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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 - 03:09pm Apr 21, 2002 EST (#1598 of 1609)

I was impressed with these articles today:

BACK TO EARTH: War Was Easy. The Rest of the World Is a Mess. by DAVID E. SANGER http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/21/weekinreview/21SANG.html

What happens when the clear-cut visions and simple declarations of a political campaign run headlong into the reality of how the world works?

Democracy and U.S. Credibility by PETER HAKIM http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/21/weekinreview/21HAKI.html

I was very glad to see a series of articles on the subject of trust - - and the related issue of finding out facts and relations that people depend on.

TRUST BUSTERS:

Once Bitten, Twice Shy By JANNY SCOTT http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/21/weekinreview/21SCOT.html

"In a world that seems so suddenly filled with suspicion - in the parish, in the workplace, among nations - can trust be recovered?"

• United We Expand by Henry Fountain http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/21/weekinreview/21FOUN.html

• Europe Has Problems, But Not Like America's. Maybe. By JOHN TAGLIABUE http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/21/weekinreview/21TAGL.html

• After the Scandal, a Grim Thought: Can It Be Fixed? By MELINDA HENNEBERGER http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/21/weekinreview/21HENN.html

We want our trust to be based on facts - - - not fictions -- and when we must live with uncertainty, we need to know it.

Sorting the Reality from the Virtual by John Schwartz http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/21/weekinreview/21SCHW.html ends with this line.

" If there's no way of establishing what is true . . . we're sunk."

We don't have to be "sunk" -- we are moving into times with new opportunities, that can make us both safer and more comfortable. But we're at an intermediate stage -- where new problems are arising along with our new powers -- and these problems aren't yet solved.

Magazine: Where Here See's There By GEORGE PACKER http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/21/magazine/21WWLN.html . . . " The world media machine has given us a global village - just not the expected one"

"By now everyone knows that satellite TV has helped deepen divisions in the Middle East. But it's worth remembering that it wasn't supposed to be this way.

"The globalization of the media was supposed to knit the world together. The more information we receive about one another, the thinking went, the more international understanding will prevail. . . . .

"But this technological togetherness has not created the human bonds that were promised. . . .

"In some ways, global satellite TV and Internet access have actually made the world a less understanding, less tolerant place. What the media provide is superficial familiarity -- images without context, indignation without remedy.

The technical togetherness provides necessary conditions for understanding, tolerance, and effective cooperation. Not sufficient conditions. We've got more to learn. Some key points concern context (there has to be enough for what people need to do) and cooperation and communication along a trust-distrust continuum.

I've been concerned about building stable peace, and cooperation, between groups that naturally and properly distrust each other, that are afraid of each other, and are very different. Distrust needs to be acknowledged in a humanly workable context, and accomodated.

People naturally distrust each other in many ways -- and they can get along pretty well with each other anyway, if certain things are understood.

rshow55 - 03:11pm Apr 21, 2002 EST (#1599 of 1609)

The day after kate_nyt "Favorite Poetry (Archived)" 9/24/00 1:27pm - - I had an all-day web session with becq , who I then believed was William Jefferson Clinton. I began with a short statement, and post that statement here, with the beginnings of conversation with becq - - and the end of the web session about ten hours later.

I still think the proposal is valid as far as it goes, but very incomplete, due to things pointed out by almarst and others. But I believe that postings #266-269 make the right points about the need to acknowlege distrust, and ways that distrust is reasonable, and can be reasonably accomodated.

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