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 [F] New York Times on the Web Forums  / Science  /

    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.


Earliest Messages Previous Messages Recent Messages Outline (17268 previous messages)

lchic - 11:14am Nov 11, 2003 EST (# 17269 of 17281)
ultimately TRUTH outs : TRUTH has to be morally forcing : build on TRUTH it's a strong foundation

PNG http://www.postcourier.com.pg/

cantabb - 11:16am Nov 11, 2003 EST (# 17270 of 17281)

rshow55 - 10:46am Nov 11, 2003 EST (# 17261 of 17268)

Cantabb missed something, and asks

A copy of what ? Your corpus CD ? -

A one hour CNN videotape

Something you never made clear or specified ?

lchic - 11:17am Nov 11, 2003 EST (# 17271 of 17281)
ultimately TRUTH outs : TRUTH has to be morally forcing : build on TRUTH it's a strong foundation

Military Magazines http://www.world-newspapers.com/military.html

lchic - 11:20am Nov 11, 2003 EST (# 17272 of 17281)
ultimately TRUTH outs : TRUTH has to be morally forcing : build on TRUTH it's a strong foundation

Strategy Page http://www.strategypage.com/

lchic - 11:26am Nov 11, 2003 EST (# 17273 of 17281)
ultimately TRUTH outs : TRUTH has to be morally forcing : build on TRUTH it's a strong foundation

Comment http://www.strategypage.com/messageboards/messages/35-21492.asp

Roman [Pragmatist]

Iraq was a US mistake 9/12/2003 10:14:46 PM

I believe it was a mistake for the US to go to war in Iraq. The country did not pose any security threat and the secular Baathist regime, as brutal as it was, in fact suppressed radical Islamic movements. Even if Iraq did have WMD (and I actually believed the USA and the UK that it really did and still opposed the war), it had no incentives of using them against the US and would not pass them on to Islamic terrorists with whom it had poor relations.

Invasion of Iraq has:-

1) Inflamed the world opinion to extreme anti-Americanism. It is true that much of the world was anti-American to begin with, but now this has reached extreme levels. In fact, much of the US population (especially on the left, but some also on the right) was also very opposed to the war and could ironically also be described as anti-American.

2) Entangled the US in a Middle Eastern Islamic country for a very long time. This will be a massive drain on US economic resources at a time when your budget deficit is at a record high. It will also overstretch your armed forces, which will lead to numerous problems. On top of that, it will put a psychological strain on the American people due to both the casualties among US troops and the international isolation that the US has imposed on itself through this war.

3) The US is very quickly going to find out that people are in general ungrateful. While it is true that Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator and Iraqi people have indeed been liberated by the US invasion, it will quickly become apparent that people have a short memory. Cultural ties with other US-hating Muslim nations will prevail and Iraqi's will begin opposing the US occupation en-masse. This is already happening to some extent, but is likely to get much worse.

4) The war led to a rift with the European allies. This was not entirely the US fault. The French, for example, behaved despicably. It is one thing to oppose a war and hence not participate in it (Germany did this...), but it is yet another to actively lobby other countries to stand against the invasion as France did. What I would have advocated for Europe to do was to protest the war mildly, but let the US get on with it if it was determined to do so, as it clearly was... Americans are our allies after all, so the least we can do is not stand in their way

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 [F] New York Times on the Web Forums  / Science  / Missile Defense