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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.

gisterme - 08:41pm Feb 27, 2003 EST (# 9345 of 9353)

Seeking to Deploy Missiles Before Full Testing By DAVID FIRESTONE (NYT) News http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/27/politics/27MISS.html

"The Pentagon wants to begin deploying its missile defense system on the West Coast next year, before it is fully tested,...

Hmmm. Gotta wonder if the President knows something we don't.

"..."Given the potential cost of a failure of missile defense, I believe that, if anything, it should be required to meet more stringent test standards than normally required," wrote Senator Dianne Feinstein of California to Mr. Rumsfeld last week..."

Yeah! Go girl! But wait! What does she mean, "Given the possible potential cost of a failure of missile defense"? Is Senator Feinstein implying that if say, NK fired a missile at San Francisco and a missile defense system failed to stop it, the cost would be appreciably more than if there were no defense at all? It would seem so. It seems to me that in either case, San Francisco would become a wasteland.

In my view it's better to have an initial four-in-seven chance of defending against such an attack than none at all, especially if as time goes by the chances of successful defense improve. Of course the "four-in-seven" number derives from the success record of the current test program with only a single interceptor launched.

Making an apparant assumption that the current MD testing is not already realistic, Senator Feinstein continues:

"...I believe that the Department of Defense should strive to increase testing, including realistic challenges of the system's ability to work under real world conditions and ensure that the current system failures are corrected before deployment."..."

There's something I can agree with. Why aren't we seeing a headline like:

" SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN SUPPORTS ACCELLERATED MISSILE DEFENSE TESTING " in the NYT? No doubt such a healine could be found in the San Francisco Chronicle. Yeah, right.

lchic - 10:34pm Feb 27, 2003 EST (# 9346 of 9353)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

We all know the letter isn't genuine .... it's not written in Arabic ... that apart sheep's eyeballs aren't a culinary treat -- VEGIE!

~~~~

Letter to Ed in Thurs27TheAustralian said 60Million people were killed WWII.

Look at the 'intentions' of those entering a war --- that the Turks are wanting an oilLAND-Grab is the sort of logic that turns a small war into a big war!!

The Pulse of The Australian - Letters

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/sectionindex2/0,5746,ausletters1^^TEXT,00.html

lchic - 10:53pm Feb 27, 2003 EST (# 9347 of 9353)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Oprah's doing ok - BILLIONAIRE LIST

Oprah is the third self-made woman to ever make the list. The others are Doris Fisher of the Gap, who remains on the list, and Martha Stewart, who was on in 2000 and then lost her position http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,6053759%5E401,00.html

robkettenburg03 - 05:38am Feb 28, 2003 EST (# 9348 of 9353)

Secret CIA Office Destroyed in World Trade Center - http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/11/04/inv.newyork.cia.office/

My Home Page - http://www.angelfire.com/ny5/robkettenburg

lchic - 06:36am Feb 28, 2003 EST (# 9349 of 9353)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

GU talk | Tony Benn live online

A veteran peace campaigner, in February 2003 he went to Iraq to interview Saddam Hussein, because "the cause of peace requires us to hear the president just as we hear President Bush and prime minister Blair".

Post your questions below and join Mr Benn live online on Thursday March 6 at 2pm.

Read more: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,,885166,00.html http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,,889188,00.html

http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?50@@.4a90d434

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense