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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 - 08:23pm May 15, 2002 EST (#2233 of 2251)

MD1076 rshow55 4/4/02 1:20pm sets out, in some detail, how checking to closure on key issues of missile defense can be done. In the Palestinian-Israeli situation - some things are different from this. In some ways these problems of war and peace are more complicated, but in many ways, they are simple and clear. MD2008 rshow55 5/4/02 6:54pm

I've decided that the postings set out or linked between http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.eea14e1/1253 and http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.eea14e1/1318 are good enough, and well enough explained, for any group actually trying to use the internet to get to closure on the complex issues that peace in the middle east needs. MD2230 rshow55 5/15/02 9:36am

That is, if responsible people would actually act, themselves, to get their problems set out clearly, and in detail - and brought to focus. If people tried to do this, using tools now widely available, they could. They'd have to learn by doing.

The key problem is making a decision to get the things that matter for action clear. Getting the courage to recognize that they very often are not clear. And mustering the courage and the discipline to work for clarity, and get it.

For all the moral and emotional problem in the middle east, there are huge logical problems, as well, that have to be resolved for there to be real hope.

How, at this late date, can we be dealing, as Friedman points out, with "nine wars too many?" http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/15/opinion/15FRIE.html

"The biggest problem in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict is that there are at least 10 different wars being fought over Israel-Palestine, and we need to reduce them to just one to have any chance of making peace."

To have any chance of making peace, people have to be clear about what they want, and able to explain it so everyone agrees. -- And after negotiation, clear on what they have agreed to, so that the agreement actually exists in usable form.

When there are "10 different wars" being fought -- people are posing - or dreaming - or using language as nothing more as a structure to justify fighting without end. We have to do better than that.

Human beings know how important operational clarity is when they do serious things. Complex jobs have to be specified, clearly - and in ways that are actually possible -- before they can possibly get done.

Does Arafat know what he wants - something that he can explain to his people - along with a reasonable argument that what he wants is feasible ?

Does Sharon?

Does anybody else?

If staffed organizations actually tried to explain themselves to themselves, and to the other groups involved, on the internet - where muddles would be easily seen by anybody who had to be involved - problems would stand out clearly - and cry for solution.

Would solutions be available? When human beings look clearly at the problems they actually have, in detail - in situations with as many alternatives as this - and as much motivation as this -- they usually are.

rshow55 - 08:27pm May 15, 2002 EST (#2234 of 2251)

Contractor Told Army of Nixed Weapon by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Crusader.html

Before the House committee met May 1, a member of the Army's legislative liaison office prepared a set of ``talking points'' about the decision to cut the Crusader, the report said.

``Killing a relatively small program -- $11 (billion) -- which is on time and on budget -- is much easier than killing more expensive programs with greater problems, such as (the Air Force's) F-22 (fighter) and (the Marine Corps') V-22 (hybrid helicopter-airplane),'' the memo said.

"The memo's author did not intend for it to be released publicly, and Steadman acted on his own to do so, the inspector general's report said.

. . .

Steadman was called "disloyal" -- -but loyal to whom? It is very much in the interest of the United States, as a whole, to understand how irrational and inflexible our military expenditures are. On missile defense, and other things. And also how constrained the "discourse" in military circles is, by considerations such as "loyalty" that are very narrowly set out -- and not in the interest of either the United States as a whole, or of the world.

How much in the procurement budget really makes sense in the national interest? MD1318 rshow55 4/12/02 6:59pm

Loyalty is to a narrow group, and sometimes such "loyalties" can make a terrible, senseless mess rigid and unchangeable - - unless there are ways to "go around" constraints. People who show such "loyalty" often know that they are being "disloyal" in a larger sense. Sometimes it takes courage to acknowledge the truth, and act on it - and organizations, all over the world know it, though they often fall short.

Daring to Shoulder Historical Responsibility: Way to Become Big Political Power http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200104/18/eng20010418_67992.html

That article expresses important and practical ideals. But China sometimes violates the good advice in that article horribly, and then, the press is important to save lives, and make for reasonable conduct.

WHEN LIES KILL: In China, the Right to Truth Meets Life and Death by ERIK ECKHOLM http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/17/weekinreview/17ECKH.html

" An AIDS epidemic in a rural Chinese province is only the latest example of the heavy costs of the controls on information and political choice."

In missile defense, defense more generally, and all through the Middle East, there are many examples of those heavy costs.

lchic - 09:12pm May 15, 2002 EST (#2235 of 2251)

^{The worst aspect of the voodoo and lying related to AIDS is the horrific sexual abuse of young children and babes by infected Adults.}

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