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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.

rshow55 - 07:38pm Feb 10, 2003 EST (# 8796 of 8801)
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.

WORD FOR WORD / The Long Gray Line For Tomorrow's Army, Cadets Full of Questions by SERGE SCHMEMANN http://nytimes.com/2001/07/08/weekinreview/08SCHM.html?pagewanted=all

Here's a quote from MacArthur, from that piece:

" Your mission remains fixed, determined, inviolable — it is to win our wars. All other public purposes will find others for their accomplishment. Yours is the profession of arms — the will to win, the sure knowledge that in war there is no substitute for victory, that the very obsession of your public service must be duty, honor, country."

MacArthur spoke those words after he'd been relieved of command by Truman -- for wanting to widen a war where he'd already ordered the fire bombing of cities, and the destruction of dikes, that killed more than 2 million Koreans in the North -- almost all of them civilians.

A kind of war-making that had consequences that we're still dealing with today - half a century after we should have found a way to come to a real peace treaty with the North Koreans.

The North Korean tragedy-crisis is one of a number of reasons for concern - one of a number of tragedies - and patterns of waste, tragedy, and lost chances.

Question: What if the subordination MacArthur assumes has ceased to be operational - what if the patterns he assumes are to be subordinated have become - over a long period of Cold War - dominant?

That's happened.

The things President Eisenhower's Farewell Address http://www.geocities.com/~newgeneration/ikefw.htm warned against have happened - and the patterns he warned against have been dominant for half a century.

We have a mess. It is in the interest of the whole world that it be fixed. By now, it can't be fixed, reasonably, without some leaders of other nation states asking questions - and insisting on answers.

A great deal, for a long time, has been based on fictions. Sometimes, in some ways, the fictions have worked well. In other ways, the fictions have produced unnecessary death and agony.

We can do better - without the agony - if we face up to what is happened - and sort out problems. The US has some problems. The Islamic world has some problems. If we lie somewhat less - face the truth more often, when it matters - we can do a lot better.

Because questions of fact are now, so clearly, matters of life and death - there may be more hope of real solutions than there has been before.

If nation states that have expressed concern about American priorities - notably Germany, France, and Russia - actually ask for answers - a great deal would sort out - in the interest of people of good faith everywhere. Very many such people are Americans.

almarst2002 - 10:01pm Feb 10, 2003 EST (# 8797 of 8801)

George W Bush is carrying a big stick -- and a large chequebook. Marion McKeone reports from New York on the pressures being exerted to win global support for a war on Iraq - http://www.sundayherald.com/31254

almarst2002 - 10:05pm Feb 10, 2003 EST (# 8798 of 8801)

A federal judge citing security concerns ruled Monday that the free-speech rights of anti-war demonstrators were not violated when the city refused to grant them a permit to march past the United Nations Saturday. - http://www.nynewsday.com/ny-demo0210,0,661385.story?coll=nyc-topheadlines-left

almarst2002 - 10:21pm Feb 10, 2003 EST (# 8799 of 8801)

The Bush Administration is Fascist - http://english.pravda.ru/main/2003/02/11/43227.html

Iraq Ready To Let USA Take Its Oil in Exchange for Peace - http://english.pravda.ru/main/2003/02/10/43224.html

State of Virginia Bans Vietnamese Flag on Its Territory - http://english.pravda.ru/main/2003/02/10/43216.html

almarst2002 - 10:36pm Feb 10, 2003 EST (# 8800 of 8801)

Bush was divinely chosen to lead the country - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53498-2003Feb10.html

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