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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.

mazza9 - 05:45pm Dec 15, 2002 EST (# 6677 of 6685)
"Quae cum ita sunt" Caesar's Gallic Commentaries

When President Carter removed support from the Shah he released the whirlwind, (and got the Nobel Peace Prize?". We just marked the 40th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis! The Soviet attempt to proliferate and counter the US nuclear supremacy by positioning nucs in Cuba was just such a Cold War move that shaped our policy from 1948, (Berlin Crisis), until the Berlin Wall fell in 1991.

Did we make mistakes as a country? You bet? Unfortunately we didn't have you, as Philosopher King, to guide our steps. I apologize for our mere mortality in the face our you godliness.

"Oh, Great Wizard, return us to Kansas, and our little dog Toto too.

gisterme - 05:54pm Dec 15, 2002 EST (# 6678 of 6685)

rshow55 12/15/02 2:38pm

"...Maybe N. Korea can't make peace with the US. If it could effectively make real peace with its neighbors - it wouldn't have to..."

NK won't be able to make peace with anybody until it makes peace with itself. Once it does, it will already have peace with everybody else...and its people will no longer be starving. The same is true for Iraq.

mazza9 - 06:08pm Dec 15, 2002 EST (# 6679 of 6685)
"Quae cum ita sunt" Caesar's Gallic Commentaries

Gisterme:

How quickly we forget. Hitler wanted piece too! A piece of Poland, a piece of Checkoslovakia, a piece of France, etc. the mentally challenged like manjumica and alarmst prattle on and on about military, political and societal problems and pontificate their solutions as if they really know what they're talking about.

"Sic Semper Tyrannus." May Saddam and his ilk receive their just desserts!

gisterme - 06:16pm Dec 15, 2002 EST (# 6680 of 6685)

almarst2002 12/15/02 3:14pm

"...The head of Russia's security service suggested Sunday that U.S. Peace Corps volunteers who were forced to leave the country earlier this year had been spying, accusing them of trying to collect information on government officials and on the country's politics and economy..."

That's certainly a revealing statement, if true.

Considering that all the information the "spies" are accused of collecting should be readily available in the press in any nation that has a truly free press, one can only draw the conclusion that there are some in Russia who also don't realize that the Cold War is over. It may yet be a while before the Russian press is truly free, but that time will come...and they've come a long way from where they once were.

A couple of generations of good leadership in Russia and the US will eradicate that old Cold War paranoia that yet lingers in both places today.

rshow55 - 07:51pm Dec 15, 2002 EST (# 6681 of 6685)
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.

With work, we could cut a couple of generations down to a few years. In economic and human terms, it makes sense to work to do so.

manjumicha - 07:51pm Dec 15, 2002 EST (# 6682 of 6685)

mazza

An honest mistake?, that is how you soothe your mental contradictions regarding Saddam and US. I am just amazed at your ability to quickly discard away any moral conflict you might feel about US policies, Simply put, your hypocracy knows no bounds or maybe mroe accurately I should call it your intellectual laziness...

To be fair to US, it played a hardball just like any other power.. Do whatever it deems necessary for the advancement of US national interests. Nothing more, nothing less. And to me it might just be sufficient answer.

What I can't stand is your constant moralizaing of American power as you display your public worship of it in the height of hypocracy and demand that everyone else buy into such a crass spritual prostitution.

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