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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.

almarst2002 - 10:58pm Dec 5, 2002 EST (# 6354 of 6364)

The Americans take them shackled and hooded on to transport aircraft to Kandahar. They live in pens of eight or 10 men. They are given cots with blankets but no privacy. They are forced to urinate and defecate publicly because the Americans want to watch their prisoners at all times. - http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia_china/story.jsp?story=358926

almarst2002 - 11:02pm Dec 5, 2002 EST (# 6355 of 6364)

Demetrius Perricos, the Greek head of the team searching Iraq for chemical and biological weapons, strongly rejected American attempts to dictate the pace and style of inspections. Frustrated White House officials had marked the end of the first week of the new inspection regime, which has uncovered next to nothing, by calling for more intrusive inspections. - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-504631,00.html

lunarchick - 07:13am Dec 6, 2002 EST (# 6356 of 6364)

It's said Saddam's sent that that they are looking for into domestic arenas .... as in

"Is this tea or plutonium in the caddy?"

rshow55 - 09:22am Dec 6, 2002 EST (# 6357 of 6364)
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.

lunarchick 12/5/02 6:15pm . . . if people with power and status wanted a lot of things fixed - they could be, these days.

Someone with rank could call Dawn Riley (she wouldn't be hard to find) - negotiate a letter for status and some money for her (nothing unreasonable) and she could organize a lot safer, smoother resolution of a lot of messes - including those in N. Korea and Iraq, than seem to be happening now.

People dispair of getting good answers - and then classify them out of existence with formalities, and barriers. If people reading this thread, with some rank, wanted much better solutions than are happening, odds are they could get them, if they'd make a few phone calls, write a letter or two, ask for money from people who'd be glad to give it - - and - at least for some purposes -- use their own names.

It might save countless lives, and dollars too - but it would be "terribly improper."

I'm on the road today - I've had a good long stay with my parents.

gisterme - 06:20pm Dec 6, 2002 EST (# 6358 of 6364)

lunarchick 11/25/02 10:41am

"...if the Arab world wants to join modernity, have a modern economy, produce wigits/services, market them ....

What should it do better ?

What they need to do better is decide that they really do want to join modernity. It seems that jihadists are waging their fight to prevent that from happening.

I suppose that's because jihadists realize that it's unlikely that their delusions of grandure will ever be fulfilled in societies where most folks have a decent standard of living, opportunity to improve that by their own efforts, educational opportunity and access to truthful information about what's going on in the rest of the world.

It is much harder to convince people who live under those conditions that a lie is truth.

The truth is that joining modernity does not require a retreat from morality or faith. The lie is that it does.

lunarchick - 02:02pm Dec 7, 2002 EST (# 6359 of 6364)

Football (sporting) results are cold understandable results that convert to statistics.

Behind the stats are goals, near misses, if only, lost opportunities. At the close of season the fittest, cutest, best trained, managed and prepared teams most often rank most highly.

Were economic performance figures for Arab countries read out as the same ..... the picture would be comprehensively graphic --- sucess and failure are the subjects of 'engineered management'.

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