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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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almarst2003 - 08:05pm Mar 18, 2003 EST (# 10172 of 10191)

In Iraq Crisis, Networks Are Megaphones for Official Views - http://www.fair.org/activism/iraq-sources-networks.html

Vatican: US, Backers Responsible Before God on Iraq - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44591-2003Mar18.html

rshow55 - 08:12pm Mar 18, 2003 EST (# 10173 of 10191)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

I looked carefully at the links lchic set out in 10167-10168 above - and it would be good to have them put in a careful context.

They may be a significant part of a larger picture - in a world where the things that Eisenhower warned about in his FAREWELL ADDRESS of January 17, 1961. http://www.geocities.com/~newgeneration/ikefw.htmb have happened.

Oil is important - but can't be the whole story. The economic incentives for setting up and continuing conflict aren't the whole story either - though they enter into decisions made - and are probably more important than incentives connected to oil. These incentives are important to understand - and that understanding isn't going to be possible until there are ways to establish key facts and relations - even when power holders don't want theme checked well enough to "put before a jury."

To check currency concerns, and a lot else, would take staff work - subject to cross-examination.

There are major problems with valuations in market economies - problems that are inherent - and systematic misjudgements as big as the tulip frenzy - the South Sea Bubble - and the Internet bubble do occur.

It is true that modern markets - based on printed money - are linked together on systems of assumptions - and can be called a "confidence game." Values depend radically on judgement of the future - that is, expectations, gambling decisions. Oil is involved with that confidence, but big as it is - oil is only so important (the GDP of all the arab states together is less than Spain's, and not so very much larger than Israel's). The dollar is used in international exchange for a lot of reasons - primarily because most contracts in international exchange are set out in dollars (though there are more important exceptions than one can count.)

US fiscal discipline is good enough to keep US inflation where it is - and there are a lot of arbitrage opportunities in other currencies for dealers in oil or anything else.

There are plenty of things that need sorting out. Within the limitations of the Treaty of Westphalia - there are no solutions.

Whether or not thare are "Good Reasons for Going Around the U.N." as ANNE-MARIE SLAUGHTER suggests http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/18/opinion/18SLAU.html - - the basic rules of international law are being renegotiated. Because of interdependencies that cannot be escaped - the need of international law that works isn't going away - and isn't being denied.

Russia initiated contacts with the UN and the US about the UN role in Iraq today - negotiations are taking place, and need to.

If some key facts - even the key facts on something so relatively clear and simple as missile defense - could be checked to closure a lot could sort out. Leaders, eventually, are going to have to face up to the need to establish facts - even when leaders find them inconvenient. Until that happens, we'll live in an inherently unstable - inherently unjust world - no matter what else happens.

almarst2003 - 08:17pm Mar 18, 2003 EST (# 10174 of 10191)

Recommended for reading: King Fahd Addresses Nation on Iraq http://www.boston.com/dailynews/077/world/_King_Fahd_Addresses_Nation_on:.shtml

lchic - 08:51pm Mar 18, 2003 EST (# 10175 of 10191)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

^^^^ dead link

lchic - 08:54pm Mar 18, 2003 EST (# 10176 of 10191)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

King Fahd Iraq

http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=King+Fahd+++Iraq+&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

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