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.

lchic - 10:51pm Apr 16, 2002 EST (#1405 of 1422)
"They just started demolishing with the people inside" Jenin

One would expect 'integrity' from those in high office!

almarst-2001 - 11:01pm Apr 16, 2002 EST (#1406 of 1422)

'integrity'

The "high office" positions require just an opposite qualities for success.

Lunarchic, you sounds like a last idealist on this lost planet.

The so called "free world" and the Western "Civilization" produces qute a frightening species.

lchic - 11:31pm Apr 16, 2002 EST (#1407 of 1422)
"They just started demolishing with the people inside" Jenin

just the opposite qualities .... sounds Machiavellian !

lchic - 12:00am Apr 17, 2002 EST (#1408 of 1422)
"They just started demolishing with the people inside" Jenin

Note Captian Rice is 'on the bridge and steering the Venezuelan oil tanker' this week

Quite a fleet, the Venezuelan Tankers, Saudi Tankers - with Israel canons, ...

lchic - 11:54am Apr 17, 2002 EST (#1409 of 1422)
"They just started demolishing with the people inside" Jenin

Interesting how Powell went O.S. using half vision, half a mind (Palestine History lacking), half a voice and was seemingly half deaf, ... to talkwise gain half of a half of nothing-much ... as to be expected from the half-man. Commentators say that he's actually GeorgeWalkerB - on this mission .. so perhaps it's GWB rather than Powell who's the half-man.

O.S. (Overseas)

lchic - 01:14pm Apr 17, 2002 EST (#1410 of 1422)
"They just started demolishing with the people inside" Jenin

The Independent : Robert Fisk: Fear and learning in America

lchic - 01:17pm Apr 17, 2002 EST (#1411 of 1422)
"They just started demolishing with the people inside" Jenin

Independent : not delivering the written-goods to order as yet!

rshow55 - 01:18pm Apr 17, 2002 EST (#1412 of 1422)

Maybe for integrity to be operational, people have to be working with systems, and systems of assumption, that fit together. The United States is earning some bad grades, worldwide.

I think that it is stunning, and instructive, to read these two Week in Review pieces, written two weeks apart, one after the other.

All Roads Lead to D.C. by EMILY EAKIN http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/31/weekinreview/31EAKI.html

and

For Allies, 'I Do' Becomes 'Hey, Want to Dance?' by CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/14/weekinreview/14MARQ.html

These pieces, today and yesterday, are fascinating, bracing, and I think hopeful, in related ways.

Behind the Rage by NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/16/opinion/16KRIS.html

Losing Latin America by PAUL KRUGMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/16/opinion/16KRUG.html

and

George W. Sadat by THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/17/opinion/17FRIE.html

How much power does America really have if its alliances are not stable, and to be trusted when they are needed? How much can the US really do without the agreement of other nations -- and especially, how much can it do, if other nations organize to limit its power? How much power does the United States actually have, if it is acting against the wishes of other nations and other people, and how dangerous and expensive would it be, from the US point of view, to use that power?

We're living in a world where the conventional assumptions of "power politics" are being discredited rapidly.

Friedman's piece today ends:

"I believe one of Don Rumsfeld's Washington rules is: If you have a problem and you can't solve it, enlarge it. Either we now go all the way toward peace and demand that every party step up to it — Palestinians, Israelis and Arabs — or they will keep going all the way the other way, blowing out one civilizational barrier after another until their war touches us.

Virtually all "civilizational barriers" that I can think of have been reduced to tatters, often enough, by the behavior of the US and other nations - many, many times over the last century.

I think the language of Friedman's last sentence still makes sense, morally, aesthetically, and practically , with a deletion, and a change of a word and a phrase.

"Either we now go all the way toward peace and demand that every party step up to it — . . . or we will keep going all the way the other way, blowing out one civilizational barrier after another until war imposes more exorbitant or unbearable costs, both practical and moral, on us all.

The forces and fictions that create and sustain war are more constrained, more vulnerable and more visable than they used to be.

Is "going all the way towards peace" thinkable ?

Is "going a long way towards peace, greatly improving on the situation now" thinkable?

MD1376 rshow55 4/15/02 5:53pm

The current situation is ugly . MD604 rshow55 3/16/02 12:51pm

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."

Judged by quite practical, objective standards of performance, we're a long way from that.

The question isn't a simple "can we do better?" because people do do many of the things that make for peace, comfort, and prosperity very often.

The United States government, trying hard and in public, just failed a test in the Middle East. People all over the world are noticing, and wondering why.

I think that's progress.

(10 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense