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Missile Defense

Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

lunarchick - 10:33pm Jul 15, 2001 EST (#7063 of 7079)
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Kathering Graham injured in fall.

Seems she let go of the company reigns at 76 .. re her retirement(above).

lunarchick - 11:25pm Jul 15, 2001 EST (#7064 of 7079)
lunarchick@www.com

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Alexander Yakovenko, foreign ministry spokesman, said: "A logical question again arises - why take matters to the point of placing under threat the entire internationally agreed structure of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, the heart of which is the 1972 ABM [anti-ballistic missile] treaty?"

Saturday's test is also likely to be a subject of discussions between President Vladimir Putin and Chinese president Jiang Zemin, who arrived in Moscow on Sunday for a four-day visit. China is also strongly opposed to the US plans.

On Monday Russia and China plan to sign a Good Neighbourly Treaty of Friendship and Co-operation, replacing a 1949 pact between China and the Soviet Union. . !

solozzo - 02:22am Jul 16, 2001 EST (#7065 of 7079)

Oh please, please please let the russians and chinese try to spend money they don't have.

Bush is smarter than all the naysayers put together.

yos2653 - 04:53am Jul 16, 2001 EST (#7066 of 7079)

While you waste these billions on your anti-missile dream just spare a thought for the billions who remain impoverished partly because of your own policies.

lunarchick - 05:49am Jul 16, 2001 EST (#7067 of 7079)
lunarchick@www.com

On the missile test - a guy in a uniform said, it would take 8 months to go through the data to see if it was what they wanted ..... wonder if they'll be getting sacks of data sent in to get it over the line - as per PresElection :)

On The News Hour it was interesting to see the push to get legislation to limit and verify the cash used in Elections.

It would seem to me, that a country that has 8b to slosh around on MD, might have a Parliament where the members fill out logically designed forms showing their degree of support for each point on it. In this way their electorate would be able to call up the form(s) to determine if their rep was on track in his/her thinking and representation. This method would also enable the members to get on with their work - rather than spend so many hours in the chamber ... being there for debate on a more comprehensively considered policy.

One notes that the legislation was lampooned - yet again - by a committee that altered and changed it ... and did not allow full debate -- that's why it was rejected.

Raises the point regarding MD ... do those right wing religious cliques who are the base of the Republican party go to church every Sunday and say please god give us an MD system that will kill, kill, kill, millions of people .. and even obliterate the whole world.

There's a case for an electronic form here.

In relation to the percentage cuts and takes that will be made by groups such as Carlyle (retreat of the Elder Bush) re the increase in MD spending .. where does the auditing happen.

The 19 Republicans who want increased accountability re election spending ... will these guys soon be looking to accountability re MD spending.

Would they also be pushing to reign in the President/Administration ... who seem to think they run America by Divine Right.

lunarchick - 06:45am Jul 16, 2001 EST (#7068 of 7079)
lunarchick@www.com

This test does not make the case for missile defence

15 July 2001

One mid-air collision does not a working missile defence system make. One of the persuasive arguments against the US military's plans for a "Son of Star Wars" anti-missile shield was that it was technologically complex, hugely expensive and could never provide anything approaching certainty in its ability to shoot down incoming missiles from – generally unspecified – "rogue" states.

Yesterday's test proves only that the easiest technological issue has been resolved: that it is possible to hit a missile with another missile in mid-air or, in this case, in mid-thermosphere, at 145 miles above the Pacific Ocean. But that has been regarded as possible since before 1972, when the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty was signed between the US and the Soviet Union – the treaty which President Bush now intends to repudiate. ~ http://argument.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/story.jsp?story=83599

lunarchick - 07:15am Jul 16, 2001 EST (#7069 of 7079)
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The state of the Bush presidency : Can George Bush govern successfully if he isn’t setting the agenda? asks the .. Jul 12th 2001
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there is little doubt that the Bush Administration’s determination to press ahead with the missile defence scheme has helped to drive Asia’s two big nuclear powers back into each other’s arms for the first time since the Soviet collapse. http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,3-2001241967,00.html

almarst-2001 - 07:26am Jul 16, 2001 EST (#7070 of 7079)

American, Unpopular.

Robert,

Living in this country you must know how easy it is to buy the popularity with money. As well as in a whore-house called the "international community".

lunarchick - 07:35am Jul 16, 2001 EST (#7071 of 7079)
lunarchick@www.com

Alex: America - unpopular ..... yet Americans wouldn't agree ... most often they are insular and have little concern re world affairs .. isn't that so?

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