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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 - 10:12pm Apr 17, 2002 EST (#1445 of 1450)
"They just started demolishing with the people inside" Jenin

..... "You're gonna have some hostile people in your audience," he said. "Just let 'em hear the truth."

So I did. I talked about the cowardice of Secretary Powell, who dawdled his way around the Mediterranean to give Sharon time to finish destroying the Jenin refugee camp. I talked about the rotting bodies of Jenin and the growing evidence that back in 1982 Sharon's troops handed the survivors of the Sabra and Chatila massacre back to their Phalangist tormentors to be killed. I said that Arafat was never offered 96 per cent of the West Bank at Camp David. I advised the 100 or so people in the room to read the Israeli journalist Amira Haas' courageous reports in Haaretz. I talked about the squalor of the Palestinian camp. I talked of suicide bombings as "evil" but suggested that Israel would never have security until it abided by UN Security Council Resolution 252; that Israel would never have peace until it abandoned all of the West Bank, Gaza, Golan and East Jerusalem. ...

'Lord Fisk'

lchic - 10:14pm Apr 17, 2002 EST (#1446 of 1450)
"They just started demolishing with the people inside" Jenin

I was wondering yesterday why Rice and Powell didn't display integrity, why they were acting 'uncle Toms' for the Deep South Bush ... I'm still wondering.

A critism of Powell is that he is not looking to International law ... in International Law the Israelis should withdraw behind the 1948 line - this was why peace talks failed in '95 and are failing now!

rshow55 - 10:17pm Apr 17, 2002 EST (#1447 of 1450)

There are encouraging signs. And I'm feeling more confident. All the same, I feel constrained . . .

MD1229 rshow55 4/10/02 9:59am ... MD1230 rshow55 4/10/02 11:28am
MD1240 rshow55 4/10/02 6:45pm

lchic - 10:20pm Apr 17, 2002 EST (#1448 of 1450)
"They just started demolishing with the people inside" Jenin

NYT are 'moderating' all opinion op-ed section .. and just as i started to 'make them think' over there ... i'll leave 'em to wallow in their surreal world !

rshow55 - 10:21pm Apr 17, 2002 EST (#1449 of 1450)

When things are challenging and complex, there are times when the truth is your only hope.

Without the truth to guide decisions, chances of fatal error appoach 100% - under circumstances where, with true information as a guide, clean solutions are there to be found.

For that reason, lies are dangerous. And press bias can be terribly expensive.

out.

lchic - 10:24pm Apr 17, 2002 EST (#1450 of 1450)
"They just started demolishing with the people inside" Jenin

From what FISK says, the BrianWynne Gut feeling of the American people is more in line with truth and reality than the press would want to believe. Therein is the value of the internet, the Americans are involved in active discussions on the UK threads - where there is democratic discussion and little 'censorship' - perhaps the Statue of Liberty should be shipped back to France.

:)

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