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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 - 04:10pm Jan 26, 2003 EST (# 8128 of 8133)
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.

Iraq should really disarm - and we have a right to make sure that it does. But we need to be a good deal more sensitive than we are to what we can reasonably ask for. If we ignore some central reasons for our disagreements - we won't be able to find accomodations that the people involved can actually live with.

The relationships between the Islamic nations and the West are nightmarish - and we have to find ways to do much better - from a lot of points of view. Repressing and ignoring key differences - and claiming we can solve the problems by an ill-considered war- is not a constructive response.

rshow55 - 08:20am Jan 1, 2003 EST (# 7177 contains this:

" I think this is a year where some lessons are going to have to be learned about stability and function of international systems, in terms of basic requirements of order , symmetry , and harmony - at the levels that make sense - and learned clearly and explicitly enough to produce systems that have these properties by design, not by chance.

With some help, relaxation of some stupid constraint, and enough checking to weed out some obvious deceptions - that should be possible.

A big question of fact, that may need to be answered more clearly than it has been - is who gisterme is, or represents. There are now well over 1000 postings by gisterme on this thread - and if he is Bush, or close to Bush - they say a good deal about how much blind faith we should put in his judgement. I have some limited faith in his good will and intelligence - but he puts his pants on one leg at a time - and we shouldn't trust him so well that he kills and maims more people than he could be forced to sit down and count.

U.S. May Not Press U.N. for a Decision on Iraq Next Week By ELISABETH BUMILLER and STEVEN R. WEISMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/25/international/middleeast/25IRAQ.html contains some important points about how much blind faith is being asked of us - and how much "connecting the dots" matters now. An additional day, and postings on this thread evading obvious things, have served to emphasize how important these points are. We have to be careful.

The UN Security Council has its hands full - and I believe can handle a great many things well - in ways that are to the credit of the United States - and many other nations, as well. We need to craft an international law that can do the things we need it to do.

For problems as complicated as the ones we are facing - truth is our only hope. No one can tell the difference between ideas formed from "connecting the dots" that happen to be right - and others that happen to be wrong - without actually checking facts. Stakes are so high that we need to.

lchic - 05:11pm Jan 26, 2003 EST (# 8129 of 8133)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

The diversionary discussions above re JohnsonMonikers was typically Johnsonian - Diversiary ... moving the eyes from the AmForeignPolicy ball .... One gets quite used to the Johnson characters interacting with each other.

lchic - 05:13pm Jan 26, 2003 EST (# 8130 of 8133)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

BUSH in loin cloth clubbing ANNAN 27Jan03 http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/cartoon/

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