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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?

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rshow55 - 07:29am Mar 2, 2002 EST (#67 of 69)

The following was, for a time, featured on the wonderful and distinguished Encyclopedia Britannica web site. It has been removed, and links to it are not available. I'm including it here, because it gathers together wonderful references (some removed, but many remaining) that I believe are important to see, when one asks about what Friedman meant when he said that he had

" no doubt that Kissinger is as cynical, mean and nasty a bureaucratic infighter and player of the game of nations as his most venomous critics have charged. At times, he can make Machiavelli sound like one of the Sisters of Mercy. . . ."

Henry Kissinger on Trial: A Guide to the Controversy Surrounding the Diplomat February 2001

"The February and March issues of Harper's Magazine ( http://www.harpers.org/ ) contain a two-part article arguing that former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger should be tried for war crimes. The author, journalist Christopher Hitchens, bases this "Case Against Henry Kissinger" on the diplomat's role, during his years as head of the National Security Council (1969-1975) and secretary of state (1973-1977), in conflicts around the world. Britannica.com takes you to these different parts of the globe during the periods in question and introduces you to the individuals involved, providing historical and political context to Kissinger's contested diplomatic undertakings and information on the journalist who has raised questions about them.

"Kissinger

"Who is Henry Kissinger?

"Encyclopædia Britannica on Kissinger

PBS profile of Kissinger http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/china/peopleevents/pande02.html .... http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/whos/whos-noframes.html

"Theaters of Conflict

"Events in which Kissinger's actions have stirred controversy:

• the war in Indochina • the subversion of the Allende regime in Chile • the invasion of Cyprus by the government of Turkey • the invasion of East Timor by the government of Indonesia • a coup d'état and mass terror in Bangladesh

"Indochina

"Vietnam

"Hitchens accuses the Nixon campaign team of sabotaging the Paris peace negotiations on Vietnam in 1968: "...they privately assured the South Vietnamese military rulers that an incoming Republican regime would offer them a better deal than would a Democratic one. In this way, they undercut both the talks themselves and the electoral strategy of Vice President Hubert Humphrey."

The consequences of those talks breaking down, according to Hitchens:

" [S]ome 20,000 Americans and an uncalculated number of Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians lost their lives." "The chief beneficiary of the covert action, and of the subsequent slaughter," claims Hitchens, "was Henry Kissinger."

COMMENT: Hitchens' case has been much reinforced by publication of NO PEACE, NO HONOR: Nixon, Kissinger, and Betrayal in Vietnam by Larry Berman

"Encyclopædia Britannica on the Vietnam War

"Vietnam 1945-1975: Timeline (from the BBC) http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/asia-pacific/newsid_1026000/1026782.stm

"Nixon 'wrecked early peace in Vietnam' (from the London Guardian) http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,352224,00.html

"Kissinger's (recently declassified) "Lessons of Vietnam" memo to President Ford http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/ford/library/exhibits/vietnam/750512b.htm …. (Has been removed, but is in Berman's book.)

"Cambodia

"Hitchens argues that the secret bombing between 1969 and 1973 of then-neutral Cambodia by Nixon and Kissinger, which resulted in the deaths of several thousand civilians, constitutes crimes of war.

"Encyclopædia Britannica on Cambodia

. Confusion in Cambodia: People Mystified as Direct U.S. Role Ends At a Time of Military Adversity (from The New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/specials/saigon/

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