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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?

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rshow55 - 11:14am Dec 16, 2002 EST (# 6747 of 6754)
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.

That issue of group responsibility has been on my mind for a while. It is a big and unresolved problem - an area of disagreement in many key places. 6048 rshow55 11/21/02 9:11am includes this:

"Just read commondata 11/21/02 7:46am 11/21/02 7:46am - - and it makes important points.

"A very key point, it seemed to me - was just at the end:

" How can you advocate punishing millions of people for the actions of a few?"

"That's a big question. Here's a related question.

" How, in particular circumstances, is that to be avoided?"

"Sometimes it cannot be avoided, and the fight is necessary anyway.

I still think that - and I don't see how anybody who looks at the mechanics of the world can come to any other conclusion.

In 6658 rshow55 12/15/02 2:39pm I tried to say something about the issues raised in almarst2002 12/14/02 3:51pm

We can make a lot of progress, on a lot of things - if we get clear on what some workable social contracts between nations and people might be like - both in general and case by case.

Now, in some very crucial areas, we have no workable social contracts - at all. Not if you ask them to actually permit sustained interaction (or mutually agreed, comfortable avoidance) between the people and groups involved.

If we got clear enough about facts to rule out positions that don't make sense from any factually supportable point of view at all - I think we'd be out of immediate danger - and the incidence of suffering and death from war could be far less than it has been - while the welfare of human beings would be much greater.

We could do much better than we're doing now.

Not perfectly. Maybe not even "morally" - but much better.

Without prohibitions of "immoral" behavior that aren't operationally possible, in the world as it is, and as the world will be for some while.

There are times when nation states use force to defend their interest - and that isn't going to change. I made an analogy between fighting and defecation a while back, and commondata objected to it. Even so, I repeat it here. There are good reasons to restrict the circumstances, time, and place of fighting. There are good reasons not to glorify fighting. There are good reasons to find ways that actually work to avoid fighting. But in the dirty world - there are times when "if you have to, you have to."

lunarchick - 11:21am Dec 16, 2002 EST (# 6748 of 6754)

The application of 'moral forcing' to constrain poor 'leaderships' would be a paradigm shift in International thinking!

lunarchick - 11:25am Dec 16, 2002 EST (# 6749 of 6754)

The morally corrupt enslave children to do their killing ...

Thirteen-year-old Philemon is trying to understand why he has killed so many people. He can't find a reason. He vividly remembers, at the age of 10, killing 15 civilians within the first week of his deployment along the eastern frontier of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). As the war progressed, he lost count of his victims.

"It's all bad and I am regretting it. They gave me drugs which drove me crazy ... I would then kill all women accused of witchcraft without any evidence that they were indeed witches," he says.

Before the war, he was unable to attend school because his family could not afford the fees. ....

almarst2002 - 11:30am Dec 16, 2002 EST (# 6750 of 6754)

Robert,

I agree with your "if you have to, you have to."

My question is - what is a criteria, who is to decide, who will be held accountable and before whom?

Given the current state of events, the Winner is not going to be judget. Moreover, the Winner will judge according to its solemn wishes and for its own advantage. The winner takes all.

So, what will prevent a couple of "wise guys" at the helm of the superpower to

Set-up the agenda for intervention,

Provide the "evidence",

Influence the Public via friendly media,

and Wage the war.

Nothing, as long as there is a little cost to be payed by the aggressor.

(4 following messages)

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