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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 - 04:54pm Oct 10, 2002 EST (# 4786 of 4800)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Bringing this gem to the board ... would it be 'true' ?

"If the Nuremberg laws were applied today, then every post-war American President would have to be hanged."

Noam Chomsky

mazza9 - 06:10pm Oct 10, 2002 EST (# 4787 of 4800)
"Quae cum ita sunt" Caesar's Gallic Commentaries

"If the Nuremberg laws were applied today, then every post-war American President would have to be hanged."

Who is Noam Chomsky?

commondata - 07:23pm Oct 10, 2002 EST (# 4788 of 4800)

Harry S. Truman. In 1945 Truman ordered the use of the atomic bomb against Japan.

Dwight David Eisenhower. General Eisenhower issued special orders concerning the treatment of German Prisoners and specific in the language of those orders was this statement, "Prison enclosures are to provide no shelter or other comforts." nasty.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy. No dirt.

Lyndon Baines Johnson. Johnson began the rapid deepening of U.S. involvement in Vietnam; as early as February 1965 U.S. planes began to bomb North Vietnam.

Richard Milhous Nixon. When President Richard Nixon announced the invasion of Cambodia, and the widening of the war, on April 30, 1970, it was met with universal revulsion. Student protests began to erupt all across the country. The Kent State Massacre

Gerald Rudolph Ford. No dirt.

Jimmy Carter. No dirt.

Ronald Wilson Reagan. Reagan's real record includes waging a war on the peasants of El Salvador (which killed 70,000 people), on Nicaragua (which killed 20,000 people), on Honduras (which killed 200,000 people),and on Guatemala (which killed 100,000 people). Allegation here

George Bush Sr. for the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, including many thousands of children, the result of his 40 days of bombing and the institution of draconian sanctions; and for his unconscionable bombing of Panama, producing widespread death, destruction and homelessness, for no discernible reason that would stand up in a court of law. 3rd World Traveller

William Jefferson Clinton. William Clinton, president, for his merciless bombing of the people of Yugoslavia for 78 days and nights, taking the lives of many hundreds of civilians, and producing one of the greatest ecological catastrophes in history; for his relentless continuation of the sanctions and rocket attacks upon the people of Iraq; and for his illegal and lethal bombings of Somalia, Bosnia, Sudan and Afghanistan. 3rd World Traveller

George Bush Jr ...

commondata - 07:25pm Oct 10, 2002 EST (# 4789 of 4800)

They would have to be judged against the Charter of the International Military Tribunal.

Here's article 6:

The following acts, or any of them, are crimes coming within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal for which there shall be individual responsibility:

(a) Crimes against Peace: namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a Common Plan or Conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing;

(b) War Crimes: namely, violations of the laws or customs of war. Such violations shall include, but not be limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity;

(c) Crimes against Humanity: namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war,14 or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of domestic law of the country where perpetrated.

There's definitely seems to be a prima facie against a least a couple of them!

Noam Chomsky is very famous, Mazza. Ask google

wrcooper - 11:15pm Oct 10, 2002 EST (# 4790 of 4800)

PBS's "Frontline" hour-long investigation of missile defense, titled "Missile Wars," which aired tonight, did an excellent job in reviewing the history of the issue.

You can visit a web site a PBS presenting lots of interviews and background on the story at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/missile/.

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