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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.

almarst2002 - 03:33pm Feb 7, 2003 EST (# 8667 of 8674)

Obviously, I didn't think, and nobody else did, that the Iraqis were going to take all of Kuwait. -- Former Ambassador April Glaspie, in reponse to accusations that the U.S. invited Saddam Hussein to take Kuwait

almarst2002 - 03:40pm Feb 7, 2003 EST (# 8668 of 8674)

Iraq’s longstanding grudge against Kuwait which went back to 1899, when Britain took Kuwait “under its protection.” The trouble was that Kuwait was then a part of Iraq’s Basra district, ruled by a tottering Ottoman Empire. When Iraq became independent in 1932, Basra, the newly independent country’s main seaport, no longer included Kuwait. So Iraq felt cheated.

Reflecting on the current crisis, Ambassador Glaspie mentally reviewed Saddam’s case against Kuwait: that it was pumping more oil than its OPEC quota allowed, thus depressing oil prices—and, consequently, Iraq’s income from oil exports. The emirate also was impinging on claimed Iraqi territory in the rich North Rumaila oil field and (not stated publicly) had refused to grant “loans” to Iraq or explicitly cancel loans made to Iraq during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war. (In 1988 this writer asked Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Nizar Hamdoon if Iraq had to repay. “They have never mentioned it,” he replied.)

Glaspie knew that Saddam had three army divisions mobilized in the south toward Kuwait. She also recalled that 30 years earlier, in 1961, Iraqi leader Abdul Karim Qassem had provoked a major crisis by publicly proclaiming that Kuwait, just then announcing its independence, could not be independent because it was part of Iraq. Qassem had backed down and that crisis had subsided.

Glaspie remembered Saddam’s reassuring words to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who had visited Baghdad to mediate the Kuwait-Iraq crisis. She recalled that Mubarak had returned to Cairo via Kuwait and Riyadh to report that Saddam had sounded reassuring. And she knew that Iraqi and Kuwaiti representatives were to meet in Jeddah under the auspices of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia.

At their meeting, the American ambassador explained to Saddam that the United States did not take a stand on Arab-Arab conflicts such as Iraq’s border disagreement with Kuwait. She made clear, however, that differences should be settled by peaceful means.

http://www.wrmea.com/archives/august2002/0208049.html

There apparently are cases when US preferes a peaceful solution. At its own discretion.

almarst2002 - 03:44pm Feb 7, 2003 EST (# 8669 of 8674)

While we take no position on the border delineation issue raised by Iraq with respect to Kuwait ... Iraqi statements suggest an intention to resolve outstanding disagreements by the use of force, an approach which is contrary to United Nations Charter principles - Secretary of State James Baker. - http://www.kuro5hin.org/comments/2002/8/1/142827/1669?pid=390

Surprise, surprise - US even supports the United Nations Charter principles (at will).

lchic - 03:46pm Feb 7, 2003 EST (# 8670 of 8674)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Alex ... the US missiles will be

'carefully targeted'

along 'accurate flight paths'

'hitting intended targets'

each with a small video camera sending pictures to CNN

BUSH's GULF WAR II

sanitised to numb the horrors of reality

[ Lounge lizard -- a lazy person http://au.geocities.com/fairdinkummate3/ ]

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