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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 - 05:40pm May 14, 2002 EST (#2213 of 2232)

lchic 5/14/02 5:06pm . . . "string-pulling" may be getting harder, because hiding what is done is getting harder. Rhetoric is driven, and actions may be as well, by a public interest in rationality and peace.

The Start of an Effort to Integrate Moscow Fully Into the West By PATRICK E. TYLER

"WASHINGTON, May 13 — The strategic arms reductions that the United States and Russia announced today represent radical cutbacks impossible to even ponder during the cold war, despite the warhead storage issues that remain.

"But though the nuclear arms reductions are a critical milestone in cleaning up the legacy of the cold war, the treaty that President Bush and Vladimir V. Putin will sign in Moscow marks the beginning of an even larger enterprise, a long-term and difficult program of integrating Russia into the West."

Those difficulties are quite real, but partly American-made.

MD1663 rshow55 4/22/02 3:45pm ... MD1664 rshow55 4/22/02 3:46pm

In MD1910 manjumicha2001 4/30/02 5:35pm there were these kind lines about the work lchic and I have been doing, setting out patterns of discourse that can be used for communication between staffed organizations:

" On another and brighter subject, I have noticed for some time that you are experimenting with a unique way of public discourse, made possible by the web-hyperlinks. Such methodology is extremely effective and powerful in tackling complex issues which are often impossible to be properly discussed due to various oratorical smoke screens and "purposful clouding" of issues that often goes on in typical mass medium of public discourse today (i.e. print or audio-visual media). I also have noted, however,your methods do demand devoted attention of the fellow participants and good faith attempt to follow your "thoughts"...

If staffed organizations use these techniques - there can be new progress in areas which have been intractable before.

MD1665 rshow55 4/22/02 4:02pm ... MD1666 rshow55 4/22/02 4:22pm

MD1667 almarst-2001 4/22/02 4:32pm asked a key question.

rshow55 - 09:42pm May 14, 2002 EST (#2214 of 2232)

MD1668-1670 rshow55 4/22/02 4:37pm

MD1999 rshow55 5/4/02 10:35am ... MD2000 rshow55 5/4/02 10:39am
MD2001 rshow55 5/4/02 11:36am

I have my faults, but I think I've been being straight and honest on this board, at some personal risk, and with a lot of effort and a lot of things that can be checked. How am I a hypocrite?

Chain Breakers http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee79f4e/618

lchic - 10:55pm May 14, 2002 EST (#2215 of 2232)

I always thought Russia was 'the west' .. in fact Russia has been 'around' much longer than the USA ... standing on Russian shores and looking EAST .. Russia can 'see' America (Alaska) which in fact was actually Russia until quite recently --- and much of Alaskas population speak Russian!

Russia had a 'western' elite prior to the revolution - which was a groundswell of people looking for a 'new deal'. It may well be that the post-revolution deal was an improvement upon Nineteenth Century peasantry.

Russia also contributed to populating the USA, as did Europe.

And people who move most often have to fill in paperwork - ensuring healthy-literate newcomers.

So fundamentally the USA has a healthy layer of historical-cultural decency.

So where does it go off track?

ON CUBA - Bush had the nerve to put himself out to the screened world demanding that Cuba have democratic elections --- hang-on MisterBush Sir the world responds ... how can Bush call for democracy when he himself comes from a situation where 'big business backing' ensured him, where his Florida (brother/legal systems) also ensured him, additional to which the USA doesn't have a 'standardised voting system'. It is also said that brother Jeb disenfranchised selected 'Poor' from the electrol role.

The concepts of 'west' and 'democracy' can both have many shades of meaning - and be perverted!

mazza9 - 12:35am May 15, 2002 EST (#2216 of 2232)
Louis Mazza

lchic says:"So where does it go off track?" Answer: It hasn't. It has defined the track and the rest of the world is envious and ultimately falls short of the ideal, which is the US.

One might ask, "where did France go off track?" Their revolution was sparked by the US revolution. Yet in the past 200 years France has wandered all over lot with multiple Napoleans, multiple wars of conquest, a rabid colonialism which ended in Algiers and drifts about from Chirac to LePen. Poor Poor France. They've ants in their pants.

LouMazza

lchic - 03:09am May 15, 2002 EST (#2217 of 2232)

Two revolutions that predate the American Revolution. The first looked for simplicity, the other efficiency - steam driven!
^{http://www.lawsch.uga.edu/~glorious/chron.html
http://www.saburchill.com/history/chapters/IR/001.html !
Revolutions in the political sense relate to the mass of people becoming very aware that their interests are improperly represented.}

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