms in 1945 to free the world from nuclear danger.

" Instead we witness the spread of nuclear weapon technology and the deepening crisis of the nuclear arms control regime fashioned by both Republican and Democratic presidents.

" To take advantage of the new opportunity and avert the new perils, we call upon the United States goverment to commit itself unequivocally to negotiate the worldwide reduction and elimination of nuclear weapons, in a series of well defined stages accompanied by increasing verification and control. As immediate steps along that path, we urge the global de-alerting of nuclear weapons and deep reductions in nuclear stockpiles."

There was a major, very well organized press conference in Boston by the group that took out this ad, with many speakers, including McNamara, and a major effort to add questions from credentialled press people in the audience at the debate was vigorously pursued.

At the debate, NO questions were permitted from the audience.

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