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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 - 02:06am Oct 24, 2002 EST (# 5182 of 5189)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

RU Theatre | http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/europe/2355627.stm

~~~~~

rshow55 10/23/02 8:16pm and next

lchic - 02:39am Oct 24, 2002 EST (# 5183 of 5189)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Wouldn't want to be President of Russia this week - would we!

Brainstorming required re RU-Moscow-Theatre

Usual tack is brute force

Different tack might be to bring in more people they know -

Explain and sell on vision for that small nation

Demonstrate the roles locals could fulfil

Get the RU audience to sing a few culturally acceptable verses and show enthusiasm for cause.

Show 'love' and demonstrate acculturation, and try to move towards reconcilliation.

~~~~~~

Was the theater (x-factory) chosen for location or was the essence of the story of the play a factor - or none of the above.

~~~~~

A bullet stops Washington

A threat of bomb stops Moscow

If they don't take Nukes down - how long before a crazy tries to 'stop' a vast geo-region?

kalter.rauch - 04:21am Oct 24, 2002 EST (# 5184 of 5189)
Earth vs <^> <^> <^>

commondata 10/23/02 4:43pm

...Gisterme, you've never heard of more than 100,000 people being killed deliberately by US policy?

You're as inconsistent as lchic. I don't know how you figure "US policy" is killing Iraqi children when it's the UN that has agreed on the "oil for food, etc." program. Iraq COULD be fed if Sodom Hussy would actually spend the $$$ on food, medicine, etc. Instead, he builds endless "palaces" and buys surplus military equipment from defunct ex-Soviet bloc countries. Therefore the $$$ won't be forthcoming.

kalter.rauch - 04:28am Oct 24, 2002 EST (# 5185 of 5189)
Earth vs <^> <^> <^>

I mean, lchic prattles on about Sodom freeing ALL the prisoners in Iraq (except for the one's he doesn't want to release). Is THAT supposed to be "justice"...to release murderers and robbers along with political prisoners? What will be the horrible, grisly fate in store for the relatives of the "disappeared" when the staged a protest the other day? They'll "disappear" as well into the he|_|_ of Sodom's torture dungeons!!!

commondata - 05:10am Oct 24, 2002 EST (# 5186 of 5189)

gisterme 10/23/02 6:23pm

One could fairly say that culpability for all the deaths caused by the invasion of Kuwait and it's liberation lie at the feet of Saddam.

I'm sure you sleep very soundly at night, Gisterme, but fortunately you're completely out of touch with public opinion beyond your borders and completely out of touch with international law. A report for the UN secretary general, written by Professor Marc Bossuyt, a distinguished authority on international law, says that the "sanctions regime against Iraq is unequivocally illegal under existing human rights law" and "could raise questions under the Genocide convention".

A growing body of legal opinion agrees that the ICC has a duty, as Eric Herring wrote, to investigate "not only the regime, but also the UN bombing and sanctions which have violated the human rights of Iraqi civilians on a vast scale by denying them many of the means necessary for survival. It should also investigate those who assisted Saddam Hussein's programs of now prohibited weapons, including western governments and companies".

In an Foreign Affairs, authors John and Karl Mueller called the U.N. sanctions against Iraq ``weapons of mass destruction,'' more deadly than those the sanctions aim to eradicate.

In August 2000, the UN Subcommission on the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights issued an appeal for the end of sactions in two resolutions adopted at its annual meeting in Geneva. It said the sanctions, imposed 10 years ago after Iraq invaded Kuwait, had "condemned an innocent people to hunger, disease, ignorance and even death".

commondata - 05:11am Oct 24, 2002 EST (# 5187 of 5189)

gisterme 10/23/02 6:23pm

If you think it's not a crime to rape your neighbor then say so, commondata. If you think it's a crime to help your friend when she's being raped, then say so.

While we're being emotive (which I think is an excellent idea) you might like to consider 2 World Trade Centres full of children going down every month as a deliberate result of US policy.

Go tell Saddam that your whining and defending of his atrocities isn't impressing many folks.

When have I ever defended an attrocity?

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