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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 - 07:31am Mar 2, 2002 EST (#68 of 79)

(the Brintannica site included much more, including this:)

"East Timor

"In 1975, the government of Indonesia invaded and annexed East Timor, an independent and sovereign nation-state, and killed approximately 200,000 of its inhabitants—roughly one-third of its population (the largest proportional genocide since the Holocaust). Kissinger and President Ford gave approval for the invasion to Indonesia's dictator, General Suharto, who received economic and military aid from the United States. This approval, argues Hitchens, makes Kissinger complicit in crimes against humanity.

" Encyclopædia Britannica on East Timor

" Encyclopædia Britannica on Indonesia

East Timor (from Time.com ) http://www.time.com/time/daily/newsfiles/timor/

.> . Dossier: A relatively painless primer on the history of the conflict in East Timor (from Mother Jones ) http://www.motherjones.com/east_timor/dossier/

East Timor: Questions & Answers (from Z Magazine)

. We helped them descend into hell (from the New Statesman)

. East Timor: Long Road Ahead (from the BBC) http://news6.thdo.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/asia-pacific/newsid_646000/646393.stm

On 09:57am Jul 30, 2001 lunarchick commented

"The worry re the Indonesian Army is that they set up milita who in turn bully, beat, and kill the local population. This is happening now on the Islands with mineral resources. In West Papua the technique is to move Indonesians onto the Island - who inturn outnumber the original inhabitants - whose land was stolen. The wealth is being drained to the East Javanese. Suharto (and family) still have vast holdings - with money - to pay private armies to do their dirty work. I doubt if Megawatti will be a human rights champion .... more likely to put the Army in charge of the country and let it do what it wants.

"The Indonesian Army has people who were trained in Oz - perhaps they should include info re moral education and ethics - and hope it flows north.

I wonder what Paul Wolfowitz might say about this?

rshow55 - 07:34am Mar 2, 2002 EST (#69 of 79)

These issues are tightly connected to the context of missile defense, and gisterme and mazza are making it clear how much this sort of context matters.

Nuclear terror is an American invention and development. We've used threat and terror, very effectively, for a long time. If we took action, and acknowledged what we did, then effective nuclear disarmament would be possible -- and much other progress toward increased peace and decency would be possible. We could, at the least, get to the point where nuclear risks were no larger than many of the natural disaster risks we cope with.

We need to know what has been done.

THREATS TO USE NUCLEAR WEAPONS: The Sixteen Known Nuclear Crises of the Cold War, 1946-1985 by David R. Morgan , National President, Veterans Against Nuclear Arms Vancouver, Canada March 6, 1996 http://scienceforpeace.sa.utoronto.ca/WorkingGroupsPage/NucWeaponsPage/Documents/ThreatsNucWea.html

The potential for subversion of the constitution and democracy of the United States , and for fraud, is very great, given the mechanism set up in Eisenhower's time, that has gone with little supervision, and with many ways to enrich people for private gain, for more than 40 years.

It seems to me that there are reasons to suspect the Bush administration of betraying the interests of the United States in very important, terrible ways.

As a technical matter, "missile defense" is either a fraud, or evidence of technical incompetence.

rshow55 - 07:38am Mar 2, 2002 EST (#70 of 79)

md47 rshow55 3/1/02 9:10pm

lchic - 07:43am Mar 2, 2002 EST (#71 of 79)

BillyG

"Although I have no memory of the occasion, I deeply regret comments I apparently made in an Oval Office conversation with President Nixon some 30 years ago," Mr Graham said in a statement released by his Texas public relations firm.

lchic - 07:51am Mar 2, 2002 EST (#72 of 79)

For most jobs people have to train and qualify. Seems that people who intend to run for public office should undertake courses - that give a framework of ethical logic.

lchic - 07:55am Mar 2, 2002 EST (#73 of 79)

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said he had not been told about the role, location or even the existence of the shadow government see

rshow55 - 07:56am Mar 2, 2002 EST (#74 of 79)

The world is changing - - and making progress -- and I think that the MD thread, as a whole, has broken some new ground - showing new, more effective ways to present material complex enough that it requires the attention of staffed organizations.

But problems with exposition remain - - we have to find ways to present issues of logic more clearly. Some of the best examples I've seen are on the "Science Times" pages -- where smart writers are struggling with exposition issues, and making headway.

Lies are becoming less stable than they used to be -- but there's more to do. It is a hopeful time.

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