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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 - 07:31pm Nov 20, 2002 EST (# 5999 of 6004)
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.

almarst2002 11/20/02 7:19pm

Not deep at all - and there is very little support for turning the world into a global empire of the United States. The US has some deep isolationist impulses.

At the same time the US has a tradition that it is justified to use force to counter threats. As a people - we're not averse to "meeting bad manners with worse manners" - especially when we do, in fact, have power.

Why, in your moral terms shouldn't we insist that Saddam disarm, as he has repeatedly agreed to do?

And if he won't - why, exactly, should we not use military force to take his regime down?

If we judge Saddam by his words and actions, why not kill him, and the people who back him, if he refuses to disarm as he's agreed to do?

rshow55 - 07:56pm Nov 20, 2002 EST (# 6000 of 6004)
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.

'Wilson's Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing, and Catastrophe in the 21st Century' by ROBERT S. McNAMARA and JAMES G. BLIGHT http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/29/books/chapters/29-1stmcnam.html bears careful reading, with emotions and analyticial capacities both working at adult levels.

Condemnation Without Absolutes by Stanley Fish http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/15/opinion/15FISH.html is interesting, too. Some things, by many standards, are absolute enough.

There are key things to check, patterns that generalize relationships that "condense out of the chaos of human relations" again and again. They are stability conditions. They should be checked, every which way, when stability matters enough to think hard about, for real systems involving real human beings, and real stakes:

Berle's Laws of Power
Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs
The Golden Rule
MD2906 rshow55 7/8/02 5:56am

Think about these constraints, and sometimes "impossibly complex' problems become "simple." And practical. ... Technical constraints that are entirely inanimate matter, too.

3740-3741 rshow55 8/16/02 7:59am

2738 rshow55 6/27/02 6:20am

Maslow image: 2749 rshow55 6/27/02 4:18pm - - -

These things are important, but people don't automatically know them, or think about them. They need to be checked, understood, learned, and taught.

Lunarchick's simple lines need to be understood, too. They are basic, and people who don't know them should.

Adults need secrets, lies, and fictions
To live within their contradictions.

When it matters enough contradictions can be sorted out - and simpler, safer, better answers can emerge.

We've got a chance to make the death and agony from war much less - by working to set up reasonable standards of international law.

Iraq's disarmament - in the presence of careful discussion - can be a big step toward that. A step that should be very much in Russia's interest. A step that ought to be in the interest of people of good will all over the world.

lunarchick - 07:59pm Nov 20, 2002 EST (# 6001 of 6004)

National Leaderships :

1. Leaders need to set professional standards

2. People whose standards aren't met need rescue

rshow55 - 08:01pm Nov 20, 2002 EST (# 6002 of 6004)
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.

There are a lot of - independent but reinforcing - lines for discussion and rescue - both logical and tangible - coming into being.

Conditions are coming into being where better answers can converge.

Answers that work, and are beautiful and understandable, to the people involved.

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