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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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lchic - 01:48am Nov 8, 2003 EST (# 16830 of 16832)
ultimately TRUTH outs : TRUTH has to be morally forcing : build on TRUTH it's a strong foundation

Pvt Lynch || http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s984999.htm

"It does [bother me] that they used me as a way to symbolise all this stuff ... yeah, it's wrong ... I don't know why they filmed it, or why they say the things they, you know," she said.

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November 8, 2003. 10:04am (AEDT)

I'm no hero, says Private Lynch

US Army Private Jessica Lynch, the badly injured prisoner of war who was rescued from a hospital during the Iraq war, says she is not the Rambo-style hero she has been portrayed as by the American media and the military.

Lynch, 20, told American ABC network reporter Diane Sawyer in an interview to be aired on Primetime next Tuesday, the same day as her authorised biography is published, that she never fired a shot when ambushed.

"My weapon did jam and I did not shoot, not a round, nothing," she said.

"I don't look at myself as a hero. My heroes are Lori [Private Lori Piestewa, who died in the ambush of Lynch's convoy], the soldiers that are over there, the soldiers that were in the car beside me, the ones that came and rescued me."

Lynch is still recovering from injuries to her spine and cannot walk without crutches. She has no feeling in her left foot and has other medical problems.

Private Lynch, who became a symbol of US heroism during the early stages of the war on Iraq, insisted: "I am just a survivor."

In an advance, partial copy of the ABC interview, Private Lynch said she was hurt that other people had "made up stories" about her fiercely fighting her Iraqi captors.

"I'm not about to take credit for something that I didn't do ... It hurt in a way that people would make up stories that they had no truth about.

"Only I would have been able to know that because the other four people on my vehicle aren't here to tell that story."

Private Lynch, a supply clerk who was awarded the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart and the Prisoner of War medal, received an honorable military discharge from the Army in August due to her injuries, allowing her to sign the $US1 million book deal.

US commandos filmed their rescue of Private Lynch from the Iraqi hospital on April 1, nine days after she was captured at the onset of the war.

An early media report quoted unnamed US officials as saying she "fought to the death" before being captured and suffered multiple gunshot wounds.

The Army later concluded she was hurt when her Humvee crashed into another vehicle in the convoy after being hit by a grenade.

Sawyer asked Private Lynch if she went down "like, somebody said, Rambo".

"No, I went down praying on my knees," she replied.

Private Lynch said she was thankful to the soldiers who rescued her but said she was troubled by the way the military portrayed the incident.

"It does [bother me] that they used me as a way to symbolise all this stuff ... yeah, it's wrong ... I don't know why they filmed it, or why they say the things they, you know," she said.

The full details of her story have yet to come out since Private Lynch said she suffered a loss of memory after her capture.

ABC said that in the interview she discussed for the first time a report she was sexually assaulted during her captivity, saying that she did not remember such an incident but adding, "even just the thinking about that, that's too painful".

According to Sawyer, the book I Am a Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story cites a medical record as indicating that Lynch was raped.

The young private was captured by Iraqis on March 23 near Nassiriya. Eleven US soldiers were killed and nine others wounded in the incident.

lchic - 02:01am Nov 8, 2003 EST (# 16831 of 16832)
ultimately TRUTH outs : TRUTH has to be morally forcing : build on TRUTH it's a strong foundation

"If democracy is to flourish, we need to hear different perspectives and views." Bernie Sanders

http://madison.indymedia.org/ http://madison.indymedia.org/feature/display/14608/index.php

http://funferal.org/mt-archive/cat_essays.html

slides defamation

lchic - 02:04am Nov 8, 2003 EST (# 16832 of 16832)
ultimately TRUTH outs : TRUTH has to be morally forcing : build on TRUTH it's a strong foundation

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