New York Times on the Web Forums Science

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.

gisterme - 05:27pm Apr 12, 2002 EST (#1317 of 1330)

gisterme 4/12/02 5:23pm (continued in response to lchic 4/12/02 3:36pm )

Adolph Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany in 1933 and Jewish rights in Germany were rescinded by Nuremberg laws in 1935.

The Nazi German Holocaust against Jews: 1939/1942-1945. About six million Jews were slaughtered in Europe during WWII.

Declaration of independence of the State of Israel took place in 1948. Arab armies attacked the next day but were defeated.

"Six Days War" reunites Jerusalem under Israeli control in 1967 after Arabs were defeated.

"Yom Kippur War" took place in Israel in 1973. Arabs defeated again.

Whew! Those are lot of facts; but since the nation of Israel has been re-established, Arab armies have tried and failed to "remove" the Jews from Israel several times. So my question to you, lchic, is who's going to do it now? The Roman and Babylonian empires no longer exist.

rshow55 - 06:59pm Apr 12, 2002 EST (#1318 of 1330)

I thought MD1314 gisterme 4/12/02 5:15pm showed a lot of gall:

Oh, lchic! Can you be so naive? It is the "Houses of the People" where special interest lobbies have real power.

Reading that, I thought of these pieces

The White Stuff by PAUL KRUGMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/12/opinion/12KRUG.html

"The Bush administration has appointed a record number of corporate executives to high-level positions, often regulating or doing business with their former employers."

Elder Bush in Big GOP Cast Toiling for Top Equity Firm by LESLIE WAYNE http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/05/politics/05CARL.html

I also felt like reposting this note to gisterme:

rshowalter - 08:23am Sep 30, 2001 EST (#9988 of 9998)
Robert Showalter mrshowalter@thedawn.com

You people have been spending money for practically no purpose but to spend it, and to give some officers chances for advancement -- and much of your core stuff is "a triumph of technique over purpose." Nor are the motives unquestionable in other ways.

MD9284 rshowalter 9/17/01 11:06am

Mystro a drum roll for these big-ticket items in procurement for the military industrial complex:

F/A-18E/F Fighter

F-22 Fighter

Joint Strike Fighter

C-17 Transport Aircraft

V-22 Osprey Aircraft

RAH-66 Comanche Helicopter

Crusader Artillery System

NSSN New Attack Submarine ("Virginia" Class)

Ballistic and National Missile Defense (BMD)

Reading from the page - the same page everyone - can anyone pick 'winners' from the above ?

Not a single one of them is worthwhile from the viewpoint of a reasonable United States citizen, unconnected with the military or military contractors. The aircraft are not needed to respond to any credible threat -- and with advances in radar that are now either in place or possible, none are even viable. The Osprey is grossly defective. We don't need another submarine for either defensive or offensive purposes -- though the Navy and the contractors may want it.

rshowalter - 08:27am Sep 30, 2001 EST (#9989 of 9998)
Robert Showalter mrshowalter@thedawn.com

Partial correction - - if you had missile defense programs that were technically viable, they might be worth supporting. But except for Garwin's proposal, which is a tangential part of what is being funded, I don't think you have a damn thing that can work, for reasons that can be checked.

(Most of the checking could be public, and any questions of "miracles" -- could be checked for in other ways.)

lchic - 07:03pm Apr 12, 2002 EST (#1319 of 1330)

mAzzA & GI Fisk endorses my major point ..

_{For months the American media has refused to tell its viewers and readers what is going on in the occupied territories. Its newspapers have indulged the insanity of writers who have been encouraging Mr Sharon into ever-more-savage acts.}

The points lchic has been making on this MD board are widely held in the 'world' sense.

Fisk raises the point regarding journalism - don't they obey professional ethics ?
When Friedman and Saphire read the Fisk article above and he says that they are in part responsible for egging-on the Sharon-KillingMachine-Frankenstein do they blink?!

rshow55 - 07:18pm Apr 12, 2002 EST (#1320 of 1330)

They should blink. But all the same, you have to remember that the NYT is a New York newspaper - and, like other papers, doesn't want to "bite the hand that reads them."

If ever there would be a place where bias might be a temptation -- the Middle East would be one of the places.

But it would be good if they gave the same collected and connected coverage to the Middle East that they have given to Enron -- so that people could have an easier time "connecting the dots."

What a service a ME section like http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/14/business/_ENRON-PRIMER.html would be!

lchic - 11:25pm Apr 12, 2002 EST (#1321 of 1330)

GI: one notices your response to my teaser here wasn't to welcome these guys, with open arms, into the USA ..

"...It's looking more and more to the world as if the only solution is going to be the physical removal of the Israelis from the middleEast into the USA!..."

Your C20 history still needs brushing up - the Israelis have been the aggressors snatching property from the Palestinians - with the backing of the USA. Pity you didn't read the articles posted above that detail the modern-day plight of the Palestinians.

Don't you find it interesting that almost everybody else blends into the environments within which they reside and adopts the current culture ... but Jews don't - interesting sociological phenomena! There's confusion between 'cult-culture' and nationality.

(9 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense