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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 - 10:15pm Jan 29, 2003 EST (# 8338 of 8349)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Friedman

http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/epaper/editions/today/opinion_e37319a745f6f10a10d1.html

" ... offer Saddam the following:

1. A U.S. commitment not to interfere with safe passage out of Iraq for Saddam and his whole entourage. (I assume they will want to go somewhere in the former Soviet Union.)

2. We understand that as a legal matter, the United States could never and would never forswear the right to hunt or prosecute Saddam for war crimes. But we need a public commitment from you that America's ''priority'' once Saddam leaves Iraq would be to focus on the rebuilding of that country and not on hunting Saddam or any Iraqis who were once part of his regime. This last point is critical, because Iraqi army officers who want to stay behind --- and whose help you will need in holding Iraq together --- have to know that they will not be prosecuted. If they know that, there is a much better chance they will pressure Saddam to go and cooperate with you later.

3. A commitment by you to give whichever Iraqi general succeeds Saddam a chance to work with you and the United Nations to complete the disarmament in good faith and begin political liberalization --- before you opt for any military action. Iraq is a highly tribalized society, Mr. President, and it can be held together for now only by the Iraqi army. We know, though, there are Iraqi generals eager to put Iraq onto a more normal path. It is true that if you occupied Iraq, you could have more control over its transformation. You also could find yourself in a hornet's nest.

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Interesting - why would the 'former USSR' want Saddam?

And WHY are 'TRIBES' more difficult to unify into a nation .... where's their national pride, national value system?

rshow55 - 10:46pm Jan 29, 2003 EST (# 8339 of 8349)
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.

Almarst has often pointed out - with good evidence - the fact that the US has often been far from unambiguously "one of the good guys."

lchic says:

Showalter - even though the UN and the data doesn't add up to taking out Saddam .... because he's complied

If he's complied, the US should do as it agreed. People on the Security Council should be pretty clear, at least privately, about what that is.

International law needs to develop so that standards of internationally agreed-upon decency come to be accepted by individual states - by a mix of force and persuasion. We aren't there yet. It seems to me that we need to move in that direction - not away from it.

In my view, that means that the United States has to care a great deal about what other nations want to happen.

I think we need to get to a point where international law can work.

For that to happen - nation states have to agree -and keep their agreements.

In the Security Council discussions leading to the inspections - the Bush administration pushed its position hard -discussed a great deal --- and there were many, many, many discussions, and assurances with many nations.

The committments made - the agreements about meaning people were assured of - need to be honored.

International law is evolving - and the Bush administration is right that there have to be exceptions to the blanket prohibition on invasion. There have to be exceptions to some other blanket rules, as well.

But the purpose of exceptions is to further the purpose of the basic rule.

Not just to set the rule aside.

- - - -

Brutal dictators have terrorised their own people much too often - but if we were less tolerant of lies - more insistent on getting facts straight - they'd have a much harder time doing it.

Too often the world has looked away - but if there was more insistence on the truth - there would be much less looking away.

Too often the 'mess' gets wider, deeper, uglier - but if the "right to lie" was not so cherished - messes would clean up more often - by ordinary human work.

Too often innocents suffer - - and the more deception and lies are tolerated - the more likely that is.

Too often national economies are trampled --- and for decades - - by patterns that couldn't stand the light of day - if only the light of day shone more clearly.

- -

If getting facts straight were morally forcing - we'd have a lot better chance of solving human problems.

Just now, in the Middle East, and in the Koreas - I think there's more "bang for the buck" to be had from efforts toward getting honesty (from everybody involved) that can be had with military force operating unilaterally. We live in a far more information-rich world than ever before - and there are new possibilities we ought to take advantage of.

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