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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.

wrcooper - 12:39pm Oct 16, 2003 EST (# 15167 of 15172)

In re: http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.gHAmbN8pOG0.2824796@.f28e622/16876

The reason that an unreliable system is worse than no system at all is that takes attention and resources away from initiatives that might actually work. It also risks spurring our adversaries to expand their arsenals of ICBMs to counter our ABM system.

The threat of a limited strike that the Bush administration's NMD system is intended to thwart is, currently, nonexistent and could be deterred more efficaciously by other means than by an expensive, elaborate multi-layered ABM system. The real threat of an attack on the US homeland with WMD comes from low-tech delivery methods, such as hijacked airliners or container ships, burros crossing the Rio Grande with saddle bags stuffed with anthrax, or a backpack nukette fashioned in Sadaam's grandnephew's underground lab bunker in Syria and delivered to the US by diplomatic pouch or in the belly of an oil tanker and detonated by remote control by a suicide bomber while smiling crazily at the Statue of Liberty and shouting "Virgin nymphs, here I come!!"

cantabb - 12:42pm Oct 16, 2003 EST (# 15168 of 15172)

gisterme - 10:54pm Oct 14, 2003 EST (# 15029 of 15128)

Great rap, Fred! :-)

Well, there you go. Someone who likes barnyard rap !

gisterme - 11:52pm Oct 14, 2003 EST (# 15038 of 15128)

Okay "plink, plink, plink, plink...plink, plink"...the sound of a pesky peckerwood trying to dismember the steel fence post. How's that? :-)

How intelligent !

Hmmm. Well I suppose that "backscratching" means different things to different folks. Still, all I did was acknowledge and agree with what Fred said. What's the matter with that? Is that backscratching to you?

By the “regulars,” Of the “regulars” on a self-serving statement – in response to comments by someone who has not been here ‘for long’.

If you think that, well, maybe it's because you don't have much experience with folks agreeing with you. Based on what you've posted on this thread, I can see how that could happen.

You must worry about “folks agreeing with you.” I don't. NOT my way.

Oh, by the way, next time your back itches...don't scratch it.

OK. I’ll get a real backscratcher – that doesn’t have the need to have its back scratched in return !

"...

Well, that pretty much says it all, cantabb {"That’s WHAT I noticed on the Forum: ‘wallowing in’ the same ole slop !..."] . You've made my earlier point about the pleasure you to take in "wallowing" along with the rest of us. I think I'll start calling you "blackie". It might make the kettle feel better. :-)

You must a problem with comprehension.

It’s you who have been here for 3 years, obviously ‘wallowing in the slop’ ALL this time. Not me

In case you don’t remember, it’s just about a month [NOT 3 years] that I first posted a comment. And called the slop, the slop !

YOU didn’t like that coming from a poster who, like you, has NOT been here “long enough.”

Join Fredmoore in his schoolyard/barnyard, and call me whatever you like – if that makes you feel better !

wrcooper - 12:05am Oct 15, 2003 EST (# 15041 of 15128)

gisterme : Now, dear fellow, I have to be honest with you. You disappoint me. You made a great show of putting rshow55 on your "Ignore Posts list," and now I see you trading barbs with him and lchic and cantabb . I thought you had learned your lesson and had sworn off that evil brew. Alas, poor gisterme .

Here’s yet another gratuitous advice from someone who is never tired of gratuitously recommending his Rx -- something that did NOT work for him -- to EVERY ONE.

I think he has “learned [his] lesson” AFTER a face-to-face he sought with rshow55, one of several such instances AFTER he had “sworn off that evil brew.” AT LEAST he has come to realize this, quite regrettfully, according to his posts. after his own numerous exchanges with rshow55.

Consigning things, ASAP, to where they rightly belong -– and doing it for a month-- is NOTHING like the “discussions” some have had for the past 3 years !

Things don't disappear just because you “ignore” them. “See No evil....” ?

gisterme - 12:20am Oct 15, 2003 EST (# 15042 of 15128)

Will - Funny you {WRC} should say that. I've thought exactly the same thing myself. :-) However, if we enjoy the time we spend doing this, that is if the time spent doing this is valuable enough to us that we're not doing something else, then I'd say that's not really either "being in a rut" or "wheel spinning". ……… Participating in a forum like this is no more wasteful than spending an equal amount of time at any other unproductive form of entertainment. At least doing this exercises our literacy and causes us to consider other people's views as we evolve our own. That's more productive than most other kinds of entertainment I've enjoyed.

That’s what I call STILL ‘wallowing in the slop’ ! At least you thought it worth YOUR time

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