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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.

almarst2002 - 12:48pm Dec 11, 2002 EST (# 6464 of 6477)

"judging what they'd do to us by what they say"

I think their judgements are on WHAT ACTUALY WAS DONE TO THEM. While saying all the nice words.

Speaking of the ME Scorpion...

rshow55 - 12:50pm Dec 11, 2002 EST (# 6465 of 6477)
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 12/11/02 12:46pm

The United States does have some respect for international law. A lot of good things could happen.

almarst2002 - 12:56pm Dec 11, 2002 EST (# 6466 of 6477)

rshow55 12/11/02 12:50pm

Quite unexpectedly?

rshow55 - 12:56pm Dec 11, 2002 EST (# 6467 of 6477)
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 12/11/02 12:48pm - - the question of what was actually done to them - - is a very good question. If the whole world were clearer about such issues - we might be less optimistic in spots - but we'd see the problems that are there to solve.

Neither the US nor Europe, nor the "developed world" owe much of their wealth or power to exploitation of any kind. It might be easier for all concerned if they did.

There are many people who feel that somehow the advanced nations have oppressed them. Things are in a bad way - there are terrible human tragedies going on - but to understand them - we need to be much clearer than we are about what is going on.

If the poorest four billion people in the world, and the nations they lived in, simply sunk under the sea - the developed nations would be but little inconvenienced - or effected.

That may be horrible - it is horrible - but it is not something the advanced nations did to the poorer ones.

almarst2002 - 01:07pm Dec 11, 2002 EST (# 6468 of 6477)

"If the poorest four billion people in the world, and the nations they lived in, simply sunk under the sea - the developed nations would be but little inconvenienced - or effected."

We can extrapolate it some future. If the poorest 70% of the wealty nations sunk under the sea, the richest 1% will hardly notice.

Eventulally, Dont you think you also exadurate your own importance? May be God will not notice if this whole Planet disappeares overnight?

rshow55 - 01:23pm Dec 11, 2002 EST (# 6469 of 6477)
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 12/11/02 1:07pm - - - you make an absolutely central point. We've got problems where a "laissez faire" economic model - without other human values - - leads to horror. And where the horror is already substantial - if not by commission by the wealthy nations - - by default.

But to get past that - there are not only questions of the heart - there are intellectual problems, too - - some of which, it seems to me -we're close to solving.

Here's a set of ideals, mostly not religious - in a song I like:

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