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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 - 11:02pm Apr 8, 2002 EST (#1201 of 1228)

Looking at the maps below - topographically Palestine seems to have had a 'bad' deal in the 1948 cut-up ... in the sense that it has two dislocated land areas ... how was this justified? Back to the drawing board !?!!

Palestine - map
http://www.pcbs.org/english/pal_map.htm
http://www.geographic.org/maps/new1/west_bank_maps.html
http://www.geographic.org/maps/new1/gaza_strip_maps.html

Israel - map
http://www.geographic.org/maps/new1/israel_maps.html

lchic - 11:06pm Apr 8, 2002 EST (#1202 of 1228)

The only sensible resolution is to take the whole area of the Middle East and make it a federation with modern laws and standards - then a common objective could be

! "" P R O G R E S S "" !

rshow55 - 11:10pm Apr 8, 2002 EST (#1203 of 1228)

Maybe we can't be quite that "sensible." But we can do a lot better than people are doing now.

MD585 rshow55 3/15/02 5:36pm ... MD604 rshow55 3/16/02 11:51am

In "Beauty" http://www.everreader.com/beauty.htm Mark Anderson quotes Heisenberg's definition of beauty in the exact sciences:

" Beauty is the proper conformity of the parts to one another and to the whole."

We need solutions that fit in the complex world we actually live in. It helps to remember that satisfactory, stable solutions always have to satisfy basic human needs, and power relationships. MD667 rshow55 3/18/02 11:13am When we remember this, we classify a lot of nonsensical "solutions" and posturing out of existence, and workable answers stand out.

Me, I'm hopeful.

. . . .

I'm also respectful of the very hard work Friedman and other on the NYT staff have done for peace in the last few weeks and months.

Biased as they may be from some perspectives -- still fine work. A lot of Arabs and Israelis know it, too.

lchic - 11:12pm Apr 8, 2002 EST (#1204 of 1228)

If the USA and Israel are as interwined as the ME issue has shown why don't we just call them the IUSA - and be done!

lchic - 11:15pm Apr 8, 2002 EST (#1205 of 1228)

Showalter - trust you haven't lost your sense of humour regarding the humoristic :)

rshow55 - 11:16pm Apr 8, 2002 EST (#1206 of 1228)

The rest of the world needs to organize -- and it is happening.

People are becoming much more attuned to the costs and agonies of war.

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.

People are wrenched. Upset. High time!