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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?

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almarst2003 - 10:02pm Aug 28, 2003 EST (# 13448 of 13454)

Are we safer now? The war on Saddam has made the U.S. less secure, say foreign-policy experts. By Eric Boehlert [2003-07-31] - http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/07/31/security/index.html

Bush's biggest whopper The president's 16-word stretcher about African uranium was nothing compared to his lie about the links between Osama and Saddam. By David Corn [2003-07-24] - http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2003/07/24/iraq_qaida/index.html

almarst2003 - 10:24pm Aug 28, 2003 EST (# 13449 of 13454)

'America will pay a high price in blood' - http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1031219,00.html

And TREASURE and CREDIBILITY and SAFETY.

711212 - 01:30am Aug 29, 2003 EST (# 13450 of 13454)

We are now going to fractal the war experience into the never ending, ad infinitum, global experience. All over some short, public relations, phrases: "World's getting smaller"--bomb somebody; "Terrorism"--react in such a way as to cause more terrorism; "Our super-power responsibility"--go broke policing the WORLD-UNDERSTAND-THE WORLD; "Homeland Security" -- tear up the constitution=Patriot Act.

What stupid people go along with such silly phrases & thought-less-ly destroy democracy???????

Homemaker

almarst2002 - 08:34am Aug 29, 2003 EST (# 13451 of 13454)

VIENNA (Reuters) - Former chief UN arms inspector Hans Blix felt Washington was intimidating him to produce reports that would justify military action in the run-up to the Iraq war, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog said on Friday. - http://news.google.com/url?q=http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml%3Ftype%3DpoliticsNews%26storyID%3D3356506

rshow55 - 08:50am Aug 29, 2003 EST (# 13452 of 13454)
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.

Americans, too often, can look too much like bullies - competent, forceful, devious, merciless ones.

Conrad Veidt as Major Strasser in Casablanca (1942) http://www.powernet.net/~hflippo/cinema/cvfoto08.html

Perspectives matter - and different people can feel differently. And there are many ways of looking at things. Edward Tufte cited many of them in a great paragraph

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8211.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8214_8218.htm

But is some things "depend on how you look at it" - some things are clear from a lot of perspectives.

One thing that is clear is that we need to do better in some key ways. Almarst's cites don't "tell the whole story" about America - but they do show a lot that people ought to look at more clearly - and fix.

Eisenhower would have thought so.

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