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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 - 10:51am Sep 30, 2002 EST (# 4687 of 4699)
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.

Issues of humanity are practical concerns if we are to make peace stable. We're human beings
4364-4367 rshow55 9/18/02 7:42am

Issues of consistency are vital, too.

Especially when inconsistencies have big costs, and big risks,
to real flesh and blood human beings.

4369-70 rshow55 9/18/02 11:11am :

Enough is going badly enough - things are out of balance enough --
there's enough crazy behavior - that people ought to seriously consider getting
some key facts established - so that we'd know enough -
about the past, and about ourselves - so that stable, peaceful relations might
have a decent chance.

If world leaders want some things clarified - they need to ask.

4420 rshow55 9/19/02 2:05pm :

"Here's a quote from a mystery story writer, Dashiell Hammet in
The Thin Man , 1933. Hammet's speaking of a sexy,
interesting, treacherous character named "Mimi".
He's asked by a police detective what to make of what she says:

" The chief thing," I advised him, "is not to let
her wear you out. When you catch her in a lie,
she admits it and gives you another lie to take
its place, and when you catch he in that one,
admits it, and gives you still another, and so on.
Most people . . . get discouraged after you've caught them
in the third or fourth straight lie and fall back on the
truth or silence, but not Mimi. She keeps trying, and you've got to be careful or you'll
find yourself believing her, not because she seems to be
telling the truth, but simply because you're tired of disbelieving her. "

The United States, in its diplomatic and military fuctions,
can be too much like that. So, certainly, can other countries.

What if truth broke out?

Peace might break out, too.

"The National Security Strategy of the United States," http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/20/politics/20STEXT_FULL.html is beautiful in some ways
- - ugly in some others.

Is all the ugliness and evasion really necessary?

We need to find end games that are stable, and have good
end points. From where we are, that ought not to be so hard.

Gisterme has made some sensible points on this thread.

Almarst has, as well.

For more than a year, nobody disputed the facts in this, which has, alas, been removed from the web:

THREATS TO USE NUCLEAR WEAPONS: The Sixteen Known Nuclear Crises
of the Cold War, 1946-1985 by David R. Morgan http://scienceforpeace.sa.utoronto.ca/WorkingGroupsPage/NucWeaponsPage/Documents/ThreatsNucWea.html
( I have a copy, and will email to anyone who asks.)

Gisterme looked at it carefully - and stopped making
certain claims, once (s)he saw it.

The United States has been actively threatening first use of nuclear weapons for decades
- - and when I had an interview with "becq" on Sep 25, 2000
it was clear that the policy was still active then.

It continues to be.

Do the crimes of Saddam look so much worse?
Perhaps they do to Americans - but the judgement wouldn't be
universally shared around the world.

Bill Casey knew that America had made choices to kill
millions of innocent people - and carried them out.

rshow55 - 10:56am Sep 30, 2002 EST (# 4688 of 4699)
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.

We should do better - and expect better - today.

If we ask for better - and we should -- people should be able to
ask for better from us , as well.

If the United States acknowledged the things that it has done as a nation
- the agony and destruction that it has caused - and made sure American citizens
knew the most important of these things - - - we could have a safer world.

There are things that ought to be prohibited.

Including some things we've done ourselves.

And routinely threated to do ourselves - - for decades.

- - -

If we did things we could do - -
we'd be much safer, and wouldn't need to cling to hopeless dreams like "missile defense."

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