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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?

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rshow55 - 12:17pm Apr 4, 2002 EST (#1075 of 1077)

http://www.subvertise.org/details.php?code=453 shows a very effective poster which includes this quote:

" Why of course the people don't want war -- but after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship . . Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country. ......... Hermann Goering - Nuremberg Trials.

The poster also includes passages from President Bush's State of the Union Address.

We need a sense of proportion. Leaders may or may not be right, but it should not be "too easy" for a nation to be brought to their bidding. What attack? is a very good question, because issues of context and control are important, and individual and group reactions can often be unstable -- leading to fights that escalate, fights that don't end. The questions "what attack?" -- "defending against what?" - - "what are the means and ends?" are crucial questions.

Questions of fact and context that everybody involved ought to pay much more attention to -- with less trust in the "easy" answers that leaders of nation states like to give - - answers which, more often than not, contain lies that make unnecessary slaughter possible or likely, when more honest answers would be safer.

rshow55 - 12:20pm Apr 4, 2002 EST (#1076 of 1077)

Mazza , you know that a great deal of discussion directly on missile defense happens on this thread. It exists in a context.
MD872 rshow55 3/27/02 2:59pm ... MD877 rshow55 3/27/02 3:54pm

You could argue that I've been moving slowly since the time of the following postings.

Challenge, questions, and invokation of the need for force:
MD728 rshow55 3/20/02 7:58pm ... MD729 rshow55 3/20/02 8:32pm
MD730 rshow55 3/20/02 8:37pm

Counterchallenge:
MD764 gisterme 3/22/02 12:34pm

Comment and response:
MD780 manjumicha2001 3/23/02 1:28am ... MD783-784 rshow55 3/23/02 10:15am
MD84 rshow55 3/2/02 10:52am

Perhaps I have been moving slowly. One reason is that I've felt that things have been moving toward a situation where a lot of things could get solved. Another reason is that it is essential to get situations set up where right answers are possible -- rather than certain to be evaded.

A key reason to want technical answers to questions about missile defense is that those answers would move toward larger answers to questions the whole world needs, and is coming to know it needs:

rshow55 - 12:21pm Apr 4, 2002 EST (#1077 of 1077)

Mazza , as you know, this thread has been going on since the middle of 2000, and I've been active on it since September 25, 2000. A great deal has been accomplished on this thread, I believe, and it sometimes helps to review the headings that it has had, and some of the history.
MD757 rshow55 3/22/02 10:54am ... MD 14-15 rshow55 3/1/02 6:07pm

Some of my background, which you also know, was on this thread before March 2, and is now set out on a Guardian thread .. Psychwarfare, Casablanca -- and terror

217-219 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?13@@.ee7a163/228

273-277 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?13@@.ee7a163/289

278-279 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/294

I believe that I'm doing, as nearly as it possibly can be done, exactly what Bill Casey would want me to do now, for the good of the United States of America, and for the safety and decency of the world.

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