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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.

rshow55 - 07:18pm Apr 2, 2003 EST (# 10965 of 10972)
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.

U.S. Precision Weapons Fail 1 Time in 10 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 7:16 p.m. ET March 31 http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-War-Bomb-Accuracy.html

" The U.S. military is fighting perhaps the most accurate air war in history . . . . But ``precision'' weapons also miss. Human and mechanical errors send 10 percent or more astray, Pentagon and civilian experts say -- a disastrous percentage for civilians living near the intended targets.

President Bush must have known that he was going to kill innocents.

So far, body counts are low - and I hope they stay that way. And hope the carnage is worth the cost.

My sense of reasonable scorekeeping matches Kristof's in A merciful war http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/01/opinion/01KRIS.html

I hope that the war in Iraq will be worthwhile - it will not be costless.

Or blameless.

Almarst's postings have been distinguished - and raised points that ought not to be forgotten.

jorian319 - 07:24pm Apr 2, 2003 EST (# 10966 of 10972)

Alarmst's posts raise an important point all right - the important point is that many people will swallow whole any anti-american sentiment, voiced by whatever party, regardless of how ill-supported and how slimy the source.

We need to remain mindful of the machinations of the global propaganda machine, including its component parts in the media, the military, religious factions and ignorant do-gooders.

rshow55 - 07:39pm Apr 2, 2003 EST (# 10967 of 10972)
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.

jorian319 - you should be ashamed of yourself - you degrade the United States with such statements - you should search these topics, among others, on this thread:

Krugman

Kissinger

dccougar - 07:52pm Apr 2, 2003 EST (# 10968 of 10972)
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts.

rshow55 - 07:18pm Apr 2, 2003 EST - "Almarst's postings have been distinguished..."

The more you support Almarst and his nothing-but-prejudiced diatribes, the more your credibility approaches zero.

fredmoore - 08:27pm Apr 2, 2003 EST (# 10969 of 10972)

DC, Jorian ...

Free speech is not the problem. Biased and skewed viewpoints are easily put to the test. What I see the problem to be, is the posting of 10's of kilobytes of tautologous garbage each day with the aim of self aggrandising the poster and deliberately obfuscating often quite important points made by others. There is a degree of selfishness here that negates many points the poster is trying to make.

My view is that there shoild be a limit of 1Kb per poster per thread per day. This gives casual readers a chance to see a wide range of views and not reams of monotonous blowhard.

Cheers

jorian319 - 08:42pm Apr 2, 2003 EST (# 10970 of 10972)

Hear here, Fred.

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