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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.

rshow55 - 08:42am Feb 3, 2003 EST (# 8548 of 8558)
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.

Suppressing warnings - and suppressing any kind of dissent that might be percieved as undermining group cohesion - is a matter of honor in the military - and in most organizations - where "honor" doesn't mean something like loyalty to some abstract truth - or larger public good - i it means loyalty to the standards of a particular group.

When you hear of "honor killing" in islamic nations - the practice is repugnant to us - but the phrase "honor killing" reflects that in terms of their perceptions of what honor is - killing women who violate group prohibitions is doing a duty.

So I hesitate to think of people as dishonorable -but it still makes sense to ask "honorable about what - and with loyalty to whom and to what?"

The idea that the current appointees to the NASA commission will be looking for the truth - or protecting the public interest in ways the public at large would actually value most highly - has to be taken with more than a grain of salt. It may happen to be true - but it nothing a reasonable person, knowing how commissions work, could reasonably assume.

Military standards, especially - put respect for the truth in a very subordinated position to some other values - - and are supposed to.

Everybody else ought to remember that, when dealing with military officers. Including the best, most honorable among them. They expect conformity.

Other governmental organizations - especially ones with very close connections to the military -are much the same.

NASA Dismissed Advisers Who Warned About Safety By WILLIAM J. BROAD and CARL HULSE http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/03/national/03NASA.html sets out a serious and all-too-familiar situation.

This Wed, the US is going to present its evidence, such as it is, on Iraq's noncompliance and intransigence to the UN Security Council. Whatever the truth of the case may be - everyone involved ought to be sure that it is a case constructed by people selected - over long duration - for their skill in pleasing their superiors and colleagues. Few efforts to contradict the wishes of the President of the United States can be expected in the preparation or presentation of that case.

For that reason, it seems to me to be important for leaders of nation states to determine if I'm right that gisterme either is, or is close to, the President of the United States. Because if that is correct, we have on this thread a very good corpus of material on how Bush thinks - the kind of thinking he approves of, and the kinds of arguments he uses.

lchic - 09:01am Feb 3, 2003 EST (# 8549 of 8558)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

HPMs

""If there's a second Gulf War, get ready to meet the high-power microwave.

HPMs are man-made lightning bolts crammed into cruise missiles. They could be key weapons for targeting Saddam Hussein's stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons. HPMs fry the sophisticated computers and electronic gear necessary to produce, protect, store and deliver such agents. The powerful electromagnetic pulses can travel into deeply buried bunkers through ventilation shafts, plumbing and antennas. But unlike conventional explosives, they won't spew deadly agents into the air, where they could poison Iraqi civilians or advancing U.S. troops.

The HPM is a top-secret program ...

http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101030127/nmicro.html

ledzeppelin - 12:19pm Feb 3, 2003 EST (# 8550 of 8558)

gisterme - 02:00am Feb 3, 2003 EST (# 8507 of 8536) “Until the "bang" that is. I for one am glad we're not waiting for that.”

Sadly I fear we are, or the likes of Osama bin Laden would be in custody and the reoccurring problems within Kuwait and Afghanistan, Yemen etc., would not keep slapping us in the face reminding us that terrorist organisations operate with impunity still.

almarst2002 - 06:14pm Feb 3, 2003 EST (# 8551 of 8558)

“Until the "bang"

The PREEMPTIVE doctrine forced (or soon will) all NOT TO WAIT FOR ONE.

lchic - 06:35pm Feb 3, 2003 EST (# 8552 of 8558)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Seems the US will be rushing in with LARGE microwave ovens -- to spit roast Iraqi Host!

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