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 Science
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
- 04:29pm Mar 20, 2003 EST (#
10271 of 10272) 
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.
2254 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee79f4e/2867
cites a quote that is key today - where we have to find
Shared Space http://www.worldtrans.org/TP/TP1/TP1-17.HTML
From Envisioning Information by Eward R. Tufte, p.
50
" We thrive in information-thick worlds because of our
marvelous and everyday capacities to select, edit, single
out, structure, highlight, group, pair, merge, harmonize,
synthesize, focus, organize, condense, reduce, boil down,
choose, categorize, classify, list, abstract, scan, look
into, idealize, isolate, discriminate, distinguish, screen,
pidgeonhole, pick over, sort, integrate, blend, inspect,
filter, lump, skip, smooth, chunk, average, approximate,
cluster, aggregate, outline, summarize, itemize, review, dip
into, flip through, browse, glance into, leaf through, skim,
refine, enumerate, glean, synopsize, winnow the wheat from
the chaff, and separate the sheep from the goats." People
can (and must) look at things differently. Each of us does
that, for different reasons, at different times - and often
enough in contradictory ways. Different people see things
differently in the same "culture" - and different "cultures"
see things differently. It is easy enough - painfully easy -
to dismiss the humanity of anyone who sees things differently
from the way you do - or your culture does. There are times
when that seems to me to make sense - Pol Pot did monstrous
things, any way I can look at it. But much too often - calling
each other stupid, or deceptive (though always true to a
degree) is a way of cutting off communication - cutting off a
sense of our common humanity - and cutting off hope.
- - - things are valid from different perspectives - and
within limits of assumption. There are key facts that
can be checked. Unless words are simply weapons - which is
far, far too often the case.
With all the indignation today, I think this piece worth
citing again. We didn't fight in Afghanistan for humanitarian
reasons - but it nonetheless makes points worth making.
A Merciful War By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/01/opinion/01KRIS.html
One of the uncomfortable realities of the
war on terrorism is that we Americans have killed many more
people in Afghanistan than died in the attack on the World
Trade Center.
Over the last couple of months I've tried to
tabulate the Afghan death toll. My best guess is that we
killed 8,000 to 12,000 Taliban fighters, along with about
1,000 Afghan civilians.
So what is the lesson of this? Is it that
while pretending to take the high road, we have actually
slaughtered more people than Osama bin Laden has? Or that
military responses are unjustifiable because huge numbers of
innocents inevitably are killed?
No, it's just the opposite.
Our experience there demonstrates that
troops can advance humanitarian goals just as much as
doctors or aid workers can. By my calculations, our invasion
of Afghanistan may end up saving one million lives over the
next decade.
Ever since Vietnam, the West has been deeply
squeamish about the use of force — particularly European and
American liberals, who are often so horrified by bloodshed
involving innocents that they believe nothing can justify
it.
There are times when force is
necessary - and though I have many disagreements with
the Bush administration - they're right about that.
The balance between those killed, and lives saved, by
cleaning up the mess in Iraq is likely to be similar. One can
say that it is still not justified - but Kristoff's point, and
other humanitarian points, still ought to weigh in the
balance.
There is no going back to the Treaty of Westphalia.
We shouldn't want to. We need to advance beyond that.
9657 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8
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