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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.

gisterme - 01:23am Oct 18, 2002 EST (# 4983 of 4993)

manjumicha 10/16/02 11:56pm

"...otherwise mazzas of US will all go into mass depression and despair and DOD will have to "cook up" 10 more "successful" NMD tests at $100 million per pop for a proper national therapy session..."

More likely DOD will have to "cook up" ten real shots to save our cities or those of our friends. I glad that they're about the business of preparing for that.

gisterme - 01:58am Oct 18, 2002 EST (# 4984 of 4993)

rshow55 10/17/02 10:21am

"...- we have to be worried about real balances - and what real people and real socio-technical systems actually do..."

Let's parse this a bit...

"we have to be worried about real balances - ..."

As opposed to unreal balances??? Could you please explain? What is an unreal balance? Is it to weigh unreal objects?

"...and what real people..."

As opposed to unreal people? Do you know some? 'Never met one myself. :-)

"...and real socio-technical systems actually do."

As opposed to what?

The only unreal socio-technical system consisting of unreal people using unreal balances that I know of is the one that you and lchic imagine you want to live in.

Aren't you really describing your own dream-world, Robert? Would folks from your realm be called "Unralies"?

gisterme - 02:06am Oct 18, 2002 EST (# 4985 of 4993)

rshow55 10/17/02 10:21am

"...We need to do the best we can - - or at least avoid stupid moves that are almost guaranteed to be bloody - excessively expensive -- and destabilizing..."

Yeah, stupid moves like allowing one or more of our cities to get hit by nuclear-tipped ICBMs. I like your description of the likely consequences of allowing such a disaster..."bloody - excessively expensive -- and destabilizing".

I couldn't agree more with you, for a change, Robert.

manjumicha - 02:35am Oct 18, 2002 EST (# 4986 of 4993)

gisterme

I am all for NMD if it works "effectively" against the threat. Please note the emphasis on the word "effectively". It is much loaded word and extremely critical for US security as Rummy's gang take this country on his little adventure.

Rumsfeld and his cohorts, btw, are not much trusted IMHO by the uniformed DOD generals who I suspect know much more about what's going on inside the US defense establishment than NYT, CNN, media types. In fact Rummy was about to be pushed out of his job by the uiformed brass right before 9-11.....what an irony.

As for US media, I have never seen them take any negative or cynical view against any jewish american political leaders such as rummy etc.....why is that? Maybe you can shed some light for me, gisterme.

gisterme - 02:44am Oct 18, 2002 EST (# 4987 of 4993)

almarst2002 10/17/02 7:18pm

"I got a few moments alone with Clinton...blah, blah, blah..." And I looked in his eyes and I believed him. Little did I know he was blocking humanitarian aid at the time, allowing the deaths of thousands of innocent people."...

It saddens to me to realize that Woody Harrelson is apparenty no smarter in real life than he appears to be in his role behind the bar in "Cheers". I think less of his acting ability now since it seems to me he was doing little more than acting naturally in the part.

There's another interesing point of view that occurs to me when I read the reference above:

Clinton said whatever... "and I looked in his eyes and I believed him." Next thing you know, 'ol Woody's realizing just how naive he'd been. That seems to have happened with lots of folks that dealt with Mr. Clinton. As it was with Hitler, Clinton seems to have a natural ability to make people believe whatever he says no matter how untrue it may be. About the only folks he couldn't seem to mesmerize were the North Koreans. They looked in his eyes (via proxy Sadoline Albright) and lied to him. He believed them. They gave him a dose of his own medicine it seems at a time when it really mattered...and since 1994 while Mr. Clinton poured billions of US taxpayer dollars into bankrolling development of North Korean nuclear capability, that based solely on the NK's promise not to use the capability to build nuclear weapons, they have been lying. Guess what? Slick Willie left the United States of America holding the bag on this issue. The NKs got our money and because of that they've got nukes. Sounds like "win-win" for them and "lose-lose" for us. It's just another sparkling facet in the Clinton legacy I suppose.

All the "America haters" out there must be delighted.

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