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 [F] New York Times on the Web Forums  / Science  /

    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.


Earliest Messages Previous Messages Recent Messages Outline (8385 previous messages)

wrcooper - 10:50am Jan 31, 2003 EST (# 8386 of 8391)

Bob Showalter:

Where in any of the voluminous posts made by gisterme does he or she say that he or she is a top Bush appointee or staffer? In fact, the gisterme poster denies any such connection, just as I've denied being George Johnson. Why do you think this poster is lying?

Other than disagreeing with you on a number of substantive points about the workability or efficacy or desirability of ballistic missile defense, where are the "dots" that, connected, draw a picture that reveals this person to be associated with high government officials in the Bush administration?

Point to specific text and indicate how those words and phrases lead you to such a bizarre conclusion.

Furthermore, ask yourself why anybody in the Bush administration would bother to debate you on this issue or any other. Who are you that you'd command that kind of attention?

The most prominent critic of BMD in academic is Theordore Postol of MIT. The NYT occasionally quotes him in its articles on the subject. If there is a thorn in the side of the Pentagon on this issue, it's Postol. But you? Who are you? You're not a prominent academic. You haven't conducted research on this topic in or out of the military. You don't have the ear of prominent politicians whose votes could delay or undercut the administration's BMD plans. Who are you that they'd give a hoot or a holler about what you say?

Don't bother using high-falutin computerized linguistic analysis to examine gisterme 's posts.

Use some common sense, Bob.

You're living in a fantasy world.

I see no evidence of that

wrcooper - 10:53am Jan 31, 2003 EST (# 8387 of 8391)

Corrections:

That's "in academia", not "in academic".

The last line ("I see no evidence of that") sas supposed to be cut before posting.

Since we can't delete anymore, it makes it hard to put up text free of errors.

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