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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.

mazza9 - 12:59am Feb 24, 2002 EST (#11792 of 11808)
Louis Mazza

lchic:

You speak of lies and yet you spread this unsubstanitated propaganda. 1984? Newspeak? Way to go!

LouMazza

lchic - 06:06am Feb 24, 2002 EST (#11793 of 11808)

1984 is a novel

A damatisation of it held the memorable catchphrase words
"Big Brother is Watching You!"

He's watching you too mAzzA - take care!

almarst-2001 - 09:32am Feb 24, 2002 EST (#11794 of 11808)

"Way to go"

And go we do.

almarst-2001 - 09:44am Feb 24, 2002 EST (#11795 of 11808)

The Politics of Dead Children - http://www.reason.com/0203/fe.mw.the.shtml

almarst-2001 - 12:25pm Feb 24, 2002 EST (#11796 of 11808)

Blair and Bush to plot war on Iraq - http://www.guardian.co.uk/Observer/international/story/0,6903,656231,00.html

almarst-2001 - 12:48pm Feb 24, 2002 EST (#11797 of 11808)

Former MP and peace campaigner Tony Benn - http://politicstalk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?50@@.ee97c9f/1

"Since 1949 the Americans have bombed China, Korea, Guatemala, Indonesia, Cuba, The Congo, Peru, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Grenada, Libya, El Salvador, Panama, Iraq, The Sudan, Afghanistan, Iran and Yugoslavia.

Dropping cluster bombs and TV dinners ain't humanitarian."

A senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, Mr Lieven has just returned from Pakistan. He was the Times corresponent in Moscow (1990-96) and covered Pakistan and Afghanistan for the Times in 1988-89. - http://books.guardian.co.uk/lrb/articles/0,6109,559135,00.html

"Two things were particularly striking here: a tendency to divide the world into friends and enemies, and a difficulty verging on autism when it came to international opinions that didn't coincide with their own - a combination more appropriate to the inhabitants of an ethnic slum in the Balkans than to people who were, at that point, on top of the world."

mazza9 - 04:30pm Feb 24, 2002 EST (#11798 of 11808)
Louis Mazza

almarst-2001

"Since 1949 the Americans have bombed China, Korea, Guatemala, Indonesia, Cuba,The Congo, Peru, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Grenada, Libya, El Salvador, Panama,Iraq, The Sudan, Afghanistan, Iran and Yugoslavia."

What does this have to do with missile defense?

There was a reason for these various conflicts and to lump them into one sentence is sophomoric.

LouMazza

rshowalt - 07:26pm Feb 24, 2002 EST (#11799 of 11808)

Technically, missile defense makes no sense, but huge money flows rest on maintaining fictions about how workable it is -- and isn't. And when you look at the fictions - and how they distort US foreign policy, there's reason for plenty of concern - and quotes from 1984 seem on point.

What happens when HUGE economic or political interests depend fundamentally on fictions?

Some very bad thing can happen -- and the 20th century shows plenty of examples.

Technical truth matters - both for directly technical reasons -- and because of what the "missile defense" program stands for.

almarst-2001 - 10:01pm Feb 24, 2002 EST (#11800 of 11808)

"What does this have to do with missile defense?"

It does, if the reason for missile defense is to allow continuation of such policy. Which I am firmly against.

mazza9 - 10:07pm Feb 24, 2002 EST (#11801 of 11808)
Louis Mazza

RShowalt:

This afternoon after the Olympic hockey finals I tuned into the History Channel and watched the episode on Battleships.

What we have been discussing here parallels the developement of the dreadnought and the attempts to control that weapon through treaties and international law. It didn't work.

The possibility that Missile Defense might deter the development of ICBMs and weapons of mass destruction might justify the expenditure.

You've referred to the lies, subterfuges and plain old shenanigans that make up International Affairs. Yep! that's the human condition at work. Try as you might, there isn't any other advancement of mankind except by faltering steps.

LouMazza

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