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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.

lchic - 07:57am Sep 28, 2002 EST (# 4610 of 4617)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Iraq

"" The resolution makes clear that Iraq is considered to be in "material breach" of 16 previous UN resolutions and spells out the consequences of President Saddam's failure to comply with the council's demands. It makes clear the right of member states to take "appropriate action"--code for the use of force.

Senior British and US officials are due to arrive in Moscow later today, having discussed the content of the draft with their French counterparts yesterday and Thursday.

The French President, Jacques Chirac, told George Bush in a telephone call yesterday that he still wanted a two-step strategy http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=337389

$10,000,000 American dollars a day go to Israel ...

$3.5 billion a year go to Israel .....

"" the siege had eroded the Palestinian Authority so much that "we're moving in the direction of state destruction and not state-building".

Mr Arafat has been under siege for a week now, after the Israeli army bulldozed most of his compound to rubble around him. Despite criticism from the White House – thought to be worried that the siege could damage efforts to get Arab backing for attacking Iraq – the Israeli government is refusing to lift it. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=337411

lchic - 08:02am Sep 28, 2002 EST (# 4611 of 4617)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Body blow for .... not you too Anita !

Anita Roddick: How I became a target for America's zealots
It's as though these people are desperate to find an enemy at which to hurl their anger and hurt 26 September 2002

"" .... None the less, I quickly learnt what abuse has been levelled at other people who have dared to criticise the Bush administration in the past 12 months. I hadn't realised just how brave other people had been to take even the most reasonable public stand against government policies with which they disagreed. Even though I wrote that I worried about the suppression of public dissent, I suppose I naively miscalculated my own entry into that arena. I admit that I was gobsmacked at the vicious, hateful, threatening messages directed at me after that essay appeared. It was comforting to know, however, that I was suddenly reviled alongside such admirable thinkers as Norman Mailer, Noam Chomsky, Erica Jong, Susan Sontag, Robert Fisk and Ralph Nader. Again, good company to find yourself in!

.... "I am a California human rights attorney and a customer of The Body Shop... I was pleased to read Ms Roddick's column, which I took as a call to defend what are usually regarded as America's finest values – freedom of speech and association among them – against the depredations of a power-hungry and opportunistic government. I did not take it as a condemnation of America, and I fail to see how any intellectually honest reader could have done so."
http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=336658

lchic - 08:11am Sep 28, 2002 EST (# 4612 of 4617)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

FISK

Water war looms as Israel tells Lebanon to halt river works By Robert Fisk at the Wazzani river in southern Lebanon 26 September 2002 It's not much of a river. It's low enough to walk across, warm from a stone bed that attracts the autumn heat, full of tadpoles and small fish, frothing merrily in a creek below the scruffy village of Ghajar. But take a closer look and you'll see an Israeli soldier standing above the creek, on the opposite side of a maze of barbed wire, watching this little river through his binoculars. For say the word Wazzani right now, and you're talking water war. Even Colin Powell, the American Secretary of State, has become involved. http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=336667

Robert Fisk: The dishonesty of this so-called dossier If these pages of trickery are based on 'probably' and 'if', we have no business going to war 25 September 2002

Leading article: Mr Blair has failed to make the case for war Tony Blair's "dossier" on Iraq is a shocking document. Reading it can only fill a decent human being with shame and outrage. Its pages are final proof – if the contents are true – that a massive crime against humanity has been committed in Iraq. For if the details of Saddam's building of weapons of mass destruction are correct – and I will come to the "ifs" and "buts" and "coulds" later – it means that our massive, obstructive, brutal policy of UN sanctions has totally failed. In other words, half a million Iraqi children were killed by us – for nothing.

Let's go back to 12 May 1996 ...
http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=336404

see also

Iraq crisis / Read the full report / Fifty-three Labour MPs rebel despite Blair's assurances / Left-wingers rebel as MPs tell Blair not to bypass UN / Clergy clash with former military commanders / Designed to keep hawks and doves happy / Backbench Tories break ranks from their leader / Few revelations, but enough detail to stoke the fears / Muted reaction as UN prepares resolution / Iraq takes journalists on tour to expose Blair 'lies' / Iraq has the expertise, Saddam has the desire / Gore ends silence with outspoken attack on Bush / The Lawyer: A flawed document, and the price to preserve unity / The Inspector: Inspectors will need to test access pledges / David Aaronovitch: We've seen the evidence. Now go back to the UN
Robert Fisk: The dishonesty of this so-called dossier
The Sketch: No evidence, no rebellion: a supreme act of parliamentary management
Al Gore: The United States has squandered the world's goodwill

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