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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 - 03:45pm Mar 31, 2002 EST (#1001 of 1026)

MD834-835 lchic 3/26/02 11:49am

Here's part of an undelivered speech by Franklin D. Roosevelt, written shortly before his death:

" Today, we are faced with the pre-eminent fact that, if civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships --- the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together and work together in the same world, at peace."

Our "missile defense" programs aren't techically workable, against any reasonably expectable countermeasures - even if they work as stunts. No defense - even against missiles. No "shield" that provides reasonable security.

But if we could make steps toward peace -- that would increase our security. To do it, we have to deal with everybody involved, even our adversaries, as human beings .

lchic - 04:43pm Mar 31, 2002 EST (#1002 of 1026)

Did he have heeling hands?

mazza9 - 06:50pm Mar 31, 2002 EST (#1003 of 1026)
Louis Mazza

lchic

You didn't-won't answer the question. Obfuscation is your forte.

The Pakistan/India confrontation can be linked to European colonial excess but surely not to the United States.

I enjoyed you pun in post 04:43pm Mar 31, 2002 EST!

LouMazza

lchic - 10:56pm Mar 31, 2002 EST (#1004 of 1026)

The face of time - when nukes were designed http://www.getafixit.com/gallery/pages/Clock_gif.htm

lchic - 02:25am Apr 1, 2002 EST (#1005 of 1026)

mAzzA ... “Poisson d’Avril!” ... watch your back!

lchic - 04:06am Apr 1, 2002 EST (#1006 of 1026)

Drama-depictions

Wednesday night's episode had a bunch of Russian Rambos routing a gang of evil Muslim extremists in the forbidding mountains of Chechnya.

The same mood is evident at the cinema in the new box office smash, War, by Aleksei Balabanov, whose previous Brat-2 movie had Russian hit men outwitting and gunning down feckless Americans in Chicago.

^{http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,675601,00.html}

lchic - 04:20am Apr 1, 2002 EST (#1007 of 1026)

Showalter (read above) how can a thousand year old war of 'culture' ever be 'won' ...

According to statistics released this week by the defence ministry, 2,331 Russian soldiers have been killed and 5,898 wounded in Chechnya, since Mr Putin launched his war in August 1999.

lchic - 11:07am Apr 1, 2002 EST (#1008 of 1026)

These foolish things

Some April fool jokes in the Arab world have backfired spectacularly.

lchic - 11:15am Apr 1, 2002 EST (#1009 of 1026)

``Our fight is a national fight,'' Leila Shahid, the Palestinian Authority's representative in France told France-Info radio. It is ``unacceptable to attack Jewish religious sites or Jewish places of commerce in France or elsewhere.''

lchic - 12:45pm Apr 1, 2002 EST (#1010 of 1026)

FORCE feeding : http://www.newveg.av.org/animals/goose2.jpg http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,677179,00.html

FORCE feeding : http://clearharmony.net/articles/2608.html

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