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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.

almarst2002 - 10:11pm Jun 15, 2002 EST (#2560 of 2592)

"As Clark tells it, the really decisive impulse propelling the campaign was not Milosevic’s human rights violations in Kosovo before March 1999; nor was it his wholesale eviction of the Kosovars after the bombing began. What mattered most was the need to impose NATO’s will on a leader whose defiance, first in Bosnia and then in Kosovo, was undermining the credibility of American and European diplomacy and of NATO’s willpower. But if the issue becomes credibility, then the strategic logic becomes circular: NATO has to bomb in order to prove that it will bomb. " - http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/cchrp/news071901.shtml

lchic - 11:03pm Jun 15, 2002 EST (#2561 of 2592)

"""Because of who his patrons were during his career, Leonardo often pondered the question of how science could be used to do a better job of making war. You'll have to decide whether that was a good use of his genius
^{http://www.ovationtv.com/artszone/programs/codex/matter.html}

lchic - 11:15pm Jun 15, 2002 EST (#2562 of 2592)

""" Preferences and principles are opposites. Preferences are subjective while principles are objective. Values, that are preferences, are something "to have," but values that are principles, are something "to be."

The confusion over the use of the word values, in the context of moral beliefs and attitudes, is not surprising, given the comparatively short period it has been used in that sense.

Just over one hundred years ago the German philosopher, Friedrich Vilhem Nietzsche began to speak of values in a new way. He used values not as a verb, meaning to value or esteem something; nor as a singular noun, meaning the measure of something (the economic value of money, labour or property); but in the plural, meaning the moral beliefs and attitudes of society.
^{http://www.teachingvalues.com/valuecasestudy.html}

lchic - 01:37am Jun 16, 2002 EST (#2563 of 2592)

The Rove doctrine is simple in the extreme: "Maintain Base." The base he lists sounds like a lyric from "Oklahoma!" —

"Farmers, Ranchers, Coal & Steel."

Dowd
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/16/opinion/16DOWD.html

lchic - 07:51am Jun 16, 2002 EST (#2564 of 2592)

Showalter re-Wolfram >> ^{ppmitra "Science in the News" 6/16/02 2:12am}

rshow55 - 08:34am Jun 16, 2002 EST (#2565 of 2592)

Beautiful Week in Review , beautiful editorials, and fine Op-Eds today!

I'm wanting to proceed carefully, on my private concerns, and on issues very much connected with missile defense. I have hopes of being, in manj's phrase, "completely unshackled" - - and my recent conversations with CIA are consistent with that.

But the meaning of words, and the context in which action is possible, need to be considered. CIA seems to want, and want very much, to restrict direct contact between me and an officer of the agency who I contacted - and so this is a reasonable channel.

The most key point in my last week's conversation with CIA is expressed in the following statement - a statement dictated to me emphatically, forcefully, by a C.I.A. official. The statement is well connected, I feel, with material in the TIMES today. Here is that statement:

" C.I.A. has no interest in any of M.Robert Showalter's material."

(in my notes I have "my" rather than "M. Robert Showalter" - but the statement just above, with that sustitution, clear in context - was clearly and forcefully repeated.)

What can the bolded words above reasonably mean? If "to have no interest" means " not to care" - I'd find the phrase inconsistent with the reasonable and probable. I believe most other people would, as well, if they consider what has been said and done.

If "to have no interest" means "to have no title in, no property values in, no special right to control" then I find the statement reasonable, and a statement that may be the basis for acceptable, practical, honorable conduct for all involved.

There are some facts that can be established, from the evidence of this thread. C.I.A. may not care about any of my material. However, from time to time, gisterme has shown evidence of caring. And, by a reasonable "collection of dots" and "connection of dots," gisterme may reasonably be judged to have clear links, and high ones, with the Bush administration.

MD2531 rshow55 6/14/02 6:34pm

I think it is important, and in the national interest, for people to know how this matter has been handled so far. I've been trying to work in the reasonable national interest, and believe I have done so.

MD1999 rshow55 5/4/02 10:35am ... MD2000 rshow55 5/4/02 10:39am
MD2001 rshow55 5/4/02 11:36am

(27 following messages)

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