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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 - 01:51pm Jan 24, 2003 EST (# 8002 of 8009)
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.

Bush Weighs Extending U.N. Weapons Inspections in Iraq By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 1:17 p.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Iraq.html is a good step, careful, guarded, reversible - in the right direction.

I notice that the Bush administration makes a good number of such steps.

wanderero85us - 01:52pm Jan 24, 2003 EST (# 8003 of 8009)
Bush - the poster boy for the Peter Principle

Poor Bush, gonna have to back down.

almarst2002 - 02:21pm Jan 24, 2003 EST (# 8004 of 8009)

If thing are going in the direction as they are and US is going along with a war, I can see the fundamental breakdown of most post-WWII institutions including UN and NATO.

I could be the last one to lose a sleep over NATO. UN however, is quite enother story. For all its falts, it provided at least some kind of an open forum. Some hope for more civilized future.

We may see the major political realinments and rebalancing at best or ... much worst then that.

almarst2002 - 02:24pm Jan 24, 2003 EST (# 8005 of 8009)

The Unseen Gulf War - http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/2003/01/000267.html Posted by Lakshmi on January 24, 2003 @ 10:37AM

With George Bush determined to go to war within the next few weeks, photojournalist Peter Turnley offers powerful evidence of the horrors of the last Gulf War.

The images of charred and mutilated bodies offer a gruesome and accurate look at the horrors of war. Most powerful are the photographs that capture the devastating effects of the Allied aircraft attack on the "Mile of Death," the stretch of the Jahra highway that was repeatedly bombed as a large number of Iraqis beat a hasty retreat back to Baghdad.

Of the value of his work, Turnley writes, "This past war and any one looming, have often been treated as something akin to a 'Nintendo game'. This view conveniently obscures the vivid and often grotesque realities apparent to those directly involved in war."

rshow55 - 03:30pm Jan 24, 2003 EST (# 8006 of 8009)
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.

Almarst , it may go better than you think. If NATO "dies" - a EU alliance will rise from the ashes pretty quickly, I'd expect.

As for the "death" of the UN - if the US is in a unilateral stance - how difficult would it be just to reconstruct a "UN-1" - with every agreement the "same" - except that the US would no longer be included? The administrative difficulties would be pretty small - and a lot might clarify.

Communication is much faster and denser than it used to be - and the basic mechanisms coming into place will keep some of the worst things we can fear from happening. Even so, many, many thousands or millions of lives may be destroyed or wasted unless we do some careful work now - work that would be easy to do.

In http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/24/international/europe/24ALLI.html - Sanger quotes national leaders saying some sensible things but afraid to speak.

How difficult would it be for them to speak up - if not in every forum - in places where everybody with a stake could check facts - and sort things out? What's all the fear about?

If people know, perhaps they know enough to change the reasons for the fear.

If leaders of nation states just wanted a simple corpus of interconnected facts checked - such as the one on this board - with as much crosschecking and umpiring as anybody could wish - a lot would clarify.

From so much "collecting of the dots" and "connecting of the dots" many, many dangerous lies and muddles would be ruled out - and some more comfortable understandings would be likely to come.

Everybody involved is repressing a lot of things that they know, but don't want to think about. With a little more thinking - and some judgement about what matters - a lot could get better. The Bush administration may be moving against such things sometimes - but they are taking positive steps, as well.

Almarst , I think your postings on this thread have produced some positive steps toward understanding - and I appreciate them.

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