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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.

lchic - 12:13am Jun 22, 2002 EST (#2661 of 2669)

"" She is disturbed by the apparent ease with which fundamental rights, such as habeas corpus - the right to a court hearing before prolonged detention - are being set aside in the name of an emergency that may have no end ... http://www.guardian.co.uk/bush/story/0,7369,741882,00.html ... "The dry questions of law are important to our judicial system, but in heated cases - from OJ to the Enron scandal - people don't want to hear. Increasingly, I've turned to journalism, where I get a huge response." She writes that "Americans suddenly seem willing to embrace profiling based on looks and ethnicity, detention without charges, searches without warrants, even torture and assassinations." While she is heartened by legal challenges to such steps, her aim is to stir wider debate.

lchic - 04:12am Jun 22, 2002 EST (#2662 of 2669)

Polio - the world working together could eradicate by 2005 (excepting war zones)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,11381,741923,00.html

The WHO's target date for a polio-free world is 2005. Massive progress has been made. In 1988 there were 350,000 cases a year in the world, but in 2001 just 480. The 125 countries in which polio was endemic have dropped to 10: Afghanistan, Angola, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia and Sudan.

But the last part is the hardest, because of the difficulties in reaching children in remote areas or war zones

lchic - 04:33am Jun 22, 2002 EST (#2663 of 2669)

The HERD ... lone individual sticks it out regarding her belief/truth .. against the pressure of the herd mental-ity quentin87 "The Collapse of Enron (A Moderated Forum)" 6/20/02 5:52pm

lchic - 04:59am Jun 22, 2002 EST (#2664 of 2669)

Frontline - ceo's
^{vandiverse "The Economy (A Moderated Forum)" 6/21/02 4:09pm}

rshow55 - 07:55am Jun 22, 2002 EST (#2665 of 2669)

Woke up feeling rested, relaxed, hopeful. Things are going fine! I was pleased with Washington Week In Review last night - - and it seems to me that, in a lot of ways, problems and all, America is working the way it is supposed to. Some things may get fixed, and maybe fixed pretty well, all things considered. Don't want to overuse a word, but it seems to me that many of the forces of evil are in compromised, vulnerable positions -- and that's hopeful.

But the postings by Lchic above are important, and wrenching. Plenty to fix.

I'm concerned about the stability of some things - including our nuclear arrangements - which look precarious and irresponsible to me - - but maybe things are shaping up. There's some way to go.

What would happen if some member of the Bush administration, with a name and reputation for all to see, took me on? I might get beat up, of course. But maybe not . . . Sometimes, fantasies are fun to think about - and working them through can even clarify how things work, in ways that can be useful in practical cases. That's a reason why stories can be important.

rshow55 - 08:45am Jun 22, 2002 EST (#2666 of 2669)

OpEd pieces, too.
Sacrifice Is for Losers By FRANK RICH http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/22/opinion/22RICH.html

The problems of corporate responsibility, miltary responsibility, international responsibility, and political responsibility are similar and linked.

The things Eisenhower warned of in his FAREWELL ADDRESS of January 17, 1961 http://www.geocities.com/~newgeneration/ikefw.htm have happened. The subversive, cancerous patterns developed, after much borrowing from Germany, to fight the Cold War have evolved, and now diffused all through government, politics, and business. At the same time, our nuclear controls have been left, almost untouched in decisive ways, for thirty years, and we are in a new world. There are things that need to be checked about those controls, lest the world perish. And all over our society, there are problems that American need to understand, and fix, with the world watching, and checking. When we do, we'll be much better off, the world will be a more beautiful place, and we'll almost all of us feel better about ourselves, our country, and the world.

rshow55 - 10:19am Jun 22, 2002 EST (#2667 of 2669)

MD2286 rshow55 5/18/02 5:44pm

Tom Daschle , the Senate Majority Leader , pledged to try for workable patterns of discourse in A New Deal for a New Senate http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/10/opinion/10DASC.html

There are great operational barriers standing in the way of my being able to make effective contact with the Senate, for testimony, or to ask that things be checked. But those barriers are getting less.

The switch between opposite states can happen fast. That happens when minds change on juries. The states of "completely encircled" and "completely unshackled" can differ by only one step. Take that step, and switching occurs.

A lot of switching is like that. "Perfect defense" and "no defense at all" are similar, in logical ways. It would be safer, and better in every way, if we took steps to check, and stabilize, our nuclear arrangements. That's something I've been arguing passionately for since my September 25, 2000 all-day forum dialog with "becq" - - who I thought at the time was Bill Clinton. Now I think maybe I was wrong. Bill Clinton, even at his worst, couldn't be so irresponsible as to refuse to check such a thing. Or could he?

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