New York Times on the Web Forums Science

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 - 05:37pm Apr 1, 2003 EST (# 10912 of 10914)
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.

Top U.S. General Defends War Plan By THE ASSOCIATED PRESShttp://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/01/international/worldspecial/01WIRE-GUARD.html

Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, launched a spirited defense of the U.S. military strategy being used in Iraq . . .

TEXT Rumsfeld and Myers at the Pentagon http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/01/international/worldspecial/01WEB-RTEX.html

Some leaders are asking questions -

Powell Hastily Heads for Meetings With European Leaders By JOEL BRINKLEY http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/01/international/worldspecial/01CND-POLI.html

As Secretary of State Colin L. Powell headed to Europe today for consultations with America's erstwhile allies, he left behind a simmering debate over the adequacy of coalition war plans and he faced meetings with bitter European leaders who indicated they may not greet him with open arms.

What can be checked? Under current circumstances, nothing that matters. Because when anyone with real power objects, checking is blocked. If the body of assertions about facts on this thread were checked to closure - a great deal could be clarified. The leaders who are talking to Secretary Powell can get nowhere, on fundamentals, unless they find ways to assure themselves that facts can be checked - even against the will of the Bush administration.

The things Eisenhower warned of in his FAREWELL ADDRESS of January 17, 1961 http://www.geocities.com/~newgeneration/ikefw.htm have happened.

9/11 also happened. We have to deal with craziness and instabilities in the world that are actually there. We only have a chance of doing that if we deal with some problems of our own.

9/11 is worth remembering - both for what we have to be concerned about - and what we need to have sense enough not to trust. A week after 9/11, there was an excellent article

World Leaders List Conditions on Cooperation by PATRICK E. TYLER and JANE PERLEZ http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/19/international/19DIPL.html http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md9000s/MD9417.HTM

The article included this:

"President Bush's father last week seemed to be the first to declare dead the sort of unilateralism that prevailed in the administration's early months. He told a Boston audience, "Just as Pearl Harbor awakened this country from the notion that we could somehow avoid the call to duty and defend freedom in Europe and Asia in World War II, so, too, should this most recent surprise attack erase the concept in some quarters that America can somehow go it alone in the fight against terrorism or in anything else for that matter."

there was also a posting of mine Sep 18, 2001 EST (#9420 that recounts some happenings that tickled me, years ago. It starts:

The diplomats are being graceful and diplomatic. Even so, it occurs to me that American pretensions of unilateral power, to be weilded without cost, are under pressure.

I recall a circumstance from days long ago. In 1969, when I was a Senior at Cornell, there were political difficulties. . . . .

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md9000s/md9419.htm

The Emperor's New Clothes by Hans Christian Anderson http://www.deoxy.org/emperors.htm

(2 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense