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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 - 02:54pm Mar 10, 2003 EST (# 9758 of 9763)
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 , we both live along a continuum of trust and distrust about governments. I'm not the most trusting soul you'll ever find - but there are times, and many of them, when I think you err on the side of being, in C.P. Snow's phrase, one of the

"cynical and unworldly."

The US is corrupt in spots - but not in a lot of the ways you think it is - and with more good will than you'd often acknowledge. That doesn't make the stakes any less important - but you can make things harder by shutting off shared space.

Even when you're fighting - you don't want to do that.

rshow55 - 02:56pm Mar 10, 2003 EST (# 9759 of 9763)
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 Pressing Leaders on Vote By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 1:51 p.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-US-Iraq.html

The spokesman said Bush was emphasizing humanitarian arguments for war with Iraq. The calls came on a day when Russia said more explicitly than ever that it would veto the new resolution.

``It's worth remembering what happened to the people of Kosovo, it's worth remembering what happened to the people of Rwanda,'' Fleischer said.

The world stood by in 1994 when hundreds of thousands of Rwandans were being slaughtered at home. Critics said the United Nations and the United States took no action. In the run-up to NATO's bombing of Kosovo in 1999, a resolution authorizing force was withdrawn in the face of a threatened Russian veto.

``The United Nations has previously sat on the sidelines as people died and as injustice was done as a result of vetoes or veto threats from other nations,'' Fleischer said. ``If they were to veto, which is indeed a possibility, it would be from a moral point of view more than a disappointment -- it would let down millions of people around the world, in this case Iraq, who deserve to be free and have a better life.''

Gisterme , I agree, and agree strongly that standards on human rights need to be much better than they are. I also agree that humanitarian considerations can be a very good reason for exercises of American power.

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense