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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 - 09:53am Mar 28, 2003 EST (# 10623 of 10627)
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.

Key Developments in the War Against Iraq By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-War-Developments.html Filed at 8:43 a.m. ET today includes

-- Russian President Vladimir Putin called the war the most serious crisis since the end of the Cold War and warned it threatened ``global stability and the foundations of international law.'' However, Putin said it would not damage Russia's relations with Washington.

Patterns of international law are being renegotiated - and even if the US wished to dictate terms - the fact is that it can't. There are things that have to be changed - brought to better focus. - 9859 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.Ufs0a3vM64O.1995631@.f28e622/11402

Almarst , it seems to me that if Russia, or other nations - were clear about what they wanted from the United States - in terms that they could explain in public - they might well, after some work, find their needs satisfied. In ways that were in the real interest of the United States, as well.

It wouldn't take an unreasonable amount of staff work for us to sort out - and solve -a lot of problems. People are different - but workable standards of persuasion do exist.

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8211.htm

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8214_8218.htm

8828 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.Ufs0a3vM64O.1995631@.f28e622/10354

8829 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.Ufs0a3vM64O.1995631@.f28e622/10355

If the body of assertions about fact on this thread, including those posted by Almarst , were checked - and the cost of doing so would be tiny compared to the costs of war - and the costs of continued and excessive containment policies - we could take the incidence of agony and loss from war way down from where it has been - and where it may otherwise be.

If leaders of NATO countries or nations on the Security Council asked for this - it seems to me likely that it would happen directly.

We can't afford not to get basic things straight.

7364 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.Ufs0a3vM64O.1995631@.f28e622/8888 includes this

If you are playing a complicated "game that is not a game" that is as complicated as the "wizard's chess" we're involved in - order, and ordering, can be a matter of life and death. If something is assumed to be sorted, at one stage, but is not - the next stages - that might be easy and sure in every other way, have no chance of working, and are likely, if not certain to be explosively unstable or degenerate.

We're in a situation where a lot can work out well - - but a time where it is important that we face facts - and don't try to push our assumptions farther than we justifiably, safely can.

If people in positions of power keep working in the future as well as they've done in the last six months (muddle, lies, missteps, and all) we might find things converge , in very few steps, to a much safer, more reasonable, more just, more prosperous (but still imperfect) world.

almarst2003 - 10:03am Mar 28, 2003 EST (# 10624 of 10627)

Can I expect the honest assessments from participants on our different views vs. reality?

In a form other then cermons, poetic excursions and repeated abstruct citations?

May be shouldn't waste our time here? I know mazza would agree. Anyone else?

rshow55 - 10:31am Mar 28, 2003 EST (# 10625 of 10627)
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 - - this thread, in the format it has, can do no more than lay out material - after the fashion of "pretrial discovery." That's essential for getting fact straight - and in "easy enough" cases - trained lawyers, with enough detachment, settle cases, and settle them well - on the basis of the pretrial discovery. So the extra costs of "going to trial don't have to occur.

Usually, when stakes are high - there has to be a trial. I have been suggesting, for more than two years now - what it would take to get things to closure - but it takes force - and for that, people with real power would have to use some of it - a point I've been making again and again.

If you're asking for convergence beyond a point within the format of this board - it can't possibly happen.

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense