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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.

mazza9 - 02:14pm Apr 24, 2002 EST (#1743 of 1751)
Louis Mazza

lchic and Robert:

Homeland security has been bolstered and we can all sleep peacefully tonight.

BOMB PLOT DEFUSED.

LouMazza:-}

lchic - 03:58pm Apr 24, 2002 EST (#1744 of 1751)

Good that Dad's Batman's Boy's Army is doing the job!

lchic - 04:06pm Apr 24, 2002 EST (#1745 of 1751)

Kissinger - London - Protest

"" As human rights campaigners demonstrated outside the Royal Albert Hall in London, the target of their protest, Henry Kissinger, today admitted inside it was possible that "mistakes were made" by the US administrations he served in. But the former secretary of state questioned whether a court was the right place to examine them, saying it would be impossible to recall every one of thousands of ...... http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,689870,00.html

lchic - 04:42pm Apr 24, 2002 EST (#1746 of 1751)

France : http://slate.msn.com/?id=2064643

lchic - 04:59pm Apr 24, 2002 EST (#1747 of 1751)

"CIA worked in tandem with Pak to create Taliban" LONDON: The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) worked in tandem with Pakistan to create the "monster" that is today Afghanistan's ruling Taliban, a leading US expert on South Asia said here.

"I warned them that we were creating a monster," Selig Harrison from the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars said at the conference here last week on "Terrorism and Regional Security: Managing the Challenges in Asia."

Harrison said: "The CIA made a historic mistake in encouraging Islamic groups from all over the world to come to Afghanistan." The US provided $3 billion for building up these Islamic groups, and it accepted Pakistan's demand that they should decide how this money should be spent, Harrison said.

Harrison, who spoke before the Taliban assault on the Buddha statues was launched, told the gathering of security experts that he had meetings with CIA leaders at the time when Islamic forces were being strengthened in Afghanistan. "They told me these people were fanatical, and the more fierce they were the more fiercely they would fight the Soviets," he said. "I warned them that we were creating a monster."

Harrison, who has written five books on Asian affairs and US relations with Asia, has had extensive contact with the CIA and political leaders in South Asia. Harrison was a senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace between 1974 and 1996.

Harrison who is now senior fellow with The Century Foundation recalled a conversation he had with the late Gen Zia-ul Haq of Pakistan. "Gen Zia spoke to me about expanding Pakistan's sphere of influence to control Afghanistan, then Uzbekistan and Tajikstan and then Iran and Turkey," Harrison said. That design continues, he said. Gen.Mohammed Aziz who was involved in that Zia plan has been elevated now to a key position by Chief Executive, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Harrison said.

The old associations between the intelligence agencies continue, Harrison said. "The CIA still has close links with the ISI (Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence)."

Today that money and those weapons have helped build up the Taliban, Harrison said. "The Taliban are not just recruits from 'madrassas' (Muslim theological schools) but are on the payroll of the ISI (Inter Services Intelligence, the intelligence wing of the Pakistani government)." The Taliban are now "making a living out of terrorism."

Harrison said the UN Security Council resolution number 1333 calls for an embargo on arms to the Taliban. "But it is a resolution without teeth because it does not provide sanctions for non-compliance," he said. "The US is not backing the Russians who want to give more teeth to the resolution."

Now it is Pakistan that "holds the key to the future of Afghanistan," Harrison said. The creation of the Taliban was central to Pakistan's "pan-Islamic vision," Harrison said.

It came after "the CIA made the historic mistake of encouraging Islamic groups from all over the world to come to Afghanistan," he said. The creation of the Taliban had been "actively encouraged by the ISI and the CIA," he said. "Pakistan has been building up Afghan collaborators who will sustain Pakistan," he said. (IANS) see

almarst2020 - 09:45pm Apr 24, 2002 EST (#1748 of 1751)

""CIA worked in tandem with Pak to create Taliban"

In my view, this was just an extream example of a very fundamental US policy of undermining the Communism.

Against the Communists basic ideas of Atheism and Friendship of all Workers Worldwide, united against a common Enemy - The Capital, the US decided to play the Nationalism and Religious Extremism. None of which could be played better the Pan-Islamism - the Taliban stile. This was designed to hit the USSR particularely hard due to its large Muslim population in Central Asian Republics.

The Separatism, Nazionalism and Religious Intolerance Card played as well in Baltics, Moldova and Ukraine.

One of the Architects was Zbignev Bzezisky who played a central role of establishing and arming the Afgan fighters based in Pakistan with a help from Saudi Arabia.

The same model was applied later on in Chechnia and Yugoslavia.

After the fall of the Communism, the US priority became promotion of Globalization. Which found the great obsticle in face of its own previous creation - Separatism, Nazionalism and Religious/Islamic Extremism.

lchic - 10:56pm Apr 24, 2002 EST (#1749 of 1751)

And the CIA shot themselves in the foot come 9/11 - the size of one football field .... poor Jenin has a 3 sized football field of death!

I'm not religious but i do remember a religous type saying "I am the truth and the light" .. or some such ... setting an example for behaviour that the CIA types who will be in Church come Sunday will hear .... they must be pretty dumb if they don't really understand what is meant by the phrase!

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