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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.

mazza9 - 06:28pm Mar 31, 2003 EST (# 10843 of 10879)
"Quae cum ita sunt" Caesar's Gallic Commentaries

dccougar:

It's the "evil Americans". Iraq is only cleansing itself when it identifies a 12 year old girl who waved at US Marines. What's a more appropriate Iraqi response then to string her up on a lamp post.

Of course, sarcasm is lost on Alarmst. Personally I would find the "enforcer" who perpetrated this inhumane action and deliver him to Kafka's Penal Colony. He'd be strapped into that rig and , before he died, he would know the horror of his action!

Yeah, Degenova at Columbia want's the US to be defeated. Then he can practice the Hussein manner of persuasion to produce his Paradise on Earth. Yeah, torture, rape rooms and plastic shredders. Certainly more civilized then our constitutional form of government. NOT!!!

almarst2003 - 08:29pm Mar 31, 2003 EST (# 10844 of 10879)

"It was the most horrible thing I've ever seen, and I hope I never see it again." (CBS)

US troops killed seven Iraqi women and children at a checkpoint Monday when the Iraqis' van would not stop as ordered, US Central Command said. - http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/03/31/iraq/main547047.shtml

LIBERATED...

almarst2003 - 08:38pm Mar 31, 2003 EST (# 10845 of 10879)

dccougar - 03:46pm Mar 31, 2003 EST (# 10841 of 10844) - Iraqi Tactics.

Indeed. Why Iraqis don't get into the open field to face the US armada? Why they fight "durty" while we send our missiles and bombs by thousends from a safe distance? Why don't they just declare a national suicide day or capitulate?

I have no answer... Did you ever thought about facing Mike Tyson on a boxing ring in a fight by rules. I hope to be invited. See you then.

almarst2003 - 08:41pm Mar 31, 2003 EST (# 10846 of 10879)

mazza,

Why don't you save your emotions till the "Great Victory Day"?

almarst2003 - 08:46pm Mar 31, 2003 EST (# 10847 of 10879)

OIL UBER KIDS

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15522

If cynicism were a planet, the Bush administration would be Jupiter, the biggest of all.

These people have turned cynicism into political art, routinely claiming in public to be supportive of children, education, veterans, and other popular constituencies, while maneuvering in the back rooms to gut budgets and programs that support these very constituencies. An especially disgusting example is Bush's recent gut job on the program that provides essential school aid for the children of our troops.

Yes, the very troops that he has put at ultimate risk to fulfill his war and oil fantasies in Iraq. In February, as gung-ho George was rallying the troops to go face death, his budget leaders were quietly pushing a plan to slash funding for a vital education program called Impact Aid. Created during the Truman years, this is a tried and true program that provides extra funding to local school districts that serve areas with large military bases.

These school districts are hit with a triple economic whammy – first, the land of the military base is exempt from property taxes needed to fund local schools; second, the schools are obligated to serve the military children; and third, these children often have special needs, including counseling when mom or dad are about to be sent off to war.

Yet, at a time when school budgets are already stretched beyond thin, and at a time when we ought to be reaching out to support military families – our "compassionate conservative" commander-in-chief wants to whack Impact Aid by more than half. For example, the Virginia Beach school district, which serves several military bases, would have its aid cut from $12 million a year to $4.5 million under George's plan. The local school superintendent told New York Times columnist Bob Herbert: "That would be fairly devastating for us."

It also is devastating to our nation's democratic principles of fairness and justice, which are the very values that George says he wants to extend to Iraq.

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