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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.

wanderero85us - 07:14am May 5, 2003 EST (# 11473 of 11500)
America is sick - we need to cure the disease called Bush and the GOP

It's now official - Iraq had not WOMD's, Smirk's occupation of IRaq was illegal:

"US: 'Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction'

By Neil Mackay

The Bush administration has admitted that Saddam Hussein probably had n weapons of mass destruction. Senior officials in the Bush administration have admitted that they would be 'amazed' if weapons of mass destruction (WMD) were found in Iraq.

According to administration sources, Saddam shut down and destroyed large parts of his WMD programmes before the invasion of Iraq. Ironically, the claims came as US President George Bush yesterday repeatedly justified the war as necessary to remove Iraq's chemical and biological arms which posed a direct threat to America. Bush claimed: 'Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. We will find them.'

The comments from within the administration will add further weight to attacks on the Blair government by Labour backbenchers that there is no 'smoking gun' and that the war against Iraq -- which centred on claims that Saddam was a risk to Britain, America and the Middle East because of unconventional weapons -- was unjustified. The senior US official added that America never expected to find a huge arsenal, arguing that the administration was more concerned about the ability of Saddam's scientists -- which he labelled the 'nuclear mujahidin to develop WMDs when the crisis passed.

This represents a clearly dramatic shift in the definition of the Bush doctrine's central tenet -- the pre-emptive strike. Previously, according to Washington, a pre-emptive war could be waged against a hostile country with WMDs in order to protect American security. Now, however, according to the US official, pre-emptive action is justified against a nation which simply has the ability to develop unconventional weapons."

mazza9 - 12:36pm May 5, 2003 EST (# 11474 of 11500)
"Quae cum ita sunt" Caesar's Gallic Commentaries

For once I agree with wanderlust. We should return Saddam to power. Then we should replenish his arms and as a show of friendship we could give him a few A-Bombs.

It is very important that we also give him all the names of those Iraq citizens who helped us. It's only fair that he had a list from which he can select the torturees who will be hung, shot, fed to plastic shredders and, Of course, dipped in pools of acid so that their flesh is stripped from their bones.

For those of you who don't get it, be aware that my post is "dripping with sarcasm"

Quite frankly, I would like to see our efforts directed against the SLAVERY in Sudan, the Terrorists in Syria, and the Idiocy in North Korea. We don't need the wide scale Human Rights abuses that these regimes shower on their citizens!

lchic - 02:58pm May 5, 2003 EST (# 11475 of 11500)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

rotten - home pages sit under monikers

lchic - 01:06am May 6, 2003 EST (# 11476 of 11500)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Af | Mugabe ---- 'has stifled dissent'

• uses thuggery to hang on to power
• used to win the 2002 presidential election
• Mugabe has stifled dissent
• signs grip on power could be weakening

http://www.economist.com/research/backgrounders/displaybackgrounder.cfm?bg=1018830

lchic - 01:15am May 6, 2003 EST (# 11477 of 11500)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

NK - KIM - Don't trust, Verify

""In 1994 China, Japan and South Korea backed off a tougher stance and America ended up with no real means to check that North Korea was keeping to its side of the bargain (which, it turns out, it wasn't). Now Mr Kim has even thrown out the few international monitors who were casting an eye on the plutonium-laden spent fuel-rods stored as part of that earlier deal.

""North Korea also needs to assure everyone else that its days of brinkmanship are over.

Advocates

"" a UN resolution that gave any government the right to stop and search suspect cargoes going to or from North Korea

http://www.economist.com/printedition/displaystory.cfm?Story_ID=1748854

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