New York Times on the Web Forums Science

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 - 06:17am Feb 16, 2003 EST (# 8979 of 8985)
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.

Peking Duct Tape By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/16/opinion/16FRIE.html

"Friends, with every great world war has come a new security system. World War I gave birth to the League of Nations and an attempt to recreate a balance of power in Europe, which proved unstable. World War II gave birth to the U.N., NATO, the I.M.F. and the bipolar American-Soviet power structure, which proved to be quite stable until the end of the cold war. Now, 9/11 has set off World War III, and it, too, is defining a new international order.

"The new world system is also bipolar, but instead of being divided between East and West, it is divided between the World of Order and the World of Disorder.

9/11 killed under 3000 people - and AlQueda, so far, has killed something fewer than 3500, so far as I can recall. That's a long way from World War II. We have to build on the security systems that we have - and modify them.

A fundamental requirement of a stable "World of Order" is honesty - and defensible senses of proportion. There are some fundamental questions about the legitimacy of the United States as a leader of the world - many going back to the Cold War - and the fact that, when the Cold War ended - and we should have made adjustments - we didn't have an end game.

I set out some of my personal story, and my sense of the Cold War, in reference to the movie Casablanca , in PSYCHWARFARE , CASABLANCA, AND TERROR http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/0 . Especially the core story part, from posting 13 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/12 to posting 23 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/22 There is a comment in #26 that I feel some may find interesting, as well...

Much else is organized if you click " rshow55" in the upper left hand corner of this posting - and postings set out here for many months.

I've been working on Guardian threads since June 2000, and on the NYT Missile Defense thread since September 25, 2000 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.Wu3daNnU3Lh.926683@.f28e622/2006 where I had an all-day meeting on the web with an authoritative figure.

A recounting of what the Missile Defense thread has done since then is set out in Psychwar, Casablanca - - and terror from #151 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/159 on. Links before March 1, 2002 are no longer on this web, but I'll be providing accessible links to the summaries from #151-156 today. Discussion of this thread continues from #265 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/281 .

If the body of assertions about facts set out on this board were checked - the risks and costs the world faces would be much less. For a stable World Of Order needs to be based on understanding - not lethal, wasteful misunderstanding. We're at a point where, for this to happen - leaders of nation states outside the US are going to have to ask for checking. It should be easier now, than at some times in the past.

lchic - 07:04am Feb 16, 2003 EST (# 8980 of 8985)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

'The foreign policy is so selective in it's draw that it's disgusting' quote from a marcher

Hundreds of thousands turn out to march and protest PEACE

lchic - 07:08am Feb 16, 2003 EST (# 8981 of 8985)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

At the close of WWII the USA was considering a landing into Japan .... it had 250,000 purple heart medals struck ...

Tactics changed but, the same 'purple hearts' are still available.

almarst2002 - 09:44am Feb 16, 2003 EST (# 8982 of 8985)

The Unseen Gulf War - http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0212/pt_intro.html

Many people have asked the question "how many people died" during the war with Iraq and the question has never been well answered. That first morning, I saw and photographed a U.S. Military 'graves detail' bury in large graves many bodies.

I don't recall seeing many television images of the human consequences of this scene, or for that matter many photographs published. A day later, I came across another scene on an obscure road further north and to the east where, in the middle of the desert, I found a convoy of lorries transporting Iraqi soldiers back to Baghdad, where clearly massive fire power had been dropped and everyone in sight had been carbonized. Most of the photographs I made of this scene have never been published anywhere and this has always troubled me.

(3 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense