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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 - 03:55pm Feb 22, 2002 EST (#11741 of 11756)

I don't think even Bill Casey understood all the constraints on checking -- all the protocol barriers - that had grown up - - even at great newspapers. Even though he helped build some of the barriers.

lchic - 04:16pm Feb 22, 2002 EST (#11742 of 11756)

The 'popular press' ran memorable front pages on Cold War issues ... it sold a lot of copy!

Shadow warriors ... more on secrets (and lies?)

lchic - 04:25pm Feb 22, 2002 EST (#11743 of 11756)

Nelson Mandela had forsight when he drew a line in the sand ...

Could WalkerB draw such a line --- not when he is so 'conflicted' with strings pulled by his father and the old crowd. Bush is a President of things past .. not a visionary of tomorrow ... he won't go down as a 'great' - will he?

~~~

People who live and work in 'shadow' situations may feel a false sense of security. The special forces 'shadow' agents of the UK have 'come out' to speak on how they were let down and betrayed by those higher up .. who didn't rescue them .. the guys were captured in the gulf war .. their mission had been to neuter Iraqui missiles.
The UK government have taken out an injunction in New Zealand courts to try to stop publication. These guys are agrieved and coming out into the light - shows by just how much.

The 'truth' can only surface when 'the spotlight' is allowed to shine on it.

rshow55 - 04:46pm Feb 22, 2002 EST (#11744 of 11756)

It can feel awkward, being left high and dry.

Especially with a job you feel has to be done.

rshow55 - 05:12pm Feb 22, 2002 EST (#11745 of 11756)

Fear can close off light -- and there's too much of it.

I don't think Americans know how much fear became an accepted part of their lives and social usages during the Cold War -- and how much it gets in the way of getting certain things straight.

Some things that I was told were going to be fairly easy didn't turn out to be, mostly, I thought, because of fear. Fear levels (and not just my own, and I was plenty afraid) were higher than I'd been led to expect. MD8393 rshowalter 9/3/01 8:02pm

Fear is a reason that missile defense and other nuclear issues are so immune to reason - - people are afraid to hear about details. Or even hear about the subject at all. That's been instilled, and the military depends on it to close off discussion. For such reasons, able people, including senior military people, who favor nuclear disarmament can be stopped. rshowalter 2/1/01 6:49pm .. #374-375 - Signatories of the Global Security Institute appeal as of October 2, 2000 seem well worth listing, because I find the list hopeful: rshowalt 10/4/00 5:08am

Fear's real. I've been going up against some established patterns, sometimes in ways that make me feel isolated.

almarst-2001 - 05:54pm Feb 22, 2002 EST (#11746 of 11756)

I wonder if a promotion of American Values as the superior or the only real ones are not a direct descent from a Cristian Missionic attempt to convert the World - by Word or by Sword.

As I mentioned a long time ago, there is a fundamental difference between Cristian and non-Cristian interpretention of a "Golden Rule". A difference with trmendous consequences.

The Cristian interpretention - the one sited by Robert - "Do to your neighbor what you would like your neighbor to do to you"

The rest of the World (the Jews and Islam) interpret it differently - " DON'T do to your neighbor what you WOULDN'T like your neighbor to do to you"

Do you understand the difference? Do you think the Cristian en-mass understand the difference?

almarst-2001 - 06:15pm Feb 22, 2002 EST (#11747 of 11756)

The Bush administration is no longer standing by a 24-year-old U.S. pledge not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states, a senior administration official said yesterday. - http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020222-77660232.htm

rshow55 - 06:20pm Feb 22, 2002 EST (#11748 of 11756)

I understand the difference -- and BOTH phrasings make much sense, it seems to me -- but with the "right to be left alone -- the right not to be intruded on" very important -- and perhaps underappreciated in the Christian tradition. (That's a tradition I swim in -- so it is hard for me to judge well -- but good to think about it.)

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