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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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marydrabble - 09:07pm Jan 31, 2003 EST (# 8433 of 8449)

Blair Says Britain Must Back Bush In Order To Become 51st State

London - Urging his nation to "see the big picture" and not focus on one issue, British Prime Minister Tony Blair today explained that unflinching support for President George W. Bush is particularly necessary now if Great Britain is ever to become the 51st U.S. state.

Speaking before the House of Commons, Blair conceded British involvement in a Middle East war was unpopular, but insisted "what you must concede is that in order to be granted U.S. statehood, we must be willing to defer our opinions and support our President on issues like this. For the greater good," he went on, "you must all swallow your pride, like I have, and someday, like I have, you too will be able to say, 'I am an American.'"

"But what if we don't want to?" shouted one north London MP.

"Oh, don't be silly," Blair replied.

Blair's emotional speech, the first time his government has officially declared its statehood intentions, came as a surprise to most Americans, who thought the U.K. already was the 51st state. But it caused an uproar in Commons, particularly among liberal members of the Labour Party, who feared that under the American political system, they would have to join the Democratic Party.

Blair, however, insisted the advantages of becoming another star on the U.S. flag are too great to ignore. "As Americans, we will finally be able to lift the yoke of cross-Atlantic condescension," he said. "We will finally be able to say we won the Colonial Rebellion. We will be able to once again look in the mirror and say, 'We are a superpower.' And we will be able to declare that we 'saved our own butts' during World War II."

With 60 million people, Great Britain, which would be renamed Britannia to blend in with other U.S. states that end in "a," would immediately become the most populous state. Eventually, plans call for Scotland and Wales be spun off as the 52nd and 53rd states, but Northern Ireland's status remains uncertain.

"Northern Ireland is a place of deep-seated hatreds and senseless violence, so I don't know if it would qualify as a state," said one source. "It might qualify as an American high school, though."

U.S. diplomatic sources, meanwhile, said inclusion was not a certainty, and explained that the British must make concessions before being granted statehood.

Among them:

a) Drop the phony accents.

b) Rename all airports after Ronald Reagan.

c) Disband the Royal Family, "not because America doesn't recognize nobility, but because they're a bunch of nutters."

The future governor of Britannia, however, insisted any cultural compromises would be worth it if the new state gained long-sought representation in Washington, D.C. "For too long we have been governed by America without having a vote in America," said Blair. "As citizens of the United States, we will finally make our voices heard."

"Unless they disagree with the President's voice," he quickly added.

lchic - 11:11pm Jan 31, 2003 EST (# 8434 of 8449)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

PhilADAMS | And finally: Be alarmed! | February 01, 2003

51st State Australia :: ""we're in deep, terrible and, in many ways, unprecedented trouble. Our world has reached one of the more dangerous moments in its history - and what makes the situation worse is the fact that we are not really discussing it. We shuffle down the road to war like zombies.

The necessary debate is being censored by governments, muffled by a compliant media and accepted by numbed, distracted and acquiescent societies. To oppose the drift of history is to invite a charge of treason, to be characterised as un-Australian, un-American or unpatriotic.

In the US the people are blinkered by the millions of flags that flutter on a forest of poles and hang from every other window. They block the political view and the thunder of their flapping means that even anxious questions, let alone protests, cannot, will not, be heard.

And in Australia we bend the knee and bow the head in almost grateful submission. Having wasted a few billion dollars and much of our moral capital on a shameful charade - an exaggerated response to a few wretched refugees - we now invite enemies of the US to be our enemies. And those of us who see this as capitulation to the madness of the Bush regime are increasingly branded as subversives, fifth columnists or fools.

September 11 was, for George W. Bush and the boys, a God-given excuse. It provided an all-purpose justification for the implementation of policies that had been rehearsed, planned and plotted during their years in exile.

The great US writer Joan Didion writes that while the flames were still visible in Lower Manhattan, the words bipartisanship and national unity had come to mean acquiescence to the administration's agenda - further tax cuts, Arctic drilling, the elimination of regulatory and union protections, even funding for the missile shield.

The entire ultra-conservative wish list became, overnight, the political agenda, and either you were with us or you were against us. Any expression of dissidence within US democracy or the poor old UN was drowned out by the flapping of the flags and the beat of the drums. As in Australia, the political opposition in the US dropped its bundle and people who should have known better lay on the road, waiting for the tanks to roll over them. The tanks that, long before the war against terror, had been massed for a war against Iraq.

Didion writes of books being withdrawn, films held back, plays being cancelled. All across the nation it was deemed inappropriate even to hint at anything that could be regarded as criticism of the US. And she's right to point out that the term "moral clarity" began to echo up and down the corridors of power. The world was reduced to Bush's vision of good vs evil. Context and complexity, history itself, were pushed aside in favour of what Bush accidentally but accurately described as a crusade.

Inspection teams? An irritation, a sideshow. ... MORE ....

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,5916383%5E12272,00.html http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/columnists/0,5977,padams^^TEXT^theaustralian,00.html http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/opinion/ http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/

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