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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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lchic - 05:27am Feb 1, 2003 EST (# 8451 of 8454)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Won't complain re Cooper's Putz comment there may not be grounds ...

It is well-settled doctrine that a complaint will not be dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction or for failure to state a claim "unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief." Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46 (1957) (footnote omitted). Therefore, when the facts alleged in the complaint reveal "any possible basis on which the non-movant might prevail, the motion must be denied." W.R. Cooper Gen. Contractor, Inc. v. United States, 843 F.2d 1362, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 1988) (citations omitted).

lchic - 05:42am Feb 1, 2003 EST (# 8452 of 8454)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

MD

Today, a new American President is convinced that this hard-won wisdom no longer holds. He seeks, instead, to embrace a radical - and as yet unproven - nuclear strategy. President George W. Bush has actively worked to kill international agreements on nuclear testing and germ warfare. He wants, instead, to build a vast and elaborate system of missiles that could shoot down other countries' missiles.

His predilection for this missile defence system is based on three principles: the spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction is inevitable; the new owners of these weapons will be "rogue nations" and traditional policy instruments are useless against these fundamentally new threats; and the absence of American missiles to shoot down other missiles encourages rogue states and others to seek such weapons.

Taken together, these principles are rhetorically appealing. They suffer from a nagging problem, however: they are unsupported by the historical record.

http://teachers.net/mentors/politics/topic230/1.26.03.08.34.51.html

rshow55 - 06:17am Feb 1, 2003 EST (# 8453 of 8454)
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.

The psychologists say that every human being lies sometimes - sometimes without even noticing it - often with a great deal of deceptive thought associated. So when anyone, gisterme or anybody else, makes a statement on this board, all I can do is ask "how does it fit?"

Especially if there might be motivations for deception - as I think there may be in gisterme's case.

Maybe gisterme's "just a taxpayer" - - there are writers (Tom Clancy comes to mind) who might have the knowledge and interest to have made gisterme's posts, I suppose. On the basis of the information I have (the postings on this board) and things that have actually happened to me - I can only guess - and the guess involves guessing about what to weigh heavily - what lightly.

Sometimes, for all sorts of good reasons - it makes sense to guess - work on the assumption that the guess is right - build up a logical structure -and see what fits. Often enough - plenty of that logical structure will continue to be usable - even if initital assumptions it was based on happen to be wrong.

Looking at gisterme's postings - all of them available with links and references 8369-8380 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@93.RaCdaN151C5.262816@.f28e622/9895 - and especially the links set out in 8426 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@93.RaCdaN151C5.262816@.f28e622/9952 - - I'm not comfortable taking gisterme's assurance that he's "just a taxpayer" at face value.

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