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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.

rshow55 - 06:03pm Apr 20, 2002 EST (#1584 of 1609)

Hi lchic - - I'm off to get sweaty.

lchic - 06:19pm Apr 20, 2002 EST (#1585 of 1609)
USA - Missiles - Transparency --- really?!! NO! Not really.

I'm cooking the unilateral breakfast - cowboy beans - (hash potatoe and perch) ... seems that the days of the US riding around the world as a lone gun toting marshall are coming to a close .. an Aussie-Editor-at-large yearing as a Fellow within your elite academia ... is saying that unilateralism has had it's day! The USA will rejoin the world anytime soon ... that's as soon as Bush works this out!

lchic - 07:17pm Apr 20, 2002 EST (#1586 of 1609)
USA - Missiles - Transparency --- really?!! NO! Not really.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/sunday/cover_stories/article_1037.asp Full transcript later.

almarst-2001 - 09:39pm Apr 20, 2002 EST (#1587 of 1609)

STUPID WHITE MEN - http://www.michaelmoore.com/

rshow55 - 11:37pm Apr 20, 2002 EST (#1588 of 1609)

http://www.michaelmoore.com/ shows vitality that America can be proud of . The connection between the Bush administration and Enron is clear indeed, and nothing to be proud of. That connection, and the patterns behind it, should be cause of concern, world-wide. So should some patterns of persuasion, and "morality" that are now very infuential in the right wing part of the Republican party. MD158 rshow55 3/3/02 3:54pm : Bush 2000 Adviser Offered To Use Clout to Help Enron By Joe Stephens Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, February 17, 2002 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22380-2002Feb16.html

" 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 . ...

MD656 rshow55 3/17/02 9:24pm

MD716 rshow55 3/20/02 11:51am .... Facts, established solidly enough, can be powerful. Enron was dominant - deferred to -- respected -- on the basis of a pattern of ornate but blatant deceptions. But the lies were unstable - - and once some key facts solidified - with clarity - and with many of the facts presented together in space and time, so people could see -- the fraud collapsed, and there have been consequences. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/14/business/_ENRON-PRIMER.html

Some key aspects of the US military-industrial-complex deserve analogous scrutiny. The exent of some of the ornate and longstanding deceptions involved is analogous -- and the amounts of money diverted from reasonable uses by fraudulent means is much greater. For this scrutiny to happen, for it to be news, world leaders are going to have to ask for some checking.

Some of the biggest problems are "simple" once one finally understands some key truths, which may be distasteful to look at. In The Great Divide http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/29/opinion/29KRUG.html , Paul Krugman suggests that we're at "the ending an era of laxity." To some extent, in ways that are a credit to the United States (and the New York Times) I think that's proven to be true. But we've got farther to go.

The question "what for?" needs to be answered about US military policy - including missile defense, nuclear weapons, and much else. Problems Bill Casey was terribly concerned about remain problems -- and there need to be workable answers - in a workably true context.

Technical issues about missile defense would be a good start, because they are so technically clear, and lend themselves to umpired discussion to closure. For the specific MD programs on which money is being lavished - the key questions are simple, for each system, considered under realistic tactical conditions, with countermeasures that have to be expected.

Can it see the target?

Can it hit the target?

Can it hurt the target?

The answers are straightforward, involve simple physics and engineering -- and can be checked. Checked on an umpired basis, in public.

lchic - 08:41am Apr 21, 2002 EST (#1589 of 1609)
USA - Missiles - Transparency --- really?!! NO! Not really.

Gut feel sceptisim here re functionality of a UK-gvt service

The Prime Minister was speaking after polls show widespread support for the B£8 billion tax rise to fund the NHS was accompanied by scepticism about what it would achieve http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/story/0,1271,-1678808,00.html

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