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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.

commondata - 07:01pm Oct 15, 2002 EST (# 4910 of 4916)

gisterme 10/15/02 4:00pm

Ummm, if by "manipulation" you mean private US companies building the middle eatern oil fields in the first place just to have the nationalized ... then I'd have to agree we're manipulating ... however, it seems to me, that once I pay for the gas in my tank, it's mine...no longer the property of the supplier.

Where's this metaphor going? It reminded me of Brigadier-General William Looney, US Air Force, director of the bombing of Iraq:

They know we own their country ... we dictate the way they live and talk. And that's what's great about America right now. It's a good thing, especially when there's a lot of oil out there we need.

Not a Public Relations dream is he? Nor was having the Taliban as guests at President Bush’s Texan ranch only months before September 11.

There will never be peace in Israel/palestine so long as there are folks fomenting jihad. That's because it serves the purpose of jihad to keep that pot boiling.

There seems to be the same sort of blind support for Israel in the US as there is/was for the IRA and for the usual reasons of tribal-religious ignorance-affiliation. It's a local territorial dispute and it doesn't really become the US, in its globally dominant position, to side with one side in the face of international opinion set out in UN resolutions. What about the rules?

What about the rules when you were arming Iraq in the 80's? What about the rules as you're killing more people in Iraq than the combined total of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs; 5000 children killed each month because of sanctions? How would it be if someone were doing that to you?

You killed more people in Iraq than all weapons of mass destruction ever.

Follow the trail of blood you've left back through the recent past in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Honduras, Chile ...

You are the terrorists.

gisterme 10/15/02 4:10pm

Bloody men delight in spilling blood especially innocent blood.

Irony?

lchic - 07:59pm Oct 15, 2002 EST (# 4911 of 4916)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Follow American Foreign Policy post WWII

Exactly 'what' was it about

Almarst would say "OIL"

lchic - 08:05pm Oct 15, 2002 EST (# 4912 of 4916)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

That the USA supported 'right wing incumbents' against 'popular' calls for democratic reform

Shows the USA foreign policy was totally 'out of step' with their own domestic reforming logics -- why so?

lchic - 08:11pm Oct 15, 2002 EST (# 4913 of 4916)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Heirarchical logic UC/lc "Israel/palestine"
Gisterme's interesting and consistent usage

why not "israel/Palestine" ?

lchic - 08:14pm Oct 15, 2002 EST (# 4914 of 4916)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

weak-kneed me-tooism

A term applied to an opposition leader who lost his term

(page1)
http://www.fl.net.au/~pressco/anzapa/nec_43.pdf
http://www.fl.net.au/~pressco/anzapa/index.html

lchic - 08:19pm Oct 15, 2002 EST (# 4915 of 4916)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

The locality, county, state, nation, and world have relied on Strategy to lessen conflict.

Here's an historical example ... wonder how it might flesh out between modern leaderships, theifdoms, kingdoms and empires ... :)

... though, tried to overcome the problems with the nobility. He married three of his daughters to leading thegns in an attempt to bind the nobility closer to the throne. This was an innovation: kings had tended to marry their daughters to foreign princes

.... poor judgment was supposedly complemented by personality defects. For example, there are references to the "stunted weakness of his character". In particular, these personality defects are exemplified by sudden acts of violence ...

... The causes for his defeat lie partly in the political system he inherited, partly in the strength of the opposition he faced and to some extent in the(his) character ....

http://www.fl.net.au/~pressco/history/ethelred.html

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