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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 - 10:33pm Apr 1, 2003 EST (# 10943 of 10952)

Letter from Mia Couto to President Bush - http://english.pravda.ru/world/2003/04/02/45426.html

Well I - a poor writer from a poor country - had a dream. As Martin Luther King once had: that America was a country of all Americans. Well I dreamed that I was not a man but a country. A country that couldn't sleep because it lived terrified by terrible facts. And that terror made it proclaim a demand. A demand to you Dear President. And I demanded the United States of America to proceed to the destruction of their weapon of mass destruction.

Because of the terrible dangers I demanded more: that UN inspectors would be sent to your country. What terrible dangers was I afraid of? What did I fear from your country? Unfortunately it wasn't a dream. Facts were the reason for my fears.

The list was so big that I will just name a few:

- The United States were the only nation to drop nuclear bombs upon other nations;

- Your country was the only nation condemned for "illegitimate use of force" by the International Justice Tribunal;

- American forces trained and armed extremist islamic fundamentalists (including Bin Laden) under the pretext of overthrowing the Russian invaders in Afghanistan;

- Saddam Hussein's regime was being supported by the USA while committing the worst atrocities against Iraqis (including the gassing of kurds in 1988);

- As many other legitimate leaders, the African Patrice Lumumba was murdered by the CIA. After being arrested, tortured and shot in the head and his body dissolved in cloridric acid;

- As many other puppets, Mobutu Seseseko was one of your agents you put in a country in exchange for help for the American espionage: the CIA office in Zaire became the larger in Africa. The brutal dictatorship by this man was never condemned by the USA until he became inconvenient, in 1992;

- The invasion of East Timor by the Indonesian military was supported by the USA. When the atrocities were known, the Clinton administration's reply was "it's a matter of the Indonesian government's responsibility and we do not wish to take that responsibility away from them";

- Your country harbored criminals like Emmanuel Constant, one of Haiti's most blood thirsty leaders whose paramilitary slaughtered thousands of innocents. Constant was tried "in absentia" and the new authorities requested his extradition. The American government has so far declined the request;

- On August 1998 the USAF bombed a medicine factory in Sudan called Al-Shifa. A mistake? No, it was a retaliation for the bombings of Nairobi and Dar-es-Saalam;

- In December 1987, the United States were the only country (along with Israel) to vote against a motion condemning international terrorism. Still, the motion was accepted with the favorable vote of 153 countries;

- In 1953, the CIA helped preparing a coup against Iran following which thousands of communists from Tudeh were massacred. The list of CIA sponsored coups is quite long;

- Since World War Two the USA have bombed: China (1945-46), Korea and China (1950-53), Guatemala (1954), Indonesia (1958), Cuba (1959-1961), Guatemala (1960), Congo (1964), Peru (1965), Laos (1961-1973), Vietnam (1961-1973), Cambodia (1969-1970), Guatemala (1967-1973), Grenada (1983), Lebanon (1983-1984), Libya (1986), El Salvador (1980), Nicaragua (1980), Iran (1987), Panama (1989), Iraq (1990-2001), Kuwait (1991), Somalia (1993), Bosnia (1994-95), Sudan (1998), Afghanistan (1998), Yugoslavia (1999);

- Biological and chemical terrorism was carried out by the USA: the orange agent in Vietnam, a plague virus in Cuba which for years devastated the pig production there;

- The Wall Street Journal published a report announcing that 500.000 Vietnamese children were born with deformations due to the chemical warfare carried out by the American troops.

I woke up from the nightmare of that dream to the nightmare of reality. T

almarst2003 - 10:46pm Apr 1, 2003 EST (# 10944 of 10952)

Afghans Hear Threat From a Distant War - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63500-2003Mar31.html

Iraq Conflict Intensifies Anger at U.S., Danger to Country's Fragile Stability

lchic - 01:54am Apr 2, 2003 EST (# 10945 of 10952)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Overall

the question has to be

are some out~comes

an improvement on

'past~wents' ?

lchic - 02:29am Apr 2, 2003 EST (# 10946 of 10952)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

UK - "Cabinet Poetry" Otter Books (2003)

[ If it's for real ]

Any "Administration Poetry" 2003

from the Bush Camp ?

lchic - 07:24am Apr 2, 2003 EST (# 10947 of 10952)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

"" Iraq is one huge world heritage site, a unique storehouse of art and archaeology. Now the war threatens to destroy it all, says Fiachra Gibbons.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/gallery/0,8542,926631,00.html

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