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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 - 11:29am Oct 3, 2002 EST (# 4742 of 4746)
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.

For some purposes, it is the logic that matters - and identies don't matter. For example, the logic of the technical arguments on this thread don't change, whether you believe the story I've given of my background, or "call me Ishmael" http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/289 . But some things do depend on my background.

For example, the seriousness of my personal situation - the question of whether or not the U.S. government owes the AEA investors about forty million dollars -- and the question of whether I have a right to say that the United States is making serious mistakes - including technical mistakes that are wasting vast amounts of money - and making the world far more dangerous than it has to be.

For example, I say that I've worked hard in important ways since 1991 to get some key messages to the government - under careful, reasonable, classification constraints. Since September 2000, whether you believe my story or not - I've been working at it full time - and asking for a chance to debrief. Whether you "call me Ishmael" or not makes a difference.

I've now set out the key message that I felt must be most classified - in a way that professionals ought to be able to read -- and it is this - it is now technically easy to shoot down every winged aircraft the US has, or can expect to build - to detect every submarine - and to sink every surface ship within 500 miles of land - the technology for doing this is basic - and I see neither technical nor tactical countermeasures. I've finally set that message out in public, because, finally - that is what the reasonable security of the United States requires. The costs and risks of keeping this secret are justified no longer.

In judging that message, it makes a difference whether I'm carrying on a literary exercise - if I'm Ishmael - of if I'm telling the truth. I've been working very hard, trying to get my country to check on that.

Identities do make some difference. Because weights make a difference - and socio-logical connections make a difference.

For example, if gisterme is Rice, then this thread is something that the President of the United States knows something about, and pays some attention to.

When National Security Adviser Rice wrote this, I believe she wrote something profound and hopeful. I'm doing the best I can to help make it true.

" Today, the international community has the best chance since the rise of the nation-state in the seventeenth century to build a world where great powers compete in peace instead of continually prepare for war. . . . . . The United States will build on these common interests to promote global security. " "The National Security Strategy of the United States," http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/20/politics/20STEXT_FULL.html . page 2.

For that to be true - we need to make decisions based on correct information .

I'm doing my duty, as best I can. If I'm correct, and senior people are watching - I hope they care enough about what I've said to check on some key things. It wouldn't be hard to do.

commondata - 11:53am Oct 3, 2002 EST (# 4743 of 4746)

Understood, but if Gisterme is Rice then the president's not listening, he's laughing.

gisterme - 12:18pm Oct 3, 2002 EST (# 4744 of 4746)

commondata 10/3/02 10:06am

"...I don't think that the usefulness or otherwise of this thread should be defined in terms of assumptions about the identity or "importance" of its participants..."

I couldn't agree more with that statement, commondata. You see, Robert, lchic and myself have a lot of history on this thread and Robert insists on trying to assign identities to various posters...like he thinks I'm Condoleeza Rice, even though I've told him over and over that I'm not, nor am I a government employee nor am I in any way associated with the government (except as a voter and a taxpayer) nor am I a female. However, he just goes on imagining that anybody who posts here in a somewhat literate fasion must be some high government official. When confronted with the truth, he just continues his denial. I suppose that's because he couldn't bear to think that nobody who holds high government position pays any attention to his weirdness. It seems to me that he much prefers to conjure a conspiracy that suits his views than to face the truth. He just ignores what he doesn't want to hear.

At any rate, if you look back through the content of this forum you'll see my growing frustration with the Showalter/lchic show. Also keep in mind that there were about 10,000 previous posts on this thread that the NYT decided to just obliterate prior to restarting this current version. As far as I know they didn't even archive the info.

Robert's been posting the same basic stuff over and over for a couple of years now. Most of it has nothing to do with missile defense. My biggest complaint has been that what he says is so nebulous, unfocused and presented with such broad generality that it has no particular application at all except to make it very difficult for casual posters to carry on any dialog on this forum.

Well, commondata, Joe Biden says what he says. What's that got to do with four out of six successes in the MD flight test program to date? I'm not aware of the context of the Biden comment. Can you fill me in or give a link?

Thanks for posting commondata. All I want to do is see this forum get back on track.

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