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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?

ledzeppelin - 07:21am Oct 17, 2001 EST (#10232 of 10250)

cskendrick - (#10229)

At last someone who wants real evedence before bombing Iraq to a pulp.

I pray that we do not give the likes of OBL a PR victory by blaming an Islamic group or Muslim state. Only to later find out the anthrax comes from a murderer within?

cskendrick - 09:50am Oct 17, 2001 EST (#10233 of 10250)
No vaccination without representation

ledzeppelin 10/17/01 7:21am

Well, one bit of evidence I spotted is the downward slant of the writing on the letters sent to NBC and Daschle's office.

I took Arabic in college for a few semesters, and as you know the writing is from right to left. I had an annoying tendency to curl my sentences up. I thought it was because I was left-handed and writing backwards...but it might have been a consequence of going against decades of writing "the normal way" as I understood it.

Perhaps persons who learn to write in Arabic have the opposite problem: a tendency for their Roman script to curl down.

I'm not calligraphist, but it is one person's deduction.

mazza9 - 11:21am Oct 17, 2001 EST (#10234 of 10250)
Louis Mazza

Ledzepplin:

By ..."Only to later find out the anthrax comes from a murderer within?" I assume that you are suggesting that Hillary is behind this attack, (another case of Arkanicide!) to solidify her 2004 position.

Did anyone notice that defense, (security) only works if you are ready to use force to maintain it? Just ask the security guard that was run down by Hillary's entourage which chose not to stop for a security guard who was hospitalized.

LouMazza

gisterme - 06:53pm Oct 18, 2001 EST (#10235 of 10250)

ledzepplin wrote ( ledzeppelin 10/9/01 5:19am ):

"If the proposed US Missile defence shield was to now go ahead; the 'so called' coalition against terrorism would break apart. So which is the US going to go for!"

What does one have to do with the other? I think your assumption of either/or is groundless.

The BMD is not intended or being designed to defend against a massive missile attack of the sort that we, the Russians or others might be able launch. The system being designed is to defend against a few ballistic missiles, a number that might be stolen from someone by clever terrorists. In fact, such ICBMs wouldn't really need to be stolen...just captured and launched from wherever they are (thinking of Russian truck-mounted ICBMs here).

The reason that our enemies so badly want to get their hands on some ICBMs is because once the limited resources available to them for their current attack on the West are expended they'll be unable to mount any more really serious attacks. All they have to work with is whatever they've stored up in advance. Their sources of funding and ability to move personnel are being seriously interdicted as we speak. All the work being done toward that interdiction would be circumvented by acquisition of one or more ICBMs.

Aslo, ICBMs were the phallic symbols of the superpowers during the Cold War era...terrorists are way into symbols and ICBMs were once symbols of power. The irony is that in responsible hands, ICBMs will never be used. They'd never be launched by the hands that built them.

Any true coalition against terrorism should not neglect the motiviation that terrorists have to acquire ICBMs by any method. That's why I don't think this is an either/or situation. If the folks behind the WTC atrocity are able to acquire suitcase nukes or ICBMs they'll not hesitate to use them if they think it suits their purpose.

gisterme - 07:42pm Oct 18, 2001 EST (#10236 of 10250)

ledzeppelin 10/17/01 7:13am

"...I note you do not say who exported the anthrax to Iraq in the first instant....."

Oh? Why don't you tell us who that "first instance" exporter was ledzepplin? If you know, then say. If not, why make implied accusations?

Do you think there's not enough natural antrhax in Iraq to acquire their initial cultures without any help? Saddam is a megalomaniac who has worked his slaves tirelessly to acquire any and all types of WMD...and he kicked the UN out when they were getting close to stopping him.

Shortly after Iraq gets an ICBM the world will find out in a most tragic way. Of course, Saddam will try to use somebody like his poster-boy OBL as a scapegoat, just as is being done now.

At some point Saddam will run out of whipping-boys and have to face the music himself. Once he's spilled all the blood he can he'll probably try to escape justice just as Hitler did.

justlooking6 - 06:29am Oct 19, 2001 EST (#10237 of 10250)

Russia and U.S. Optimistic on Defense Issues . . . . By PATRICK E. TYLER

ledzeppelin - 06:57am Oct 19, 2001 EST (#10238 of 10250)

Gisterme -(#10236)

So you are of the opinion that Russia and China would accept that the US could just walk away from the various treaties and accords and install a missile system they think is very aggresive! And that china and russia will stay in a coalition with such a government who has defaulted on a previous coalition with them on the likes of an ABM non proliferation accord et al.

Russia and china are not fools and the moment anyone in the Whitehouse or Whitehall mentions the go ahead in Alaska blah blah blah you will have no coalition with them as members indeed you only have to see the reports from both China and Russia to appreciate that.....

Indeed write and ask the Russians and or Chinese directly! I sadly know what they will say, and it most certainly does not accord with your current view.

Indeed Pres Putin has stated same on Moscow TV. Moreover why does not Pres Bush or PM Blair talk about missile defence anymore......

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