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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 - 05:42pm Jan 14, 2003 EST (# 7640 of 7644)
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.

<a href="/webin/WebX?14@93.6Jjfabs00cQ^177570@.f28e622/9162">lchic 1/14/03 5:16pm</a> asks important questions. How can we get to a workable and comfortable story with respect to Iraq and Korea? How a Story is Shaped. http://www.fortunecity.com/lavendar/ducksoup/555/storyshape.html

Where are there zones of stable, predictable shared space? . . . A Communication Model http://www.worldtrans.org/TP/TP1/TP1-17.HTML

Could the situation, as it has evolved and now exists - be depicted in a way that everyone could recognize, and trace through at the level of events - with the primordial Disney characters? Disney Characters http://www.whom.co.uk/squelch/world_disney.htm

I'm feeling optimistic, but also frustrated. Trying to make points people can use.

Here are questions that are technically important, stated as compactly as I dare make them, subject to the fact that now one talks to me face to face directly.

Could Saddam fairly, accurately praise George Bush, in language that he could publicise world wide - and that Bush would recognize - in terms of facts?

Could Bush fairly, accurately praise Sadam, in language that he could publicise world wide - and that Bush would recognize - in terms of facts?

For a stable peace - even in the sense that "the war between the sexes" can be peaceful - there have to be affirmative answers - and enough of them for stability.

The requirements don't look hard for me. If the nations involved could just switch signs - and take turns in their interaction, every time - rather than confront and try to paralyze, every time.

So far as I can tell, nobody would have to concede anything that they actually need to have. The adjustments necessary would be in the interests of all concerned.

Because disagreement is so total - there's quite a lot of hope for oscillatory solutions - it seems to me.

But there would have to be some straight talking - about something detailed enough so that a workably common language - workably canonical in the ways that matter - could come into being.

I think a lot of progress has been made - and there is a lot of praise that can fairly be administered to both sides.

With some reservations.

I'm doing the best I can - trying to get some formal things clear - pardon me if I seem muddled.

Can Saddam and Bush talk straight, about anything of consequence - even something well removed from key interests either one of them feels? Could they go to a museum together, and spend an hour without fighting? Or watch a movie together, and discuss it, without fighting?

They have to learn to do that - or an exterminatory fight both are working hard to avoid has to happen.

That's how it seems to me, by inspection. I've traced out 20 sequences - and that's how they work out.

We ought to be able to work this out well.

rshow55 - 05:45pm Jan 14, 2003 EST (# 7641 of 7644)
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.

Both Saddam and Bush, whatever they do - have to work very carefully - because of switching signals - some being sent by people who want ugly fights - keep disturbing the system. The Palestinian mess is a big part of the problem - and the Saudis, who are very helpful sometimes, are about as helpful as a malicious mother in law at other times.

rshow55 - 05:49pm Jan 14, 2003 EST (# 7642 of 7644)
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.

I swear, this thing looks soluble - not even all that hard, if people will just take their time - and recognize that some conflicts, at some levels - are inescapable - and not wrong.

Here's a fact. If two animals are different enough, and fighting, the only hope of a stable accomodation without killing requires a clean, neat ( small ) threat display at the start of every interaction.

Both the North Koreans and the Iraqis have been reduced to that state for quite some time.

That's hopeful - if we have sense enough to ask what - as a practical matter -the threats are about - and how big the threats as a practical matter are.

If Bush is being blackmailed, I'd love to know about what. If he made the blackmail public - in every detail - that might (I can't know details) be enough to resolve the whole situation. Just guessing. But it is a guess worth thinking about.

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