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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 - 07:00pm Mar 14, 2003 EST (# 9946 of 9979)
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.

9879 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.1UqAabrD5zO.1971895@.f28e622/11421 - - I think Bush, Blair, and the president of Spain should exercise power in ways that are as graceful as they can be - and support the idea of international law. Even if it didn't work this time - as an ideal - and with as much consistency with that ideal is they can muster.

If you have to go beyond current international law - a good lawyer like Blair has to be able to explain it - to Brits and the rest of the world, too.

You've got a lot of support - on a significant number of points - and should take that position that you're exercising power, when it is necessary - and at the same time - building international law. Not walking away from it.

That's good politics - good international politics - and good sense in reality, and in the eyes of history.

rshow55 - 07:08pm Mar 14, 2003 EST (# 9947 of 9979)
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.

Exception handling: 9860 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.1UqAabrD5zO.1971895@.f28e622/11402

Gisterme has a lot at stake with these issues - and Bush does, as well 9056 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.1UqAabrD5zO.1971895@.f28e622/10582

You don't have to make an "either-or" choice between US interests and the UN - and if you do - you'll be hurting the US national interest - and hurting the viability of the Republican party, as well.

gisterme - 07:29pm Mar 14, 2003 EST (# 9948 of 9979)

rshow55 - 06:51pm Mar 14, 2003 EST (# 9945 of ...) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.1UqAabrD5zO.1971895@.f28e622/11490

"...Though your plan sounds like a good plan..."

That's not my plan, Robert. That's just how I think things could happen in a best-case scenario. It could even go better than that.

I'm pretty sure that the governement has already carefully checked to see if the person Dan Rather interviewed was really Saddam.

Still, even if it wasn't that wouldn't mean that Saddam is dead. Since Saddam is known to have manufactured a number of "body doubles" there's no way of knowing that Saddam hasn't drastically changed his own appearance. For all I know Saddam could look just like Michael Jackson!

However, it's not the nature of a megalomaniac to change his appearance too much if he wants his orders to be followed. If he did that and he ever had to flee, there's no chance that he'd ever be able to regain power as himself. That's because only a very few people would know him by his altered identity.

So I think Saddam's still alive alright. If he isn't that won't matter much. "Getting Saddam" is not the main thing this possible war is about anyway. Liberating Iraq from tyrany and removing the threat of WMD-armed terrorists is what it's about.

I heard someone on TV (some Senator or Representative I believe) recounting a story told him by a recent defector from Iraq. The defector was a high ranking officer in Saddam's army:

At one of those meetings between Saddam and his general staff in the underground bunker (oft shown on TV) suddenly the lights went out. When the lights came back on again, the only person under the table was Saddam! Obviously, Saddam is scared and doesn't even trust his own officers. How Stalin-like! The man's a coward.

I doubt that a man that paranoid would ever allow himself to be rendered unconscious for cosmetic surgery.

gisterme - 07:39pm Mar 14, 2003 EST (# 9949 of 9979)

rshow55 - 07:08pm Mar 14, 2003 EST (# 9947 of ...) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.1UqAabrD5zO.1971895@.f28e622/11491

"...Gisterme has a lot at stake with these issues..."

You're mistaken on that point, Robert. I have nothing at stake with those issues. I'm just one who expresses his own opinions.

I also disagree that it would make any difference if Saddam were dead. Any "proof" provided would be proclaimed to be "not enough to convince me" by some. After all, if Saddam is dead, then somebody else is running the show in Iraq. Could it be Ben Laden? Saddam's sons? Chirac? What difference would it make?

Since Saddam has good quality body doubles, the only way to know for sure that a person we have is Saddam is to examine DNA evidence. Do you suppose Saddam was kind enough to give Dan Rather a lock of his hair? I doubt it.

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