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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.

wrcooper - 01:20pm Oct 14, 2002 EST (# 4861 of 4870)

kalter.rauch 10/14/02 12:03am

Quit this nonsense about your critics being Agents for The NYT or The "Shop", or MIB enforcers for the Alien/Human Power Elite Conspiracy that REALLY call the shots on this planet. [written to rshowalter]

Now this really is a case of the screwball calling the cuckoo nutty.

lchic - 01:47pm Oct 14, 2002 EST (# 4862 of 4870)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

WC that's flush ^^^

lchic - 01:53pm Oct 14, 2002 EST (# 4863 of 4870)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

"" ... confirmed Australian death toll currently stands at 14. Another 110 Australians were injured and almost 220 were unaccounted for after a car bomb ripped through the Sari Club in the beachside resort town of Kuta on the island of Bali on Saturday night.

Mr Howard said in a radio interview that Mr Bush and Mr Blair both talked about the need for Jakarta to increase cooperation on eradicating terrorism. ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/indonesia/Story/0,2763,811669,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/

~~~~~

Post 4860 (was covered via 4853) it took netNanny 14hours to give safe landing :)

lchic - 02:04pm Oct 14, 2002 EST (# 4864 of 4870)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Coward speaks : http://abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s701323.htm
http://abc.net.au/news/justin/nat/newsnat-14oct2002-114.htm
http://abc.net.au/
http://www.independent.co.uk/

Afghan girls denied education :
( $$ should be funelled into Afghanistan via women's projects )
60% of Afghans are women!
http://abc.net.au/news/justin/nat/newsnat-14oct2002-119.htm

gisterme - 02:43pm Oct 14, 2002 EST (# 4865 of 4870)

wrcooper 10/8/02 12:37pm

"...How can the administration argue so forcefully for BMD when it has now broadcast the obvious truth that the real threat is from chemical and biological (maybe nuclear) weapons that can be smuggled onto our shores?..."

The threat of surface-delivered WMD of all types has never been denied by the government so far as I know. As has been said many times before on this forum ALL threats must be prepared for to the extent that that's possible. Why bar the doors against a thief while leaving the windows wide open? So long as both threats exist, it seems prudent to defend against both.

wrcooper - 02:58pm Oct 14, 2002 EST (# 4866 of 4870)

gisterme 10/14/02 2:43pm

I may be attacked by a wild boar on the streets of downtown Chicago. Would it be prudent for me to obtain a boar gun to defend myself against a potential boar bogey, especially if the weapon cost hundreds of billions of dollars? OF course not. The threat is so improbable that it's not worth the effort to guard against.

The same is true of the threat of an ICBM attack launched against the U.S. homeland by a rogue nation or terrorist organization.

It is not prudent to acquire a technologically problematic ABM system when the threat is minimal or unrealistic. We should, of course, defend ourselves against a possible, if highly unlikely, ICBM attack from a rogue nation or a terrorist organization. But we could do that for far less money, and perhaps with an even greater chance of success, with improved intel and conventional interdiction, once a credible threat has been identified.

Bush's BMD program is a huge waste of taxpayer dollars.

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