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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 - 11:07am Feb 21, 2003 EST (# 9175 of 9177)
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.

"...We need this war, and need it in a hurry , for what purpose exactly ?..."

You gave reasons. Reasons with weight. Not the only issues involved - and not necessarily reasons to hurry.

Even you, gisterme - and even GWB - live in a world of other people - and other nations.

Iraq is important - but international order is, as well. It isn't clear to a lot of people - including me - that working through the process of discussion at the UN isn't safer - even if it pospones invasion for six-ten months - than an invasion that makes a shambles of patterns of international law that are developing - and developing, usually, according to patterns very much in the interest of the United States.

If the US can't convince the members of the Security Council - with the vote patterns that exist (including vetos) -- there may be good reasons to get things right - - in ways that make international order stronger, rather than weaker -- rather than hurry.

rshow55 - 11:29am Feb 21, 2003 EST (# 9176 of 9177)
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.

Hurry, at the price of disorder and mistakes - is not a reasonable course.

8742 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.uYH0abYr3vl.1802180@.f28e622/10268

Order is important. But it is important to ask - order for what? According to what priorities, assumptions, and balances? In the service of what?

Judgement matters - 8678-8679 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.uYH0abYr3vl.1802180@.f28e622/10204 include some links to WHEN THE FOUNDATIONS ARE SHAKING by James Slatton http://www.mrshowalter.net/sermon.html cited on this thread over the years.

Even with good intentions - - disasters can occur if people are sure of themselves - actively push what they believe - and are wrong. Nor can good intentions - both conscious and unconscious, always be assumed - especially when deeper motivations are considered. The Enron mess involved plenty of bad intentions - but some "well intended actions" (at least at the conscious level) may have been among the most destructive.

Company Man to the End, After All By KURT EICHENWALD http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/09/business/yourmoney/09LAYY.html

Bush spent too much time during the campaign on the Enron plane for me to be sure of his "direct line to God". His direct line to Enron is far clearer, for instance. Corruption isn't unreasonable to think about - moral - logical - legal - for him or any other politician. Fallibility is certainly reasonable to think about.

http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b2bd/1636 makes an essential point:

" People say and do things. .

" What people say and do have consequences, for themselves and for other people. .

" People need to deal with and understand these consequences, for all sorts of practical, down to earth reasons. .

" So everybody has a stake in right answers on questions of fact that they have to use as assumptions for what they say and do.

It is a good thing that the nations in NATO and in the UN are paying attention.

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