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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 - 12:41pm Jul 11, 2003 EST (# 12953 of 12959)
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.

Search "right to lie" , this thread.

I trusted the judgement of President Bush and Blair - assuming a level of honor (and/or competence) that wasn't there, and made a big mistake.

rshow55 - 03:25pm Mar 16, 2003 EST (# 10070 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.dlvQbQHTpMz.706631@.f28e622/11617

At the levels I can judge - for the Azores meeting - President Bush and Prime Minister Blair and Prime Minister Aznar may have done as well as they could possibly have done- under circumstances where they surely know more than I can.

rshow55 - 04:47pm Mar 16, 2003 EST (# 10074 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.dlvQbQHTpMz.706631@.f28e622/11621

" In 10072 above, I've said that, based on some assumptions about facts and relations - Bush, Blair, and Aznar may have made decisions and made a presentation of disciplined beauty . That is, that fit a set body of "facts" and relations.

" What of the validity of those facts and relations?

" It is very easy to make the case that they are perpetrating a travesty - on other assumptions.

" What's right?

. . .

"To do much better than we're doing - we have to find ways to get facts straight - when it matters enough - against the inclination of power holders. Unless this is done, there is no solution to some of our most key problems. Good, stable closures simply are not possible.

Here is Berle: ( Power - Chapter II )

In the hands or mind of an individual, the impulse toward power is not inherently limited. Limits are imposed by extraneous fact and usually also by conscience and intellectual restraint. Capacity to make others do what you wish knows only those limitations.

"That's plain and straight. Power holders want to limit the ability of others to determine facts because that extends their power. It is in the overwhelming collective interest to see that facts that matter enough are determined - both so that power can be reasonably limited - and because human beings have to make decisions on what they believe to be true.

"If leaders of nation states had the wisdom, fortitude and courage to face the fact that there have to be limits on the right of people in power to decieve themselves and others, we'd live in a much more hopeful world. Limits that put some limits on personal political power and on sovereignty.

"Maybe not severe limits. Maybe not limits applied with great consistency. But some limits. Enforced sometimes. When it matters enough.

"If that were faced, the US would have to deal with some embarrassments. But an index of how much is screwed up, misunderstood, and deceptive is how well national groups treat their own citizens - and get along in the worldr - how well their cooperation works in human terms.

"Odds are that a lot of people are going to die because it hasn't been possible to get key facts and relationships that are worth checking actually checked. Either we find a way to do so (and the technical problems aren't hard - what is hard is the recognition and the will) or people are going to go on dying - and the whole world could be destroyed - because we now live in a situation that is inherently unstable - potentially explosively unstable unless we do a better job than we've been doing about checking things that matter enough.

- - - -

I thought that my postings were inflencing the President of the United States at that time, and gisterme - 06:35pm Mar 16, 2003 EST (# 10080 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.dlvQbQHTpMz.706631@.f28e622/11627 , which includes this phrase from gisterme:

" By Jove, I think you finally "get it", Robert! Whew! Getting you to understand that was harder than being dragged through a knothole.

The questions "what did he know, and when did he know it?" are important questions - and this thread casts some light on them in areas that ought to concern all responsible Americans.

I think Howard Dean is ri

rshow55 - 12:46pm Jul 11, 2003 EST (# 12954 of 12959)
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 think Howard Dean is right. http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.dlvQbQHTpMz.706631@.f28e622/14628

We need to limit and investigate our trust - especially after disasters like the Challenger - or the evasions of Iraq.

In Blair We Trust By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/08/opinion/08KRIS.html

Tony Blair dignifies his opponents by grappling with their arguments in a way that helps preserve civility — and that we Americans can learn from.

Everybody makes mistakes. When it matters enough - there's an obligation to check - and when checking is well done - we can get right answers.

389 http://politicstalk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?13@@.ee7a163/422

390 http://politicstalk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?13@@.ee7a163/423

391 http://politicstalk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?13@@.ee7a163/424

393 http://politicstalk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?13@@.ee7a163/426

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