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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 - 10:56am Mar 26, 2003 EST (# 10534 of 10544)
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.

Lchic and I aren't the same person. You can tell - she's much smarter and more graceful than I am. Better connected, too.

Buck Showalter surely knows a lot more than Bob Showalter - but I'm sure he's too busy to talk to me. Some Showalter's are pretty smart, anyway.

Almarst's pieces are often important.

And if the Bush administration stays committed to lies - very many of the good things about the US (and Mazza is right that there are good things) will be devalued.

You can have great love and respect for America - and not think that Paul Krugman has anything at all wrong in his columns.

One thing I'm sure Buck Showalter knows is that you have to deal with situations as they are - or you can't possibly do well. The modern world is facing a major challenge in Sayyid Qutb and his followers.

The Philosopher of Islamic Terror By PAUL BERMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/23/magazine/23GURU.html

To deal with that challenge - we have to deal with ideas at the level where they are - the level of ideas.

We ought to do so. We'd still need force sometimes - but we'd need it less, and could use it more effectively. Effectively enough to meet the decent, valid needs of the United States - and other nations all over the world.

Sometimes, jorian , sermons have their uses - and repetition is indispensible, as well.

I've repeated sermon a good deal, for instance:

. When the Foundations are Shaking by Dr. James Slatton 11/19/2000 River Road Church Richmond Virginia http://www.mrshowalter.net/sermon.html

It is a wonderful piece of work - and an exemplar of a kind of religion that is fully compatible with every reasonable kind or modernity - and I think will still be centuries from now.

jorian319 - 11:42am Mar 26, 2003 EST (# 10535 of 10544)

For the anti-war idealogues:

http://komo1000news.com/audio/kvi_aircheck_031003.mp3

Poignantly highlights the moral bankruptcy of those who would turn a blind eye to the unimaginable atrocities perpetrated upon the Iraqi people by the dictator with whom you would prefer to negotiate.

rshow55 - 01:00pm Mar 26, 2003 EST (# 10536 of 10544)
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.

Plenty of muddle - and I don't reject the need for force and violence on occasion. But issues of balance matter. If it is not possible to get Saddam out of power - there's nothing to negotiate now. If it is, then there's a great deal to negotiate.

I stand by what I said in 10484 - http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.Y9ngaHDn5Gj.0@.f28e622/12033

WE have problems we ought to deal with, as well.

4739 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.Y9ngaHDn5Gj.0@.f28e622/5991

It is in the interest of all Americans of good faith, and all world leaders of responsibility, to establish some key facts and relations on which important matters of world safety, decency, and material prosperity depend.

I believe that this thread, viewed as pretrial discovery - contains a lot of useful material.

Because of format, this thread can't take anything to closure. But patterns discussed here at length, with much Bush administration involvement over many months - could establish a lot, beyond a reasonable doubt, by the standards jury trials take, if people with real power wanted that to happen.

Scorecard for the War by THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/26/opinion/26FRIE.html

To know whether the allied forces are winning, there are six things one could watch out for.

To win, we need to handle a lot of things well. Some things we are handling well. But as Buck Showalter knows - and everybody else knows - things matter when they matter - matter in the ways they matter - and it is disastrous and stupid to ignore problems that need to be faced.

If you keep score, you can often tell what those problems are. The US "isn't winning them all" in ways we have to care about.

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense