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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?

ledzeppelin - 01:01pm Sep 19, 2001 EST (#9457 of 9487)

Whilst my great fear is that reason will lose out to the hawks?

As the hawks will not take the time too ensure that the rabbit is in fact in it's hole but just blast every hole in the ground! This will then wake all 35 muslim [radical] groups in Pakistan and unite the whole area against the US?

As for bombing the Afganistan infrastructure there is not one to bomb?

It is time to pray, that the moderates in the west and the moderates in the middle east win the day and that way the US will get bin Laden and a host of other terrorists but without creating a zillion more OBL's?

lunarchick - 03:02pm Sep 19, 2001 EST (#9458 of 9487)
lunarchick@www.com

"Not one to bomb" was a point made by an Oz-commentator this week who said the conventional stuff was out - it had all been done - and "now look at ya!"

lunarchick - 03:30pm Sep 19, 2001 EST (#9459 of 9487)
lunarchick@www.com

Anti-Taliban opposition commander Ahmad Shah Masood, known as the "Lion of Panjshir" http://www.dawn.com/2001/09/17/top17.htm

http://www.dawn.com/2001/09/19/
http://www.dawn.com/2001/09/18/
http://www.dawn.com/2001/09/17/
http://www.dawn.com/2001/09/16/

lunarchick - 03:31pm Sep 19, 2001 EST (#9460 of 9487)
lunarchick@www.com

RISK: Insurance: Global airlines want governments to underwrite http://www.smh.com.au/news/0109/20/world/world1.html

almarst-2001 - 04:05pm Sep 19, 2001 EST (#9461 of 9487)

My feeling is that it is Iraq that will be bombed to the stone age.

It's easy, it's achievable, it's "safe", it's "honorable" and completes the father's "unfinished job".

But it also may be, that it's Iraq who stand at least in part behind the attack.

One should never underestimate the frustration and desperation.

lunarchick - 05:10pm Sep 19, 2001 EST (#9462 of 9487)
lunarchick@www.com

The hour glass. They're already in the sand age!

Frustration and desperation let reason and rationality slip out of sight.

The BIG economic loosers since Tragic Tuesday have been just this geo-zone.

Insurance is sky high on tankers of oil, and their civil air fleets.

The 'mind' of the terrorist .... do they have a mind .. seems supposedly univeristy educated individuals are twisting the minds of the ordinary guy in the Afghan street to do dirty work.

Showalter: there's a case for making texts such as Kline's Conceptual foundations for interdisciplinary thinking a part of the mind set of the 16-21 year olds .. in standard fashion .. so they appreciate complexity and interlinkage .... especially when the men of terror are claimed to have USA univ educations.

lunarchick - 05:13pm Sep 19, 2001 EST (#9463 of 9487)
lunarchick@www.com

It seems there's yet another virus doing the rounds .. so commerce and industry communications .. from the Middle East outwards will be hit .. it can be expected that the NET will cease up again and IT Admistrators will have to clean through all files.

rshowalter - 05:18pm Sep 19, 2001 EST (#9464 of 9487)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

" We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away," said Bill Maher, the host of Politically Incorrect. "That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly."

The bombing, whether "cowardly" or "brave" is not good.

That is a simple point, but it needs to be more completely learned.

Learned strongly enough to better guide logic and action, all over the world.

almarst , we don't disagree about how terrorism should be thought of.

The case has to be made.

The case will be easier to make in some places than other, to some people rather than others.

A central problem is an astonishing lack of sympathy for "others" - - - - all over the world, but especially, now, in America.

There are issues of morality, and aesthetics, and practicality here.

Issues that I think have to be evaluated, at a number of levels in Maslow's heirarchy of needs. http://www.valdosta.peachnet.edu/~whuitt/psy702/regsys/maslow.html

There's a persuasion problem here, but also, much more than people seem to appreciate, an understanding problem. People are getting wrong answers with monotonous regularity, on some imporant issues, and sometimes the results are very, very ugly.

I think there's considerable reason for hope - - but work to do. Work that needs to be staffed.

lunarchick - 05:18pm Sep 19, 2001 EST (#9465 of 9487)
lunarchick@www.com

Showalter a nutshell recap regarding issues on this board from the philosophical stand point might be in order.

Once upon a time ... there was the Cold War ...

rshowalter - 05:19pm Sep 19, 2001 EST (#9466 of 9487)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

lunarchick 9/19/01 5:15pm

Let me post this - - it will clear some of the way for what you suggest.

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