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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.

gisterme - 02:51pm Oct 23, 2002 EST (# 5151 of 5174)

commondata 10/23/02 7:05am

"...When I told you about the Iraqi death toll figures provided by the UN your intelligent and carefully considered response was "you lying communist"...

Nope. My carefully considered response was "That's a lie". You put the "communist" part on yourself. And your statement was quite untrue. What you said was:

"More Iraqis were killed in the Gulf War than have been killed by all weapons of mass destruction."

Highest estimates I've seen about Iraqi lives lost in the Gulf War was 100,000. You said that that number is higher than the number killed by all weapons of mass destruction. I wish that were true but it's just not. That's why I'd personally like to see weapons of mass destruction removed from the world.

Approximately 20 million people died as a result of WWII. Of those about 170,000 died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It's also estimated that about 400,000 American and several million Japanese lives were saved because that war ended without an invasion of Japan.

It's estimated that another 50-60 thousand on both sides died in gas attacks during WWI. God only knows how many Iranians and Kurds died in Saddams's attacks.

I think your problem with your figures may be that you've bought into the Iraqi propaganda that blames present sanctions on the US. The blame for those sanctions and the suffering and loss of life that may be associated with them lies squarely at the feet of Saddam Hussein as you well know.

You framed your untrue statement in such a way as to make it sound as if the US were responsible for every life lost in the Gulf War. As you also well know, that war was a UN action carried out by a coalition. That action successfully ended the rape of Kuwait by Saddam.

"...That seems to come about as close to a definition of hypocrisy as you're going to get..."

You do show your hypocracy along with your disingenuousness, commondata.

gisterme - 02:59pm Oct 23, 2002 EST (# 5152 of 5174)

rshow55 10/23/02 9:17am

"...If I'm right about who gisterme is,..."

You don't have a clue, Robert. You can't even get the gender right when I tell you what it is. Your pompous attitude remindes me of the character of Gen. George Custer as portrayed on the movie "Little Big Man":

...What??? Change a Custer decision? You're a mule skinner no matter what you say!...

If you weren't so serious about yourself, Robert, you'd be comical. You seem to have as much trouble with the truth as lchic. When the truth is not what you want to hear, you just make something up that better suits your fantasy.

rshow55 - 03:02pm Oct 23, 2002 EST (# 5153 of 5174)
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.

Well, we're agreed that it would be good to get rid of weapons of mass destruction.

But that can only happen, as a practical matter, with broad agreement . For myself, I wonder how many people around the world consider the US blameless for the deaths in Iraq due to the sanctions.

Blame is a problematic notion - and cycles of blame - - like cycles of violence -- can get out of hand.

For us to lessen inhumanity in the future - - we have to deal with things that have happened - within the limitations that we can actually make work - as things are.

I thought some postings from February 27th, 2001 - a few days before almarst was invited on the board - were worth posting again, and did so in #s 358-365 in Mankind's Inhumanity to man and woman -- as natural as human breathing? http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b085/401

rshow55 - 03:04pm Oct 23, 2002 EST (# 5154 of 5174)
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 10/23/02 2:59pm - - - I sure could be wrong - but I know that - and notice how often things could be checked - - - if there wasn't such systematic resistance to that.

I appreciate your 700+ postings on this board - maybe we both have some comic moments - but there's hard effort going on, as well.

lchic - 03:24pm Oct 23, 2002 EST (# 5155 of 5174)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

http://news.bbc.co.uk/

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