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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.

lchic - 02:46pm Apr 7, 2002 EST (#1168 of 1171)

.... attack-suicides against the civil ones in Israel, which shocks the international public opinion and maintains under the influence of Mr. Sharon part of the Israeli citizens.

Those of the Palestinian leaders who still misent on terrorism continue to be unaware of the democratic character of an Israeli company which chooses freely its controlling. The more it will be terrorized, the more it will tend to choose them among the intransigents. It is time that opens out, within the Palestinian company, a powerful non-violent movement which will be able to make the junction with the Israeli pacifist movement. It is the direction of the step of Mr. Yasser Abed Rabbo with Mr. Yossi Beilin. All the surveys show it: there is, in the two people, a majority which wishes to advance towards peace and the reconciliation.

Lastly, the third dynamics which becomes exhausted is that of the partiality of the United States in favour of Israel. The vice-president Richard Cheney could measure, at the time of his recent round in the Arab countries, how much the attitude Washington was the subject of criticisms radical, at the point of remobiliser the "Arab street". And the setting-up prevented of the essential alliance which should precede the great attack against Iraq...

This is why the United States accomodated not only with interest the saoudienne proposal, but started again it while making vote, by the Security Council of the United Nations, the resolution 1397 which defends "the vision of an area in which two States, Israel and Palestine, live coast at coast, inside recognized and sure borders" .

The conditions once again seem joined together to advance towards the end of the conflict. The suspended breath, the people of the area hope for the miracle. But the saboteurs of peace watch for in the shade...

(1) Egypt and Jordan are the only Arab States having signed a peace treaty with Israel.

(2) To read the diplomatic World , September 2001.

(3) Since the Sharon General was elected Prime Minister, and whereas the israélo-Palestinian confrontations did not cease, the Jewish colonization of Gaza and the West Bank continued. Contravening the recommendations of the Mitchell report which requires a gel of the establishments of colonists, 34 new colonies were created since February 2001. ( cf . International Herald Platform , March 20, 2002.)

(4) At the time of the election of Mr. Sharon, in February 2001, Intifada had made 50 died among the Israelis: this figure exceeds 350 at at the end of March 2002.

(5) Ha' aretz , Such Aviv, March 13, 2002.

(6) International Herald Platform , March 12, 2002.

(7) Maariv , Such Aviv, March 15, 2002.

_{THE DIPLOMATIC WORLD|APRIL 2002|Page 1 http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2002/04/RAMONET/16329}

lchic - 03:04pm Apr 7, 2002 EST (#1169 of 1171)

Ex-war prisoners sue Iraq, Saddam

WASHINGTON, April 6. — A group of 17 American nationals held captive in Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War have filed suit against Baghdad, its secret service and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein for torture.

The former prisoners of war filed their suit in the United States District Court in Washington, seeking compensatory and punitive damages for "barbarous" treatment, the law firm Steptoe and Johnson said in a statement yesterday.

They are seeking US$25 million (RM95 million) each in compensation, along with more than US$300 million in punitive damages. ..

AFP ^{http://www.emedia.com.my/Current_News/NST/Sunday/World/20020407090807/Article/}

lchic - 03:30pm Apr 7, 2002 EST (#1170 of 1171)

Holistic Accounting and WAR

The full cost of 'war' makes it too expensive an activity to be allowed to continue!

rshow55 - 06:51pm Apr 7, 2002 EST (#1171 of 1171)

I appreciated the comments from manjumicha2001 and almarst related to some technical proposals and background of mine, and am trying to respond well -- in ways that lead to things that actually work. Subjectivity doesn't count for much, but I'm running scared, and feel the way I've often felt, in the past, when I was involved with something that turned out to be working well.

As lchic says, the arguments for getting war under control are enormously powerful. The need to do so is very great. It seems to me that there is some reason to feel that progress is being made -- enough that much more progress could be made. Consider this heading to a NYT picture and story:

"During a day of fierce battles across the West Bank in which 14 Palestinians were killed, a Palestinian woman and two young boys look outside their home in Bethlehem http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html

By 20th century standards, especially where a military force is tactically but little restrained, that's a very low death count for a day of "fierce battles." There are significant forces, historically new, that are restraining war. For all the risk, terror, and agony -- I think that's something we need to recognize, and build on. Maybe we can switch things to a situation where the probability and severity of warfare shifts lower -- after so much time when it has gone higher. It seems to me that there's reason to hope for that, and work for that.

In Lifelines to the Future http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/07/opinion/07FRIE.html Friedman says:

" This is the most polarizing moment I've ever experienced. The volcanic rage on both sides — intensified by the live TV coverage from the West Bank and the ability of the Internet to transmit people's immediate reactions — is terrifying, and it is spilling, like lava, out of the Middle East into Europe and beyond.

The emotions are strong, and appropriate. And because of this, the body counts, compared to what anyone would have expected in like circumstances one or two decades ago, are low . It seems to me that progress is being made, that patterns are switching. Modes are changing.

If we get just a little saner, and just a little better organized, things may be much better.

Or worse.

This is a time for care, and all the practical good sense we can muster. If we mustered just a little, after watching human passion in action at such close range, we'd take nuclear weapons down, and work to outlaw them effectively.

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