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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 - 05:53pm Apr 15, 2002 EST (#1376 of 1394)

I think that it is stunning, and instructive, to read these two Week in Review pieces, written two weeks apart, one after the other.

All Roads Lead to D.C. by EMILY EAKIN http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/31/weekinreview/31EAKI.html

and

For Allies, 'I Do' Becomes 'Hey, Want to Dance?' By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/14/weekinreview/14MARQ.html

How much power does America really have if its alliances are not stable, and to be trusted when they are needed. How much can the US really do without the agreement of other nations -- and especially, how much can it do, if other nations organize to limit its power?

We're living in a world where the conventional assumptions of "power politics" are being discredited rapidly. A world where the justification of US military expenditure is getting harder and harder. MD1318 rshow55 4/12/02 6:59pm ... A world that is still far too dangerous. But even so, a world with new reasons for hope.

The forces and fictions that create and sustain war are more constrained and more vulnerable than they used to be.

If we can get some facts straight - including some facts about human nature -- and how and why human beings fight -- the future, even the near future, might realistically become considerably safer than today.

The Middle East, ugly and dangerous as it is, is throwing into clear relief many of the reasons why wars happen, and many of the challenges, too. Human beings face challenges, and solve them, from time to time. Especially after all other alternatives have been exhausted.

lchic - 07:09pm Apr 15, 2002 EST (#1377 of 1394)
"Mr Powell is playing games" Robert FISK

Today America is a full blown Super Power - more fly blown

lchic - 07:27pm Apr 15, 2002 EST (#1378 of 1394)
"Mr Powell is playing games" Robert FISK

Check Palestine on the 'map' it's a disappearing concept!

Check Israeli income - from where-ever spelt USA

Check Palestine income - from now-where spelt zero

Compare airtime/printcolums USA devoted each camp.

lchic - 07:36pm Apr 15, 2002 EST (#1379 of 1394)
"Mr Powell is playing games" Robert FISK

Right/past/resistsChange

http://www.parascope.com/articles/0997/whitepaper.htm

http://www.publiceye.org/tooclose/chapter-excerpt.html

http://www.fair.org/extra/0108/fox-main.html

http://www.cjnetworks.com/~cubsfan/fight.html

http://www.self-gov.org/quiz.html

almarst-2001 - 08:56pm Apr 15, 2002 EST (#1380 of 1394)

THE MOST DURABLE political theories about war - http://www.msnbc.com/news/738568.asp

rshow55 - 09:33pm Apr 15, 2002 EST (#1381 of 1394)

http://www.msnbc.com/news/738568.asp

is a wonderful piece. Maybe instead of a "rational" theory (disjoint from detailed information about how human beings actually act) or a "liberal" theory (also disjoint from detailed information about how human beings actually act) - - - we need to develop

"Theories that actually match, and look good, when they are compared to what people actually do."

. . . .

Machiavelli oversimplified. People who think of people as angels do, too.

lchic - 10:23pm Apr 15, 2002 EST (#1382 of 1394)
"Mr Powell is playing games" Robert FISK

The point about 'history' is that it records crisis .. rather than the periods of calm economic growth.

lchic - 10:45pm Apr 15, 2002 EST (#1383 of 1394)
"Mr Powell is playing games" Robert FISK

Fisk .... on Powell !
_{http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=284647}

Robert Fisk
Mr Powell must see for himself what Israel inflicted on Jenin The credibility of US policy on the conflict has been shattered
14 April 2002

Why doesn't Colin Powell go to Jenin?
What has happened to the world's moral compass – indeed to the United States – when America's most famous ex-general, the Secretary of State of the most powerful country on earth, on a supposedly desperate mission to stop the bloodshed in the Middle East,
fails to grasp what is taking place in front of his nose?
The stench of decaying corpses is wafting out of the Palestinian city. The Israeli army is still keeping the Red Cross and journalists from seeing the evidence of the mass killings that have taken place there. "Hundreds'' – on Israel's own admission – have died, including civilians. Why, for God's sake, can't Mr Powell do the decent thing and demand an explanation for the extraordinary, sinister events that have taken place in Jenin? ... ^(more)

lchic - 12:23am Apr 16, 2002 EST (#1384 of 1394)
"Mr Powell is playing games" Robert FISK

Quality .. kills ---- OFF!

' it was the federal requirement that evacuation plans be developed for the areas surrounding nuclear plants that finally doomed Shoreham. ' Bob Herbert 8 April

The Quality approach works - why not implement it!

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