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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.

bbbuck - 03:40pm May 20, 2003 EST (# 11832 of 11848)

Ruler of the Universe, or someone very close to him.

He was probably a Marketing Rep. at a long staff meeting.

Do you want to send me any money for my 'Save the fcking Komodo' fund?

Komodo Dragons? Capitalized. Aren't they a baseball team in Japan? Are fund is not associated with those guys.

All day web sessions? Who do you work for? You aren't at a staff meeting are you? What forum? Why do you taunt Robcatchaduh22burg? (don't answer that, those are all rhetorical questions)

uhhh, Missile defense. I will post here no more today, I promise Rebec....

rshow55 - 03:49pm May 20, 2003 EST (# 11833 of 11848)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

I had some pretty good reasons to think I was dealing with Clinton, or somebody close to him, on Sept 25, 2000.

lchic - 04:20pm May 20, 2003 EST (# 11834 of 11848)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

'How far the mighty have fallen'

bbbuck jorian fredmoore - assuming these monikers are taxpayer funded and working for the agency ....

lchic - 04:29pm May 20, 2003 EST (# 11835 of 11848)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

The Defense Budget Spills Forth

Mammoth defense spending bills bloated with both new military technology and obsolescent weaponry are being rushed to breakneck approval this week as the administration exploits Congress's weakness for leaving no defense contractor unrewarded. The costliest defense budget since the cold war — more than $400 billion and counting — is being gaveled through by the Republican leadership in a breathtaking few days of glancing debate. Good ideas for reforming the military are included. But so are outdated submarines and jet fighters designed for combat against the defunct Soviet threat.

There is a reasonable $1.7 billion for the next generation of unmanned aerial drones and an unreasonable $42 billion for anachronistic fighter planes. As social, education and health care programs are being squeezed, the Pentagon is asking for $9 billion to build a missile defense system that does not work yet.

The waste easily runs into the tens of billions of dollars, making Congress's haste this week all the more outrageous. The armed forces obviously deserve decent pay, better housing and the most effective new technologies and weapons. But these bills provide windfalls for the military, for defense contractors and, not incidentally, for lawmakers who need the hometown pork and fat-cat contributions being subsidized by the new double-dip military-industrial complex. For all his tough talk, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is not taking on the generals and Congress to challenge the voracious old ways of military budgeting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/20/opinion/20TUE2.html

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Washington State - job creation

http://www.watechcenter.org/pubs/press/20010702.html

lchic - 04:34pm May 20, 2003 EST (# 11836 of 11848)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Diplomatic Bonfires

This is not what the White House wanted as President Bush starts pointing toward next year's election campaign. Iraq is in a state of near anarchy. The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is escalating again, and Islamic terrorists are on the attack in the Middle East. Just at the moment when Mr. Bush would like the nation to think of him as a statesman, everything seems to be going the wrong way in one of the world's most combustible regions. Mr. Bush has himself to blame in part.

Iraq is a mess because the Bush administration failed to plan adequately for the postwar period.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/20/opinion/20TUE1.html

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