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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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rshow55 - 08:26am Sep 28, 2003 EST (# 14078 of 14105)
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.

There are some basic problems that require institutional changes - and changes that fit within the traditions and imperatives of the institutions being changed.

The Eisenhowers, Casey, and a lot of other people have worried about that over time - and I have, too.

11679 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.PSb2bG6LJ8d.0@.f28e622/13289 reads in part

I started this year with this:

rshow55 - 08:20am Jan 1, 2003 EST (# 7177 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.PSb2bG6LJ8d.0@.f28e622/8700

" I think this is a year where some lessons are going to have to be learned about stability and function of international systems, in terms of basic requirements of order , symmetry , and harmony - at the levels that make sense - and learned clearly and explicitly enough to produce systems that have these properties by design, not by chance.

The lessons are fairly easy . . .

I'm still hoping that's right. Though sometimes I've felt I was much too optimistic at the beginning of the year. All the same, maybe not. As Benjamin Franklin pointed out

" Experience keeps a dear school. A fool will learn in no other."

People often act well - we're not always foolish as a species, as a nation, as individuals. There have been some interesting experiences that have been in the news since New Years Day. UN negotiations, the Iraq war, the absence or near-absence of WMD's in Iraq, the shuttle disaster, the Blair affair, and a lot of other things have happened that could be useful for teaching simple lessons. Including some monotonously "obvious" lessons.

Problems that occur regularly - especially mononotously - may be "obvious" but they are important to adress.

One key lesson is that in those cases where it matters enough - it is very important to get facts and relations straight. The costs and risks of mistakes and fraud are so high, that even the high cost of checking has to be bourne on issues that are of exceptional importance.

Not that checking can possibly be the rule - most of the time, it is too expensive, in journalism and elsewhere. But it has to occur in an organized way, subject to rules and exception handling, if we're to solve some problems. At the New York Times, and elsewhere.

. . . . .

Sometimes, there is no substitute for showing evidence - though there often are arguments against doing it, especially when the CIA is involved in a direct or tertiary way.

These are emails I sent - modified to delete names of CIA personnel. The unmodified emails are available to the NYT - and could be made available to people who used their real names with me, and had a valid reason for seeing them.

This is a response that I made to a inquiry from Deutsche Bank Securities July of last year - when a question was asked that I believe was in response to a CIA officer. It contains a number of references to this thread.

http://www.mrshowalter.net/etterToDeutscheBankSecuritiesXd.html

This is a letter I sent to William Safire July of last year. Safire did not respond. I sent a copy to other NYT columnists as well. It contains a number of references to this thread.

http://www.mrshowalter.net/Safire_SpookAwardsNRequestXd.html

This is a letter that I sent to a number of people who have known me over the years, at about the same time.

http://www.mrshowalter.net/ToE_H_E_G_P_M_xd.html

I've made some progress toward getting my personal security situation sorted out to the point where I could work since that time. I've found both the responses and the non-responses interesting.

But there is still a way to go before I can function much beyond my current status of effective house arrest. During that house arrest - I feel that I've been able to clarify some key p

rshow55 - 08:29am Sep 28, 2003 EST (# 14079 of 14105)
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.

During that house arrest - I feel that I've been able to clarify some key points - after the manner of http://www.mrshowalter.net/Similitude_ForceRatios_sjk.htm - - set out in part in 14054 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.PSb2bG6LJ8d.0@.f28e622/15760 - and I've been able to be involved in the generation of a corpus http://www.mrshowalter.net/Sequential.htm that is both extensive ( the full printout of links runs over 280 pages) and full of well written text, from people arguably connected to elites ( perhaps I'm not - perhaps lchic is not - delete all our postings and there's a lot left. )

My sense of priorities is reasonably clear http://www.mrshowalter.net/SP_51_n_Swim.htm - and reasons to believe that stakes are high have been clear for a long time.

A central question - that's needs to be clarified - is is there ever an obligation to check - just because the subject matter is important - or not?

Is there ever a way to judge that - besides ascribed status?

There are some simple lessons about what it takes to pick a fight - and what peaceful resolution takes - that need to be learned. Maybe these lessons aren't advanced and high status. But neither is the lesson about tying shoes. Even so, simple lessons can be important. They can even be matters of life or death.

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