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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?

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rshow55 - 09:42am Apr 13, 2002 EST (#1332 of 1368) Delete Message

Some of the basic issues on this thread ought to be easy to resolve, but they aren't -- because even when The New York Times asks for people to look at things -- things that cry out to be looked at, in the national interest -- it can be "water off a duck's back". We have to learn to do better than that. And then do better.

MD543 rshow55 3/14/02 8:18pm ... MD544 rshow55 3/14/02 8:25pm

There are times when the power to persuade must be associated with other kinds of power. I've suggested that if people with power started to ask key questions about facts . . . we might find that some truths that have been "too weak" might be too weak no longer. Because of the forces involved, some leaders of nation states may have to actually ask to get some facts set out, where they can be examined and people can "connect the dots" -- without patterns of diversion that frustrate any and all attempts at getting to facts needed for decent decisions.

It shouldn't be so difficult. But it is, for reasons that are well exemplified by this piece, about the current chairman of the Georgia Republican party:

Bush 2000 Adviser Offered To Use Clout to Help Enron By Joe Stephens Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, February 17, 2002

" Just before the last presidential election, Bush campaign adviser Ralph Reed offered to help Enron Corp. deregulate the electricity industry by working his "good friends" in Washington and by mobilizing religious leaders and pro-family groups . . . http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22380-2002Feb16.html

MD158 rshow55 3/3/02 3:54pm

The paterns that Ralph Reed suggests to Enron dominate the Bush administration -- and for short times - if one cares little enough for waste of money, lives, or chances, they "work."

But for long term, workable solutions in a world where many things are fragile, we need right answers -- and the patterns Reed describes and advocates, which dominate this administration, rule right answers out -- and degrade the United States.

lchic - 10:25am Apr 13, 2002 EST (#1333 of 1368)

    "" .... Geoffrey Kemp, said: "A two-year-old could have seen this crisis coming. And the idea that it could be brushed under the carpet as the administration focused on either Afghanistan or Iraq reflects either appalling arrogance or ignorance."
    The administration of Cheney, Rumsfeld and Powell is hardly ignorant. But arrogance is another matter. "We shouldn't think of American involvement for the sake of American involvement" is how Condoleezza Rice defined the administration's intention to butt out of the Middle East only a couple of weeks after her boss's inauguration, thereby codifying the early Bush decision not to send a negotiator to a last-ditch peace summit in Egypt. Since then, even as Sept. 11 came and went, we've been at best reluctantly and passingly engaged, culminating with our recall of the envoy Anthony Zinni in December, after which we sat idly by during three months of horror. Not until Dick Cheney returned from his humiliating tour of the Arab world in late March did he state the obvious: "There isn't anybody but us" to bring about a hiatus in the worst war the region has seen in 20 years. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/13/opinion/13RICH.html

lchic - 11:09am Apr 13, 2002 EST (#1334 of 1368)

see map - read 'areas under full Palestinian control' - check map http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1085296

2. EUROPE: Russia and US to speed up nuclear arms talks / Financial Times, Apr 12, 2002 / By JUDY DEMPSEY
Russia yesterday called on the US to make reductions in its nuclear arsenal "real, not virtual" as both sides agreed to speed up negotiations... http://globalarchive.ft.com/globalarchive/article.html?id=020412001662&query=nuclear

mazza9 - 01:19pm Apr 13, 2002 EST (#1335 of 1368)
Louis Mazza

"mAzzA & GI; Fisk endorses my major point ."

So What?

George W Bush supports my point of view!

Say lchic: if you give me your address I'll send you some marshmellows. You and your anti semetic buddies can go burn a synagogue and have toasted marshmellows to celebrate you "freedom fighting" efforts. Make sure there are women and children inside. Your Neo Nazi friends will give extra points for that!

LoumAzzA!

almarst-2001 - 02:07pm Apr 13, 2002 EST (#1336 of 1368)

mazza - "George W Bush supports my point of view!"

I suspect could it be for the entirely different reason?

The test is simple and as American as an apple pie - we should compare how it will affect your bouth "net worth" during his presidency;)

Meanwile, it seems the Bush have delivered just a second part of the average American essential package of "Bread and Entertainment" - U.S. soldiers posed for 'souvenir photos' with Lindh - http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020412/ap_wo_en_ge/us_american_taliban_6&printer=1

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