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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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lchic - 10:22am Apr 30, 2002 EST (#1899 of 1901)

ONE VOICE - P E A C E ! ^{http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Dojo/1299/onevoice.htm}

rshow55 - 11:16am Apr 30, 2002 EST (#1900 of 1901)

lchic 4/30/02 10:19am . . .

"The practical take-down is an engineering problem - the decision political ... and that takes LEADERSHIP!"

The question of who leads, and what does leadership take, depends on the task.

If the job is one of persuasion - the NYT is in a leadership position.

If the job involves techniques of persuasion - - the NYT is in an almost unique position to exercise leadership -- because its staff knows so much, and has so much experience, about how persuasion works, and doesn't work.

We face problems of "connecting the dots" -- and getting reasonable closure -- where things are going very wrong. The problem, like many other problems, involves problems of technique, and of power.

Also expense.

MD1075 rshow55 4/4/02 1:17pm . . . links to a very effective poster http://www.subvertise.org/details.php?code=453 which ought to make clear how important true information is if we are to improve our chances for real peace in the real, complicated, dirty world.

rshow55 - 11:21am Apr 30, 2002 EST (#1901 of 1901)

MD1076 rshow55 4/4/02 1:20pm and MD1077 rshow55 4/4/02 1:21pm ... deal with major concerns, for me personally, and for the world.

MD1077 includes this:

"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."

Is there deception here? One would have to check.

http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?13@@.ee7a163/289 cites a posting previously on this thread, that starts:

rshowalter - 07:22am Jun 26, 2001 EST (#6057 of 7079) Robert Showalter mrshowalter@thedawn.com

"I say here that I knew Bill Casey a little.

"And of course, everything's deniable - I'm not sure anybody has any records at all. Maybe I'm a literary figure -- call me Ishmael.

"The story I like best about me, in this regard, is that I'm just a guy who got interested in logic, and military issues. A guy who got concerned about nuclear danger, and related military balances, and tried to do something about it. Based on what he knew - with no access to special information of any kind, he made an effort to keep the world from blowing up, using the best literary devices he could fashion, consistent with what he knew or could guess.

"Let me go on with another story."

How much simpler my life would be, if I could proceed in confidence that people believed "the story I like best" -- fictions and all.

Cafosso showed audacious courage, described in At Fox News, the Colonel Who Wasn't by JIM RUTENBERG http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/29/business/media/29HOAX.html

During that same time, I've been afraid to do anything outside this thread. Afraid, perhaps, because I've misunderstood security laws.

I didn't have credentials to show, and so I was paralyzed, because I was carrying messages people didn't want to hear -- wanted to resist. So I've been helpless - and had some object lessons showing that.

Cafosso carried messages people wanted to hear. No checking was done. (That doesn't mean that Cafosso wasn't right about some things.)

On issues that are central to our chances of survival - on issues that involve huge expenditures -- how easy is it to check?

It isn't easy at all, especially because, currently, there are conventions , and social patterns, that stand against checking, most of the time, when somebody with power actually objects.

To do better, we need to consider some conventions.

How do you check? is a big question - and not even the NYT has fully satisfactory answers, so far as I can tell, in cases of concern.

How do you persuade? is another big question. Some answers, though they are hard answers, come from experience in jury trials.

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense