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 [F] 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.


Earliest Messages Previous Messages Recent Messages Outline (11243 previous messages)

almarst2003 - 02:17pm Apr 11, 2003 EST (# 11244 of 11282)

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2003/040803a.html

Yet what is disturbing to many war critics about the American reaction to the war is that Bush secured majority backing by misleading the U.S. public about key facts – and the majority of American people don't seem to care.

As Lewis H. Lapham, editor of Harper’s Magazine, observed, the pre-war debate in the U.S. was less a reasoned discussion about a profound redirection of America from a republic toward an empire than it was “agitprop,” the intelligence term for propaganda intended to agitate a population into a pre-determined course of action.

“I don’t know how else to characterize the Bush administration’s effort to convince the public,” Lapham wrote. Citing the paucity of evidence about Iraqi possession of weapons of mass destruction. Lapham took note of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s instant-classic rationale for war: “The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” [Harper’s Magazine, April 2003]

When Secretary of State Colin Powell took the propaganda campaign to the U.N., that absence of evidence was padded with references to unnamed “sources” and photos of trucks and buildings that proved nothing. Powell played an intercepted phone call between two Iraqis shouting Arabic at one another and then Powell added fictitious words to the State Department’s translation to make the case that the Iraqis were cleaning out illegal weapons before a U.N. inspection.

Powell read from the supposed transcript of one Iraqi’s words: “We sent you a message yesterday to clean out all of the areas, the scrap areas, the abandoned areas. Make sure there is nothing there.”

What the full State Department transcript said, however, was: “We sent you a message to inspect the scrap areas and the abandoned areas.” In the full transcript at the State Department's Web site, there was no order to “clean out all of the areas” and there was no instruction to “make sure there is nothing there.” [Powell’s apparent fabrication of the transcript was first reported by Gilbert Cranberg, a former editor of the Des Moines Register’s editorial pages.]

In his U.N. presentation, Powell also hailed a British dossier that he said described in “exquisite detail Iraqi deception activities.” The British report, however, turned out to be cribbed from an outdated student paper on the Internet. Powell further shredded his personal credibility by insisting that a communique broadcast by al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, which denounced both the U.S. intentions to invade Iraq and the Iraqi government, was proof that bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were “in partnership.”

almarst2003 - 02:20pm Apr 11, 2003 EST (# 11245 of 11282)

Decoding the Pentagon's message to journalists isn't too difficult: If you don't play by our rules, you're much more likely to find yourself on a stretcher -- or dead. - http://www.fair.org/media-beat/030410.html

almarst2003 - 08:26pm Apr 11, 2003 EST (# 11246 of 11282)

Gunter Grass: The moral decline of a superpower - http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_12-4-2003_pg3_5

mazza9 - 10:13pm Apr 11, 2003 EST (# 11247 of 11282)
"Quae cum ita sunt" Caesar's Gallic Commentaries

Sure is quiet here! I sympathize with the supporters of the Saddam regime and eschew war even in light of the fact that an evil man needed to be "hit".

War is NEVER pretty but often the results are worth the effort. Liberation. Freedom. God Bless the United States and especially President Bush.

lchic - 12:12am Apr 12, 2003 EST (# 11248 of 11282)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

'Sure is quiet here!'

' Liberation .. Freedom ' says the poster (above)

-----

It could be argued that the thieving, looting, pilfering 'mice' have for too long been locked in their cage ...

It could be argued that the 'religion' of people in Iraq has failed to provide them with a sense of 'community' .....

It could be argued that they are 'me' people ... rather than 'our' people ...

It could be argued that they are a greed creed rather than having a sense of common need ...

It could be argued that ' Liberation & Freedom ' is more conspicuous amongst male mice than females!

So how 'free' are the women of Iraq - did they shed their captors ?

-------

MEMO to self - go back and read the last 100 postings - sometime

:)

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