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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 - 03:55am Oct 27, 2002 EST (# 5289 of 5307)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

.. when disaster strikes, incompetence is considered a better alibi than .... Well, yes, there are worse things.'

Vidal draws comparisons with another 'day of infamy' in American history, writing that 'The truth about Pearl Harbour is obscured to this day. But it has been much studied. 11 September, it is plain, is never going to be investigated if Bush has anything to say about it.' He quotes CNN reports that Bush personally asked Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle to limit Congressional investigation of the day itself, ostensibly on grounds of not diverting resources from the anti-terror campaign.

Vidal calls bin Laden an 'Islamic zealot' and 'evil doer' but argues that 'war' cannot be waged on the abstraction of 'terrorism'. He says that 'Every nation knows how - if it has the means and will - to protect itself from thugs of the sort that brought us 9/11 ... You put a price on their heads and hunt them down. In recent years, Italy has been doing that with the Sicilian Mafia; and no-one has suggested bombing Palermo.'

Vidal also highlights the role of American and Pakistani intelligence in creating the fundamentalist terrorist threat: 'Apparently, Pakistan did do it - or some of it' but with American support. "From 1979, the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA was launched in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan ... the CIA covertly trained and sponsored these warriors.'

Vidal also quotes the highly respected defence journal Jane's Defence Weekly on how this support for Islamic fundamentalism continued after the emergence of bin Laden: 'In 1988, with US knowledge, bin Laden created Al-Qaeda (The Base); a conglomerate of quasi-independent Islamic terrorist cells spread across 26 or so countries. Washington turned a blind eye to Al-Qaeda.'

Vidal, 77, and internationally renowned for his award-winning novels and plays, has long been a ferocious, and often isolated, critic of the Bush administration at home and abroad. He now lives in Italy. In Vidal's most recent book, The Last Empire, he argued that 'Americans have no idea of the extent of their government's mischief ... the number of military strikes we have made unprovoked, against other countries, since 1947 is more than 250.'

http://www.observer.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,819932,00.html

lchic - 04:56am Oct 27, 2002 EST (# 5290 of 5307)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

'Americans have no idea of the extent of their government's mischief ... the number of military strikes we have made unprovoked, against other countries, since 1947 is more than 250.'

lchic - 05:21am Oct 27, 2002 EST (# 5291 of 5307)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Zbigniew Brzezinski

http://www.nybooks.com/gallery/1522 (browse)

rshow55 - 07:59am Oct 27, 2002 EST (# 5292 of 5307)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

The images are fun to browse - and linked to good articles !

http://www.nybooks.com/gallery/1522 (browse)

lchic - 09:15am Oct 27, 2002 EST (# 5293 of 5307)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

GUN Control - Talking Point. ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/default.stm
www.bbc.co.uk/talkingpoint/

lchic - 09:21am Oct 27, 2002 EST (# 5294 of 5307)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Iraq | Colin Powell, US Secretary of State

"We can't continue to have a debate that never ends"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2365547.stm

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