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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.

rshow55 - 08:28pm Jun 1, 2002 EST (#2433 of 2440)

"Nuclear denial":

UNTHINKABLE Eyeball to Eyeball, and Blinking in Denial By CELIA W. DUGGER http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/02/weekinreview/02DUGG.html?pagewanted=all&position=top

"Miscalculation is, after all, at the heart of virtually all the nightmare visions of how any nuclear exchange would start.

"As alarmed American officials watch the crisis unfold, they worry that India and Pakistan could become a model and inspiration for the likes of Iraq and North Korea if they should ever use their nuclear weapons against each other. "Once you use it," one official said, "that almost mystical taboo is removed."

Would nuclear weapons still be around if 1945 had been an era of television ?

These are crazy "weapons" - with no earthly use save extermination. The US backs the dream of "missile defense" in the hope of immunizing itself - which it cannot possibly do.

If people widely understood , not only "intellectually, but with heart and viscera as well, what these weapons do -- we'd have a chance to get rid of them.

If people widely understood how hopeless our "missile defense" programs are -- that would be a move toward sanity and safety, as well.

rshow55 - 08:36pm Jun 1, 2002 EST (#2434 of 2440)

Bush's speech at West Point said that, for WMD threats that have to be removed, interdiction is the way to do it. I've been saying that consistently for a long time.

Interdiction and prohibition are what we need, for our own safety, and the safety of the planet. - - And for prohibition to work, that prohibition has to apply to us , as well.

lchic - 12:43am Jun 2, 2002 EST (#2435 of 2440)

Interesting to see Co-linPowell upfront tell us that Nukes are DANGEROUS ... wrt the SubContinent .. wonder if he can transform the imagery to the USA that stockpiles.

[ A notable statistic for accidents is that they most happen 'in the home' and road accidents most usually happen 'within spitting distance of the home'. So if the USA stockpiles dangerous unstable materials --- chances are it will the 'homeland' that eventually suffers random mischance. ]

Leaves me logically thinking that Powell may be for disarmament!

rshow55 - 03:48pm Jun 2, 2002 EST (#2436 of 2440)

Colin Powell has hoped for nuclear disarmament, in public, for years. He's quoted to that effect in this very interesting broadcast in 1994, and has said so since:

DOES THE UNITED STATES NEED NUCLEAR WEAPONS?" http://www.cdi.org/adm/Transcripts/721/

lchic - 04:09pm Jun 2, 2002 EST (#2437 of 2440)

Colin Powell for ZERO nukes:

" .... And today I can declare my hope and declare it from the bottom of my heart that we will eventually see the time when that number of nuclear weapons is down to zero and the world is a much better place."

lchic - 04:18pm Jun 2, 2002 EST (#2438 of 2440)

RU : Herzen (history)

Tom Stoppard celebrates the life of Alexander Herzen, the courageous radical Russian

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