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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.

almarst2002 - 07:44am Aug 1, 2003 EST (# 13202 of 13267)

Release of Hussein sons' photos: Washington exposes its own barbarism

The killing of Hussein's sons: the Nuremberg precedent and the criminalization of the US ruling elite

The eruption of militarism and the crisis of American capitalism

The Iraq war and the debate on phony intelligence

Bush White House in crisis over Iraq war lies

The political economy of American militarism

Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq: Bush's "big lie" and the crisis of American imperialism

War, oligarchy and the political lie

http://www.wsws.org/

rshow55 - 08:46am Aug 1, 2003 EST (# 13203 of 13267)
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 "owe" Cooper a response to 13184 - but to avoid unending fencing, I'm going to wait a bit before writing it.

IN 13182 I wrote:

If you follow this board, it is easy to see that I couldn't do the things I propose in

13039 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.Z9exbJU7wf8.2133090@.f28e622/14716

13040 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.Z9exbJU7wf8.2133090@.f28e622/14717

13041 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.Z9exbJU7wf8.2133090@.f28e622/14718

- I'd be blocked - quite often on status grounds. If someone with . . stature and connections . . . . were involved - the work could actually get done.

Issues of status, protocol, "fairness" - "rightness" - and veracity are always involved. They involve conflicts. For some purposes, to get technically right answers - you have to strip away the "human concerns" - for a while. Long enough to get workable technical answers. I've spent a lot of my time and energy doing that sort of thing.

But a technical answer, without more - is no more significant than a sperm cell - it is disembodied and incomplete "half potential." And usually wasted.

To go beyond that "half potential" - to real achievement - social function has to be involved.

Here's a cautionary tale about media power, and the power of society over the individual, including a suicide. People are fragile and malleable, sometimes in surprising ways.

Who's a Hero Now By JEFF GOODELL http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/27/magazine/27MINERS.html

A year ago, nine Pennsylvania coal miners narrowly escaped what might have been their watery grave, and one man was hailed as their savior.

Nobody can do everything - or conflicting things at the same time.

This thread has been an experiment - and I think, on balance, worth the effort of the people involved. But what fits it well for some purposes makes it useless for others.

Closure, on anything that counts, has to happen elsewhere, though prototyping of what closure would take can sometime be modelled in a format like this one.

wrcooper - 09:40am Aug 1, 2003 EST (# 13204 of 13267)

Showalter:

You don't "owe" me a response. You did owe me an apology, which you never delivered on, for continually accusing me of lying about my identity, but I've let that go. It's your life, Bob. If you want to believe you're under "house arrest" and can't move forward with your life because of your past activities, so be it. Maybe that works for you. I just am reacting to your delusional conceit that you're communicating in this forum with high-level government officials, etc. I think that's outlandishly preposterous and deserves comment. But if it serves your ego to think that way, and it helps you rationalize your enormous expenditure of effort given toward writing your posts, so be it. I just find it pathetic--not that you post so much, but that you think you're actually influencing decision-makers by doing so. That's what's truly sad about this.

almarst2002 - 11:20am Aug 1, 2003 EST (# 13205 of 13267)

Radical Sunni Islam rears its head in Iraq - http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1514&e=13&u=/afp/20030801/wl_mideast_afp/iraq_sunni_shiite_030801110242

"As long as Americans are here, people will come to attack them -- just like they're trying to attack American interests around the world," Sanchez said in reference to al-Qaeda and other hardcore militants.

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense