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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.

rshowalt - 05:28pm Sep 25, 2000 EST (#304 of 11890)

I'd be grateful for a chance to come before you, or one or more of your representatives, and explain, in detail, with documentation and ways to check, how dangerous this situation is. Especially if a good reporter, and a videotape record, were there so what was said was clear.

Some mistakes have been made, and you and I weren't very old when they were made. They can be fixed. A lot of things would improve if this were done. They are American mistakes, and Americans, and American leaders, have to fix them.

kalter.rauch - 06:32am Sep 26, 2000 EST (#305 of 11890)
Earth vs <^> <^> <^>

ESP is real after all......

Just before crashing yesterday I tarried awhile at this forum, but I was all out of gas to throw on the fire......

rshowalt......I'm sure your passionate pleas leave bleeding hearts aflutter in English tea parties but you'll have to prove why it isn't better to be dead than a slave....... You'll Wish you had Nukes when 1 Billion Red Chinese make their move......Putting the genie back in the bottle is no more possible in reality than it is in legend. It's too late to wonder whether man is "wise enough" to handle H-bombs. The only way to turn back the clock now is to impose a ruthless new order......something along the lines of the Khmer Rouge......it's the knowledge that holds the danger. Those who make use of the Knowledge...and those who pass the Knowledge to a new generation must be liquidated......

Ridiculous, of course......and so is "getting rid of" nuclear weapons. On the contrary, America is fortunate to possess such Power, and a Science which may indeed deliver even Greater Might unto her Aegis.

rshowalt - 07:57am Sep 26, 2000 EST (#306 of 11890)

I stand by my argument. Getting rid of nuclear weapons would be technically easy. The only hard part is looking at them straight, with minds and hearts, and with what Dickens called "disciplined hearts" and seeing to it that nuclear weapons are never made and used again.

Human nature is plenty dark enough as it stands. We can kill each other, hurt each other, and fend each other off, plenty of different ways. We don't need nuclear weapons. We're dangerous, as we stand, without them.

I think we should rid the world of nuclear weapons by Christmas 2000, and I think we should. It would be a date to remember, for as long as there were people in the world.

The man with more skills for accomplishing that, and the man best placed for accomplishing that, is William Jefferson Clinton. Everybody knows he's smart enough, and dangerous enough, to actually get it done if he wanted to. I hope he wants to.

rshowalt - 10:15am Sep 26, 2000 EST (#307 of 11890)

Here's a great poem about nuclear war, as it actually is - uncontrolled. deadlosss "Favorite Poetry" 9/26/00 7:55am

lunarchick - 08:25pm Sep 26, 2000 EST (#308 of 11890)
lunarchick@www.com

Interesting how Civil Defence had programs in the lateFiftiesSixites to lead us to the innermost sanctum of the home where we had stores and provisions to sit out an attack. Realisation that an attack was a last goodbye dawned ... they cut their programs. There is nothing civil about nuclear attacks.

rshowalt - 05:04am Sep 27, 2000 EST (#309 of 11890)

rshowalt "Science in the News" 9/27/00 5:00am

kalter.rauch - 06:15am Sep 27, 2000 EST (#310 of 11890)
Earth vs <^> <^> <^>

Yeah, we had those classes in high school...... One term laying out the struggle against World Bolshevism...and a term on Civil Defense.

Don't let defeatists or 5th column rumor-mongers sap your will to survive. It is very possible to survive the critical period of prompt radiation and overpressure. Careful planning will minimize exposure to fallout.

Remember......after the surprise attack, Ivan will make his move.

rshowalt - 06:26am Sep 27, 2000 EST (#311 of 11890)

There's something I feel the need to say. I don't think I've been unfair, but I've been incomplete on a matter that concerns both justice and hope.

If Bill Clinton has been imperceptive, and acquiesced in bad things not of his origination in nuclear policy, so have previous presidents.

He's paid attention, primarily, and his experience comes, primarily, from domestic politics. He is perhaps the most outstandingly effective politician of our time, because he is able to get people together, in ways that work for them. (Ways that require a minimum of deception, and a maximum of clarity). He does this so well that, in spite of his flaws, and disproportionate attacks on him based on these flaws, he has led the United States of America outstandingly well. Look how well the nation is doing, in many, many ways where he has made, or led in the making of, crucial decisions!

I believe that W. J. Clinton is, flaws and all, a gifted, careful, moral actor. He leads people into accomodations that actually work long term. Only morally straight leaders can do this as well as Clinton does it. In my view, we may not have had a more careful, effective moral actor counting everything done, with reasonable weightings on things done in the White House since Roosevelt (no angel himself.)

I think many of the people who hate Bill Clinton most, especially Southerners, basically hate him for the good and careful things he's done. As governor of Arkansas, he worked hard, year after year, to sweep away the vestiges of the rationaliztions of slavery and racial injustice, to make a freer and better society possible. He did so, and stayed an effective politician. He made some headway. He is widely hated for it, and the people who hate him for this will do what they can to blow anything he does wrong surreally out of proportion. (Not that he's an angel.)

If Bill Clinton wanted to rid the world of nuclear weapons, there would be nobody better fit to do it, or with a more solid moral right to insist on it. Look at the good things Clinton's done. All of them. His faults, ugly as they are, are relatively small, and he's faced the consequences of his mistakes with considerable discipline and courage.

Notwithstanding, nuclear weapons, and American policy concerning them, are as ugly and dangerous as they are. I hope he does something about them.

Respectfully,

M. Robert Showalter

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