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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 - 10:11am Feb 10, 2003 EST (# 8789 of 8790)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Showalter - you're assuming Saddam is a human WHO ... not a bullying WHAT!

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rshow55 - 10:36am Feb 10, 2003 EST (# 8790 of 8790)
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.

Every horror that human beings have perpetrated - thoughout history - has been done by human beings . It lets "us humans" off the hook too easily to deny that.

And people are both good and bad - and that doesn't relieve them of responsibility - but responsibility in a context.

We're stuck with making the best of it. Ugly as it sometimes is. We could do a lot better than we've done - if we could face up to what that means - in detail.

I'm encouraged with a lot of things that are happening in international negotiation. We're in a situation where a lot could go very much better - if leaders of nation states actually asked - at long last - to get some key facts and relations sorted out in enough detail so that better human accomodations could be made.

At the same time, there are some very real things to be afraid of - especially so when we don't understand either ourselves, those against us - or those looking on from the side, concerned.

Both at our best, and at our worst, we're human beings.

As responsible as we are. As capable as we are. As limited as we are.

The Nazis were human beings, too. The people running the Nazi death camps were human beings. The responsible people using slave labor were human beings. And - - this part is terrible, but we need to understand it, as well - the kapos were human beings, as well. With some very conspicuous human limits.

I was taught a great deal by someone who used kapos to get consistent, high quality aircraft part production. These kapos were being worked to death - knew it - and sometimes showed excellent productivity. It was a long way from "Schindler's list."

Some fighting can be unavoidable - but we shouldn't be too certain of our own righteousness - or willing to think of our enemies as anything but human beings - even when we knowingly choose to kill them, and do.

We need to face the fact that we don't, any of us, have a "direct line to God" - nor has anyone ever had such a thing - and do the best we can. That should be very much better than we're doing now, overall.

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