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Missile Defense

Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

lunarchick - 01:19am Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8820 of 8829)
lunarchick@www.com

Here in Australia the free to air tv channels have linked directly into USA commentary.

To help the enormity and complexity of this event 'get into the heads' of Americans and the world, the matter is delivered over and over, a new aspect added, and back to the original story, over and over.

The strategy of the attack, then image of the attack, have given way to personal survivor stories.

America is shifting the Paradigm from being a Nation isolated from war, to a Nation afflicted by war, lets hope it 'thinks' carefully, to ensure that innocents aren't stigmatised by political jingoism.

lunarchick - 01:28am Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8821 of 8829)
lunarchick@www.com

NY as it usually presents itself - through drama.

ledzeppelin - 03:47am Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8822 of 8829)

In reply to my posting of 12:23pm Aug 10, 2001 EST (#7841 of 8821) Wherein I said the Missile defence project was, not going to deter or stop terrorists like bin Laden? We were informed by den 345 that no terrorist would do such a thing..... How many more dead do we need before the civilised world defends itself from terrorists? Sadly the missile defence project talks a good game but defends no one! As even a rogue state would not use a missile if a suitcase will do?

den345 - 04:07pm Aug 10, 2001 EST (#7842 of 8821)

suitcase nukes are an urban legend. people are under the mistaken impression that they are easy to produce. they are not. you cannot simply buy the parts from radio shack. plutonium is not the only component of a nuclear weapon that is difficult to get.

the second problem is, well, agenda. in the very unlikely event that someone manages to cobble together a portable nuclear device, and then musters the courage to use it, that person will have no friends left. their agenda will disappear. one does not vaporize a city and get off scott free. in the case of bin laden, i'd guess that afghanistan would be immediately invaded and occupied, and he would be captured or killed in short order. when world opinion no longer matters, steamrolling over third world countries is easy. end quote!

No point den345 now invading Afganistan as the lights are on but no one is home! Oh what happened to the short order capture.....

If the money to be spent on the MD project was spent ridding the world of the means of terrorists producing weapons of mass destruction moreover negating the terrorists ability to commit acts such as we have just witnessed by debilitating the terrorists by whatever means are required this would be a better way of spending the billions than that now proposed because all the MD project has done is make the world less stable and furthermore encouraged the terrorists, such as bin Laden, as the missile defence project has given him a captive audience when he used MD as his example of the US's desire for global domination!

lunarchick - 08:06am Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8823 of 8829)
lunarchick@www.com

Clinton is winging back looking for a useful role.

Checking - seems not to have been happening at airports in US that lack a Federal standard.

The list of lost will include young workers from around the globe who worked in the building.

lunarchick - 08:09am Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8824 of 8829)
lunarchick@www.com

Showalter has put forward the factual argument that Missile Defense ... the hitting of a target in flight (that doesn't have a homing beacon) is very difficult.

In this instance we note FOUR LARGE planes - hijacked - moving onto new flight paths .... without detection.

I believe Showalter, Postal et al when they say the facts related to MD targeting require a truthful investigation.

rshowalter - 08:34am Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8825 of 8829)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

In MOST difficult situations, truth is the only real hope for significant progress because things are so complex that it is very hard to come to workable answers, and avoid disasters.

We are now confronted with a situation where openness and support from the community of nations is crucial for our realistic, long term defense.

We've been doing some things very wrong, and need to fix some problems. Which means that some things about America need to change.

The things on this thread, if checked , would make the United States, and the whole world, much safer.

Not because I'm right about anything in particular, or any single thing. Or that anybody else posting on this thread is right about anything in particular. But the patterns of connection are important - - and the need for making decisions on the basis of things that are reasonably complete and workably true is now, has been, and will continue to be, a matter of life and death.

I wish the search function for this thread were reinstated. I'll try, today, to show how staffed organizations, if they take an interest (as I believe they should) can use it.

The thread has gotten some interest from some technically competent people. I think some sense of "deterrance" in the new web world can be gotten from considering the following exemplary posting, MD7769 drew____lang 8/7/01 5:43pm , which wasn't easy to do, and which must give the webmasters here pause.

The reasons these people wanted to make the threat are good reasons that this thread should continue to be, as it has been, a forum for detailed discussion, with some deniability, between staffed organizations, on difficult issues.

lunarchick - 08:45am Sep 12, 2001 EST (#8826 of 8829)
lunarchick@www.com

Saw the band of nations rally for the US re WTC event.

Night here, had a day of watching events unfold.

The 'mental tragedy' is said to be due to strike hard tomorrow. Tomorrow is peoples_day.

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