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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 - 01:41pm Mar 19, 2003 EST (# 10216 of 10226)
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.

Almarst , there's a joke that practically all Americans have heard - I suspect you have, as well:

Q: How do you tell that a lawyer is lying?

A: His lips are moving.

Everybody laughs, and has some reason to. All the same, contradictions and all, muddles and all - what people say - especially in public - matters. Here's a promise from Blair. If there's an oil grab - and I'd be the last person to deny that a lot of people involved have thought of ways and means to do such a thing - it will have to happen in public - and I don't think that's possible, corrupt as the press often is. Especially if leaders of nation states finally agree that there have to be limits - that people can understand - to the Treaty of Westphalia standards now in force.

Blair promises 'brighter and better' Iraq Matthew Tempest and agencies Wednesday March 19, 2003 http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,917521,00.html

The prime minister today attempted to assuage the 139 rebels within his own party with a pledge of funds to help with the reconstruction of Iraq after the looming war and build a "brighter and better" future for the Iraqi people. During an extremely sombre Commons question time, Mr Blair joined with the Conservative leader, Iain Duncan Smith, in wishing British forces well for the likely battle ahead.

"Whatever positions people have taken - and we understand the reasons for that - I know that everyone in this house wishes our armed forces well, wishes that if there is conflict it is over as quickly and as successfully as possible."

Mr Blair confirmed that the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime was a war aim if that was the only way to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction.

"If the only means of achieving the disarmament of Iraq of weapons of mass destruction is the removal of the regime, then the removal of the regime has to be our objective," he insisted. Mr Blair said the government had set out a vision statement for Iraq.

It included supporting the Iraqi people "in their desire for a unified Iraq within its current borders, protecting their territorial integrity" and "protecting their wealth".

He also repeated that "any money from Iraqi oil will go in a trust fund, UN-administered, for the benefit of the Iraqi people".

rshow55 - 02:59pm Mar 19, 2003 EST (# 10217 of 10226)
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.

Interesting contradictions in this survey. All over the world, many feel, on key things that ought to matter, that the US is doing the right thing. But the aversion to fighting is very strong. For getting past Treaty of Westphalia standards, in a stable way, these are good circumstances.

Negative Views of U.S. Are Increasing in Europe, Poll Finds By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS and MARJORIE CONNEL http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/19/politics/19CND-POLL.html

Secretary Rumsfeld is running his morning meetings in an interesting way. Rumsfeld Seeks Consensus Through Jousting By THOM SHANKER and ERIC SCHMITT http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/19/politics/19PENT.html

There are many striking quotes in C.P. Snow's The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution (1959) and A Second Look. (1964). and I've quoted them many times. Here is a part of http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md4000s/md4143.htm that I think is especially important as people think of balances today. In A Second Look , Chaper 4 , Snow set out hopes that have failed to materialize.

" .. it is accepted that, in all non-industrialized countries, people are not eating better than at the subsistence level. And they are working as people have always had to work, from Neolithic times until our own. Life for the overwhelming majority of mankind has always been nasty, brutish, and short. It is so in the poor countries still.

" This disparity between the rich and the poor has been noticed. It has been noticed, most acutely and not unnaturally, by the poor. Just because they have noticed it, it won't last for long. Whatever else in the world we know survives to the year 2000, that won't. Once the trick of getting rich is known, as it now is, the world can't survive half rich and half poor. It's just not on. "

How much worse we've done than C.P. Snow expected!

The Cold War has been a big part of the reason. More generally, failures of human beings to cooperate - which may perhaps be mostly technical failures, have kept the world poorer than seems sane, given technical possibilties that have long been in place.

Exploitation in the Marxist sense has been an issue - as it has been throughout history - but a secondary one. It isn't so much that wealth has been stolen. It is that wealth has not been created, because the cooperations wealth creation takes have not happened often and consistently enough.

Paralysis with lies, and the chaos that is unavoidable under Treaty of Westphalia standards, under the circumstances of today, are a large part of the reason.

If we can get past Treaty of Westphalia standards - a lot is impossible now will become possible.

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