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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 - 12:14pm Feb 18, 2002 EST (#11606 of 11624)

Americans value good things for themselves, and those they care about. Do they care about the feelings of their "enemies" -- about their griefs -- about their losses?

MD1562-1563 rshowalter 3/26/01 9:14pm

NORTH KOREA, TV NATION http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/26/opinion/26WORK.html .... by Russell Working reveals a pathetic, if dangerous culture. A culture so weak, it hardly seems that it could be a major challenge to us.

Of the three million "communists" killed in the Korean war, 2 million were Korean civilians killed by American fire raids and dam bombing. So far as I know, no American leader has ever ventured to regret it.

These tragic deaths are no secret. In DARK SUN: The Making of the Atomic Bomb Pulitzer Prize winning author Richard Rhodes documents that

" US firebombing of North Korean cities and the bombing of large dams killed more than two million civilians."

Could it be that after that injury, for that ancestor worshiping culture, with the outrage and desecration as it was, the Koreans could not make peace, on the terms given to them? Especially with us the allies of the hated Japanese?

Might emotions (not necessarily irrational emotions) be key to an impasse now half a century old, that has been gruesomely expensive to all sides?

That might explain a lot. It would also indicate that North Korea is a human tragedy that deserves careful, redemptive attention -- not more harshness toward a country that may simple have been immobilized by an injury that we inflicted.

If people, threatened enough, or injured enough, fight to the death -- then might we not be doing it wrong, very wrong, in our dealings with North Korea, and perhaps in our dealings with Iraq as well. A number of Europeans, and Arab leaders, and people elsewhere in the world, aren't convinced of our wisdom in these matters.

What would happen if, among other messages, we sent a message, backed up in some sincere way, that we really did regret the deaths of the past?

What if it were true? If American leaders exercised leadership to point out some key facts, it would be true.

Could we do that? If not, perhaps there are some things wrong with American values -- by standards reasonably held elsewhere in the world.

rshow55 - 12:16pm Feb 18, 2002 EST (#11607 of 11624)

An editorial today is Reviving Korean Diplomacy http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/18/opinion/_18MON3.html

President Bush should use his visit with President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea to reinforce Mr. Kim's engagement policy toward North Korea.

Do we know how to do that? Do we really know how the North Koreans feel, and what they'd need, in emotional as well as other practical terms (emotions are very practical) to make peace? Surely we can't effectively threaten them or impoverish them any more than we have already.

Again, if we do not know these things, if we have not thought carefully about these things, perhaps there are some things wrong or incomplete about American values in action. Things that Americans themselves ought to want to remedy.

rshow55 - 12:47pm Feb 18, 2002 EST (#11608 of 11624)

Any decent answer to the question

"What is America's Vision for the next few decades?"

would have to be an answer that fit values and ideals that Americans in Eisenhower's time, and ours, hold dear, and are proud of.

There are things that have happened, that Eisenhower was concerned about, and warned of, that stand in conflict with the things we hold dear, and are proud of.

They may well have been necessary during the Cold War, but the Cold War should be over . . . not only for the rest of the world, but for us, too.

We need an effective defense.

One that works well in practical terms, and that we can explain to each other and to other nations, as well.

Circumstances where we perpetuate missile threats from North Korea, to provide excuses for huge frauds at home, are no credit to us, and should be questioned by Americans, and others, all over the world, who have to care about the decisions we make, and the reasons we give for them.

mazza9 - 02:26pm Feb 18, 2002 EST (#11609 of 11624)
Louis Mazza

RShow55:

The fact that Korea is developing missile technology and selling it to Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan is well documented.

North Korea's Friends?

Yes, Our diplomacy with regards to North Korea has been weak at best. Korea was the first Cold War test of our concept of freedom of determination. Was President Truman correct in adopting a course not supported by our Allies? Was the containment policy the right policy? A recent CSPAN presentation of Michael Beschloss's new book on Eisenhower's letters suggests that not only did Ike warn against the "Military Industrial Complex" but he also was focused on reducing nuclear stock piles, (didn't happen. JFK and LBJ went the other way, maybe because of Korea and then Viet Nam) and a nuclear test ban treaty.

Would that diplomacy and international relations were simple.

LouMazza

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