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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 - 07:51pm May 8, 2002 EST (#2101 of 2114)

MD2087 manjumicha2001 5/8/02 11:07am was a very nice posting, which I appreciated:

rshow

I wish the best for that meeting ! It is about time that you get completely unshackled.

What a wonderful thing it would be, to be "completely unshackled" insofar as (national) security law constraints were concerned! I had a meeting, and there was some reason to hope.

I dream of being freed from a long, long nightmare. Some quotes:

MD1900 rshow55 4/30/02 11:16am

If the job is one of persuasion - the NYT is in a leadership position.

If the job involves techniques of persuasion - - the NYT is in an almost unique position to exercise leadership -- because its staff knows so much, and has so much experience, about how persuasion works, and doesn't work.

MD1901 rshow55 4/30/02 11:21am

MD1076 rshow55 4/4/02 1:20pm ... MD1077 rshow55 4/4/02 1:21pm
... deal with major concerns, for me personally, and for the world.

MD1077 includes this:

"Some of my background, which you also know, was on this thread before March 2, and is now set out on a Guardian thread .. Psychwarfare, Casablanca -- and terror

217-219 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?13@@.ee7a163/228

. 273-277 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?13@@.ee7a163/289

278-279 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/294

"I believe that I'm doing, as nearly as it possibly can be done, exactly what Bill Casey would want me to do now, for the good of the United States of America, and for the safety and decency of the world." Is there deception here? One would have to check.

http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?13@@.ee7a163/289 cites a posting previously on this thread, that starts:

rshowalter - 07:22am Jun 26, 2001 EST (#6057 of 7079) Robert Showalter mrshowalter@thedawn.com

"I say here that I knew Bill Casey a little.

"And of course, everything's deniable - I'm not sure anybody has any records at all. Maybe I'm a literary figure -- call me Ishmael.

"The story I like best about me, in this regard, is that I'm just a guy who got interested in logic, and military issues. A guy who got concerned about nuclear danger, and related military balances, and tried to do something about it. Based on what he knew - with no access to special information of any kind, he made an effort to keep the world from blowing up, using the best literary devices he could fashion, consistent with what he knew or could guess.

"Let me go on with another story."

How much simpler my life would be, if I could proceed in confidence that people believed "the story I like best" -- fictions and all.

Maybe, after actually asking questions of the government, that will be possible.

If the government can't find records involving me and classified research -- hasn't and won't pay for the work - - and denies they were ever involved with me -- then perhaps I can own my past, unencumbered, and more into the future.

Or, if there are encumberances, those encumberances can be defined.

I'd be free to proceed on the basis set out in MD1076 rshow55 4/4/02 1:20pm

Challenge, questions, and invokation of the need for force:
MD728 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?14@71.aUpRa6KuJav^1196853@.f28e622/906... MD729 rshow55 3/20/02 9:32pm
MD730 rshow55 3/20/02 9:37pm

Counterchallenge:
MD764 gisterme 3/22/02 1:34pm

Comment and response:
MD780 manjumicha2001 3/23/02 2:28am ... MD7

rshow55 - 07:53pm May 8, 2002 EST (#2102 of 2114)

Comment and response:
MD780 manjumicha2001 3/23/02 2:28am ... MD783-784 rshow55 3/23/02 11:15am
MD84 rshow55 3/2/02 11:52am

It is enormously in the national and world interest that these things be discussed, and pursued to the point of right, clear answers.

It may be possible. I could talk to the people required to make the challenge workable -- without unreasonable fear, for myself, or for them.

Perhaps my situation can be defined , and perhaps, once it it defined, I'll be "completely unshackled"! MD2087 manjumicha2001 5/8/02 11:07am

manjumicha2001 - 08:10pm May 8, 2002 EST (#2103 of 2114)

Yes, it is a shame that you couldn't have cleared up that types of secrecy law issues before. On the other hand, I hear the good works being done by the likes of Union of Concerned Scientists, etc and I am sure quite a few of them (having such high level of scholarship) have also participated in the DOD or CIA sponsored programs in which they had to sign all kinds of secrecy agreements but that doesn't seem to stop them from being productive in challenging goverment positions rather powerfully....so maybe you shoudl just go ahead and do what you need to do and if they come aroudn asking you this or that, you can then deal with them, maybe? sorry if it is a naive approach but just a thought. Like Roosevelt (or was it some othjer big shot?)once said, there is nothing to fear except fear itself....

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