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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.

jorian319 - 03:47pm Mar 29, 2003 EST (# 10718 of 10724)

Reality bites and human shields are wounded http://heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,6192399%5E25717,00.html

The latest human shield to emerge is the Rev Kenneth Joseph, an American, who said his trip "shocked me back to reality".

He had helped to secretly film 14 hours of uncensored video of Iraqi civilians, some of whom Joseph said "told me they would commit suicide if the American bombing didn't start".

"They were willing to see their homes demolished to gain their freedom from Saddam's bloody tyranny."

"I was shocked when I first met a pro-war Iraqi in Baghdad -- a taxi driver taking me back to my hotel at night," he said.

"He started to speak in broken English about the evils of Saddam's regime . . . and that if you opposed him politically he would kill your whole family. It scared the hell out of me."

Another taxi driver had told Pepper "all Iraqi people want this war", and weren't afraid of the bombing.

And the driver asked his six passengers, all human shields: "How much did Saddam pay you to come?"

One of those six passengers was Melbourne's Jake Nowakowski, who last week returned home, admitting he and his fellow activists "were being naive".

dccougar - 03:49pm Mar 29, 2003 EST (# 10719 of 10724)
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts.

Alarmist quotes: "Robert Fisk: Raw, devastating realities that expose the truth about Basra "...An Iraqi general, surrounded by hundreds of his armed troops, stands in central Basra and announces that Iraq's second city remains firmly in Iraqi hands. The unedited al-Jazeera videotape... is also proof that Basra – reportedly "captured'' and "secured'' by British troops last week – is indeed under the control of Saddam Hussein's forces."

Fisk calls this truth? The only thing the "al-Jazeera videotape" proves is that the Iraqi general holds the block of Basra that he and his 200 bodyguards are standing on. What's with people like Fisk? What a B.S. sham. And of course we can count on Alarmist to spread every sham he can find....

Generally the stay-at-home-journalists' coverage, investigation, and questioning of this war has been utterly pathetic. "Did this surprise you?" "Why is this taking so long?" "Did you misjudge?" What a bunch of thoughtless idiots.

lchic - 06:29pm Mar 29, 2003 EST (# 10720 of 10724)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Caught up on the past 28 posts - here's comment:

Post 10694 - The term 'victory' in relation to war is a misnomer

the victors pay the price - most often of getting a country back on it's feet

and taking-in a million refugees ---- that's making the assumption that people(refugees) have no value

they have value - but require intital input capital -- check malsow wrungs and add in 'language classes'

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1069 - Blair (the UK looked around ... couldn't find a 'new' leader) So stay with Blair.

----

On looking and viewpoints ... each looks down their own straw ...

The straws have to be sum-totalled to give an overview

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10710 "" beginning of the end of "Bush's dream" ""

Was that really 'his-GWB' dream ... or the dream of a Neo-Con that floated into the GWB dreaming zone?

&

WHO IS GOING TO BEAR THE COST? Educated Guess - BBC

An interesting BBC audio - world news ... i heard part ..... said that the world demand for oil

is not about to rise .... and said Saudi would have to bear a part of the rebuild cost ... seems fair enough this is the country that sent in the 9/11 squad.

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lchic - 06:32pm Mar 29, 2003 EST (# 10721 of 10724)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Let us not pray for them that trespass against us

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?q=world+news&tab=news&go=homepage&x=40&y=20 http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?q=world+news&tab=news&go=homepage&x=40&y=20

lchic - 06:35pm Mar 29, 2003 EST (# 10722 of 10724)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

bbc headers MEast

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2897699.stm

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