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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 - 11:25pm Feb 7, 2003 EST (# 8696 of 8704)

"The absence of democracy is especially disturbing in combination with Bush's doctrine of "preemption" -- attacking other countries that might attack us, rather than waiting for them to do so. If future wars are to be chosen a la carte, that's an especially ominous power to put in one person's hands. And if the timing is optional, then the argument that there isn't time in the nuclear age for 18th-century niceties like a congressional declaration of war seems especially lame." http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A8759-2002Sep26&notFound=true

lchic - 12:18am Feb 8, 2003 EST (# 8697 of 8704)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

What happens if Saddam WINS?

lchic - 03:49am Feb 8, 2003 EST (# 8698 of 8704)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

What happens WHEN Saddam wins?

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Provoking 'The Poster' ... who's sleeping through!

lchic - 03:50am Feb 8, 2003 EST (# 8699 of 8704)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Saddam has already won the war ...

Poster you were sleeping and missed it!

lchic - 06:42am Feb 8, 2003 EST (# 8700 of 8704)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

ERRORS IN JUDGEMENT - Docco

AS IT HAPPENED - AL QAEDA: ERRORS IN JUDGEMENT

“The left hand did not know what the right was doing.” So says the ex-Director of the CIA, James Woolsey, when asked about the state of affairs at the US Secret Service prior to 9/11.

Robert Baer, an agent specialising in the Middle and Far East with 21 years of experience under his best and who is, according to The New Yorker, “by far the best CIA agent ever”, goes one step further – “A professional service could have prevented the attack of September 11. We could have caught these people beforehand”. And yet the failure was not merely that of the CIA and the FBI, but also of the Clinton administration.

This enlightening documentary catalogues some of the extraordinary deficiencies in US intelligence gathering which resulted in essential information about al-Qaeda being ignored.

(From Germany, in English).

lchic - 06:53am Feb 8, 2003 EST (# 8701 of 8704)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

book 'See No Evil : The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism' / Robert Baer

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/ae/books/ch1/1278032

lchic - 06:58am Feb 8, 2003 EST (# 8702 of 8704)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

"" At the same time, not surprisingly, some of the details simply can’t be told. Every CIA employee is required to sign an agreement that allows the agency to review and censor anything written for publication. I’ve left the censor’s blackouts in the text so readers can see how it works. But more than enough detail remains to give the reader an idea just how complicated the problem of terrorism is, and what this life has been like: the highs and lows, the dangerous moments in the field, and the sometimes more dangerous moments around the conference tables of official Washington, often as nasty a snake pit as Lebanon’s Biqa’ Valley. " Baer - (see above)

lchic - 07:00am Feb 8, 2003 EST (# 8703 of 8704)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

""In letting the CIA fall into decay, we lost a vital shield protecting our national sovereignty." Baer - (see above)

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