New York Times on the Web Forums Science

Missile Defense

Nazi engineer and Disney space advisor Wernher Von Braun helped give us rocket science. Today, the legacy of military aeronautics has many manifestations from SDI to advanced ballistic missiles. Now there is a controversial push for a new missile defense system. What will be the role of missile defense in the new geopolitical climate and in the new scientific era?

kalter.rauch - 05:47am Nov 20, 2000 EST (#511 of 525)
Earth vs <^> <^> <^>

Rshowalt

From: Give the public what they want, dept.

No, I'm sorry I am completely unaware of your ordeal under the media gauntlet. What did the Times have to "check out"...whether or not you were some bum begging quarters so you could go use the dripping public terminal down at the bus depot to spam your "wisdom" the world over ?!?!?

Yah, well, I know yer type ye leaky old gaffer...and ye better stay in yer nasty burrow under the bridge when I come round wif Steel Reserve in me belly, and Steel Martins on my toes......

rshowalter - 06:24am Nov 20, 2000 EST (#512 of 525)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

"Paradigm Shift - whose getting there" http://talk.guardianunlimited.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7726f/0 sets the issue out, from my perspective, in a way I hope is both clear and civil.

On the technical matter, are you interested?

I think some people are, and I'm trying to get a key question, that traces back more than 300 years, answered. You can see the issue, clearly stated, several places in the thread cited above, including towards the end.

The issue is a big scale matter of life and death, and not only my own. There's a great deal of money connected to the issue, as well.

If Steve Kline and I are wrong, and then I'll be little more than a grease spot professionally. There will be little need for your steel toed boots.

If I'm right, the technical point matters, and I have hope for it.

But there's also a lesson I'd like to teach - that I should have emphasized in #509-510 here.

It is this. With currently accepted cultural moral standards, checking is never morally forcing in the face of high status opposers with a direct stake - checking is one good among a number, but not forcing. In the rare but important cases where paradigm conflicts occur, some accomodations have to be made, so that, for these cases, checking is forcing.

Without that, no amount of hard work, and no amount of effort (including, and I know this, much good faith) will get closure. And on these paradigm conflict issues, closure on simple, clear, but wrenching questions is what is necessary.

In dealing with me, The New York Times showed some very high ethical and technical function, according to a moral standard, that is now accepted throughout society, that blocked the simple, but stark, checking that was needed under conditions of real conflict and perceptual unease of stakeholders.

According to that standard, the TIMES could have hardly done better. But according to that standard, the problem, recognized to be important by almost everybody concerned (at least much of the time) was insoluble.

It is the moral priority decision itself that is wrong, and needs changing, for paradigm conflict circumstances.

lunarchick - 06:37am Nov 24, 2000 EST (#513 of 525)

U.S. Hails China on Missile Pledge

Updated 3:20 AM ET November 22, 2000

By BARRY SCHWEID, AP Diplomatic Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - China's promise to not help other countries develop ballistic missiles could slow down Iran's ambitious weapons program, U.S. officials say.

But like a similar pledge by Russia, which has not blocked all assistance to Iran, the pledge announced in Beijing and welcomed at the State Department is only as good as China's willingness to implement it, the officials said Tuesday.

Still, the administration responded by immediately waiving economic sanctions on Chinese companies suspected of assisting Pakistan and Iran in the past.

"This development can strengthen cooperation between the United States and China to achieve our common objective of preventing the spread of ballistic missiles that threaten regional and international security," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

As a result, the United States will resume processing licenses for commercial space cooperation between American and Chinese companies, including the launching of U.S. satellites in China, Boucher said.

The two countries also will resume negotiations on extending a 1995 agreement on international trade, he said.

However, Boucher said, new sanctions will be imposed on Iranian and Pakistani military and civilian groups for receiving ballistic missile technology from China.

In Iran, the sanctioned entities are the Defense Industry Organization, the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics and their sub-units.

The sanctioned entities in Pakistan are the Ministry of Defense and the Space and Upper-Atmosphere Research Commission and their sub-units and successors.

Boucher said this means that for two years all new U.S. government contracts will be denied to the Pakistani Ministry of Defense, Space and Upper-Atmosphere Research Commission and there will be no imports of their products into the United States.

The new sanctions will have very limited economic effect because of a U.S. embargo against Iran and earlier U.S. sanctions against Iran and Pakistan, Boucher said. "But they do send a strong signal that the United States opposes these countries' missiles programs."

U.S. officials are not minimizing the promise, especially since it follows a similar pledge by North Korea not to export technology to countries for ballistic missile programs.

China's promise not to sell missiles or components to countries bent on developing nuclear weapons could ease tensions with Washington over long-suspected aid to Pakistan, Iran and North Korea.

The statement, released by the Chinese Foreign Ministry, was China's most explicit pledge to date on refraining from spreading missile technology. It covered not only whole missile systems, which Beijing agreed not to transfer two years ago, but also dual-use components that could be used in other technologies.

"China has no intention to assist, in any way, any country in the development of ballistic missiles that can be used to deliver nuclear weapons," Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi said in the statement carried by the official Xinhua News Agency. http://news.excite.com/news/ap/001122/03/int-us-china

queen108 - 11:47pm Dec 2, 2000 EST (#514 of 525)
See simplicity in the complicated.

The New York Times showed some very high ethical and technical function, according to a moral standard, that is now accepted throughout society

Define propaganda

(11 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense