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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.

almarst2003 - 09:21pm Apr 1, 2003 EST (# 10933 of 10946)

The proof: marketplace deaths were caused by a US missile - http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=393066

Some people may count it as a war crime.

almarst2003 - 09:28pm Apr 1, 2003 EST (# 10934 of 10946)

Kids became 'human torches' - http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,6119,2-10-1460_1341016,00.html

Janabiyah, Iraq - Bloodied school books and children's shoes lie amidst animal carcasses on the road leading to the Ismails' farm in this village on the south eastern edge of Baghdad.

The main building of this hamlet, accessible via a checkpoint manned by militiamen, has been levelled, the second burned out and the third partially destroyed.

A neighbour told an AFP journalist that two missiles fired by coalition warplanes on Saturday night caught five sleeping families living on the farm.

The raid left 20 people dead - eleven of them children, seven women and two men. Ten others injured in the attack were taken to hospital.

The victims have already been buried according to Muslim tradition, but the smell of death still permeates the farm: the bombing also cost the life of several of the farm's animals.

Littered amongst the rubble spread over the grass were carcasses of four cows, their eye, nose and mouth cavities blackened by swarms of flies. Two dogs, sheep and chickens lay motionless nearby.

"Five children were turned into human torches in this house because of the gas cylinders inside," one of the two survivors said, wondering how God spared him while four other family members were wounded.

"Their bodies protected me because I was in a corner," he mused.

'Bush's democracy'

A neighbour, with missile debris in his hands, said: "That is Bush's democracy. They want us to welcome them with flowers. Look what they've done to our families."

Civilian casualties in Baghdad and its outskirts have mounted since the US-led war to topple President Saddam Hussein's regime was launched on March 20.

The coalition has relentlessly bombed the southern rim of the city, where elite Republican Guard units are believed to be guarding the approach to Saddam's seat of power.

AFP journalists have witnessed five such incidents in which civilians were the primary victims of a coalition strike, reporting at least 70 dead and dozens of wounded.

Iraqi officials have said hundreds of civilians have been killed and wounded since the start of the war.

US and British war planners have declared their intent to minimise civilian casualties and accuse the Iraqi leadership of deliberately placing military targets such as weapons and ammunition in residential neighbourhoods.

They have also suggested that some of the blasts might have been the result of misguided Iraqi anti-missile missiles. - Sapa-AFP

I GUESS THEY LOST THEIR CHANCE FOR FREEDOM...

almarst2003 - 09:32pm Apr 1, 2003 EST (# 10935 of 10946)

George W. Bush seems to have learned all the wrong lessons from previous U.S. military debacles, from the Bay of Pigs in 1961 to the "Black Hawk Down" fiasco in Somalia in 1993. It's now beginning to dawn on U.S. military analysts that the price of "victory" in Iraq may be so high that it looks a lot like defeat. March 30, 2003 - http://www.consortiumnews.com/2003/033003a.html

The Bush administration is voicing outrage over alleged Iraqi violations of the Geneva Conventions in broadcasting videotapes of U.S. POWs. But the complaint comes after George W. Bush ignored warnings from U.S. veterans that his own contempt for international law might lead to just this predicament. By Nat Parry. March 25, 2003 - http://www.consortiumnews.com/2003/032503a.html

almarst2003 - 09:39pm Apr 1, 2003 EST (# 10936 of 10946)

Cluster Bombs - http://free.freespeech.org/americanstateterrorism/weapons/ClusterBombs.html

almarst2003 - 09:44pm Apr 1, 2003 EST (# 10937 of 10946)

US idealism of the Kennedy era has given way to rampant imperialism - http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,927057,00.html

almarst2003 - 09:52pm Apr 1, 2003 EST (# 10938 of 10946)

The war in Iraq is going badly - quite a bit worse than they are telling us. - http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,926935,00.html

How we are doing according to a Foxi News Channel?

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