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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 - 05:54pm Sep 15, 2001 EST (#9111 of 9125)
lunarchick@www.com

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/

lunarchick - 05:56pm Sep 15, 2001 EST (#9112 of 9125)
lunarchick@www.com

R H E T O R I C

upped by Bwsh to

A T -- W A R

so what powers

powers over whom

powers without reference to whom

does Bwsh - the incompetent now have ?

TEN : FOUR

someone might like to comment

rshowalter - 06:01pm Sep 15, 2001 EST (#9113 of 9125)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

McNamara and Blight estimate that about 160 MILLION people died in the 20th century -- . Most of them civilians.

. 32,0000 times the number in the recent tragedy, the recent horror.

'Wilson's Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing, and Catastrophe in the 21st Century' by ROBERT S. McNAMARA and JAMES G. BLIGHT http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/29/books/chapters/29-1stmcnam.html

" As we look back from the 21st century on the events of the 20th, we cannot help being struck by the enormity of the human carnage . . .

Review: 'Wilson's Ghost': An Anti-Machiavellian Handbook by JAMES CHACE http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/29/books/review/29CHASET.html

" Robert S. McNamara and James G. Blight's new book embraces the Wilsonian notion that American foreign policy must be grounded on the bedrock of morality ....

My heart is heavy - - we're doing a lot of mourning, and it may be appropriate enough, for this last horror. But it is one horror out of so many . . . it seems to me that we have more mourning to do . . . and a good deal more careful thinking.

After Pearl Harbor, Americans knew what to do - - it was obvious. Do we know what to do now?

We shouldn't do things that make no sense -- things that can't work -- (missile defense is full of things that can't work.) And we're going to have to know what we're up against.

IDEAS matter here - - look as things about the profile of these new suicide killers - - they aren't simple people, and the evil they do isn't simple evil. These people believe in a system of ideas - - which we must understand, and confront.

rshowalter - 06:05pm Sep 15, 2001 EST (#9114 of 9125)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Here is a threat more flexible than a missile -- and it is real now.

A Terrorist Profile Emerges That Confounds the Experts By JODI WILGOREN http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/15/national/15SUIC.html

"They were adults with education and skill, not hopeless young zealots. At least one left behind a wife and young children. They mingled in secular society, even drinking forbidden alcohol, hardly typical of Islamic militants.

"Some of the men who are suspected of hijacking four airplanes in the world's worst terrorist attack do not fit the profile of the suicide bombers who have plagued the Middle East, Sri Lanka and Chechnya over the past two decades. Most of those self- proclaimed martyrs had little to lose, and were indoctrinated for short, intense periods between recruitment and their deadly missions. In contrast, those suspected of perpetrating Tuesday's destruction had, in some cases, spent years studying and training in the United States, collecting valuable commercial skills and facing many opportunities to change their minds.

""What we see here is a totally new pattern," said Ehud Sprinzak, a terrorism expert and the dean of the Lauder School, a public policy institute in Herziliyah, Israel. "We have published a book on suicide bombing, but now we'll have to rewrite the book. This is staggering new evidence."

"This week's events differed not just in scale, but also in the fact that the hijackers died in groups. Preliminary evidence about the suspected terrorists also suggests that they were not reckless young men facing dire economic conditions and dim prospects but men as old as 41 enjoying middle-class lives. Just last week, even those numbed to suicide bombings in Israel were shocked by the latest incident there because the perpetrator, an Israeli Arab, was 48 and a father.

Experts called it too early to say what the demographic differences might mean about the shifting dynamics of international terrorism. Perhaps, they said, loyalty to Osama bin Laden is even more powerful than the religious and nationalist fanaticism that has been behind other suicide attacks. Perhaps the size of the target attracted more sophisticated candidates. Or perhaps the hatred of the United States and Western culture is seeping into a broader spectrum of the world's disaffected populations.

"People who have a lot of other reasons to live for are deciding that this is such an important cause that they're willing to die anyway," said Andrea Talentino, a political science professor at Tulane University who specializes in security studies. "That, obviously, is very frightening."

"The concept of the suicide bomber dates to the 11th century, when the Assassins adopted it as a strategy to spread Islam through northern Persia. It appeared again among Muslims from India to the Philippines in the 1700's. During World War II, Japanese fighter pilots were recruited for suicide, or kamikaze, missions.

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