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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.

(11901 previous messages)

lchic - 11:02pm Feb 27, 2002 EST (#11902 of 11911)

Radio can be used for GOOD

If it's informative

If it gives people answers
education and hope

If it fulfils their needs
satisfies their thirst
enables them to grow

Folks can smell propaganda
They KNOW!

rshow55 - 11:07pm Feb 27, 2002 EST (#11903 of 11911)

Radio Free Europe has had a pretty good reputation over the years.

I think it would be safer and better if the US did not lie -- and many other Americans think so too. Though there could be inconveniences, they'd be small. (Getting rid of the missile defense boondoggle would be one "inconvenience" -- but a boon to the nation.)

But where would Hussien, and some other dictators be, if they were subjected to truth? They'd be weakened, and might fold.

HONEST radio might be good politics for America, and just, as well.

lchic - 11:15pm Feb 27, 2002 EST (#11904 of 11911)

Radio should be the 'voice' of the people -- the targeted audience. Excuse while i tune in to Radio Boondoggle .. Ssshhh! Aaargggh! Interesting ... Boondoggle dance music is easy listening too ...

rshow55 - 11:20pm Feb 27, 2002 EST (#11905 of 11911)

It is harder to do the "de-boondoggle" . . . But that can be beautiful music.

Journalist often can help with such "deconstructions." . . .

"Let me set out a schema, in a form tinged with the sort of "political incorrectness" that often makes things memorable in a low-down sort of way. It is one of my favorite limericks, and perhaps the cleanest.

A fa**ot one night in Rangoon
Took a lesbian up to his room.
They turned out the light,
But argued all night,
Who'd do what,
and with which,
and to whom.

"As stated, a nice schema-exemplar for unconsummated negotiation among free actors -- and if one is not offended by the language or innuendo -- easy to imagine, and neither logically nor morally complicated.

"Here are the last two lines, with with a tense change, so that "do" becomes "done" . Now, the result, though still easy to imagine as an exemplar of human function, is both logically and morally complicated.

(They) argued all night,

Who'd done what .. and with which .... and to whom.

The not-yet-done is undetermined, or at the discretion of actors.

The present is . For those beyond quantum limits, reality is ... that is, in a sense that is operationally important, reality is fixed, and independent of opinions.

The past, which is the sequence of present moments that are now past, must logically be fixed in the same way.

And yet, for real people, what we can know of the past is a construction. What do we owe to the notion of "truth" in the past -- and why does it matter -- and how do we determine what to believe?

We can find answers that make the risks of the nuclear age far, far less than they have been, and far far less than they are now.

That depends on finding good answers, of disciplined beauty, in terms of facts that are real --- and in an essential sense, that means being able to "nail down" key issues about the facts of the past.

We have to find good, fair, workable ways to nail down those facts. I think, muddled and messy as things might be, that we should insist of facts, more than we have before. If we did, I think the world would be better and safer.

And as Almarst suggests -- we should watch the oil. ... MD3871 almarst-2001 5/14/01 10:32pm

rshow55 - 11:25pm Feb 27, 2002 EST (#11906 of 11911)

So far, no contesting what I said in MD11896 rshow55 2/27/02 5:40pm . . where I indicated (not to put too fine a point on it) that at the tactical levels that ought to matter, the US missile defense programs are, in Menken's phrase