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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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almarst2002 - 07:12am Feb 14, 2003 EST (# 8889 of 8895)

How Britain Made Iraq - http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/iraq/britain_iraq_01.shtml

lchic - 07:12am Feb 14, 2003 EST (# 8890 of 8895)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Wolfowitz optimism

http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2002/msg01586.html

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=Wolfowitz++optimism&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

lchic - 07:17am Feb 14, 2003 EST (# 8891 of 8895)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

GU "" Defending the indefensible

Washington's anger at Nato rebels France, Germany and Belgium is not justifiable, writes Simon Tisdall

http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,895557,00.html

rshow55 - 11:03am Feb 14, 2003 EST (# 8892 of 8895)
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.

In 8877-8889 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.6khoavFx3qf.617791@.f28e622/10403 I cite Bill Keller's piece on Paul D. Wolfowitz

The Sunshine Warrior http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/22/magazine/22WOLFOWITZ.html - - a piece that ends with a quote from Wolfowitz

' 'So if that's what you estimate the costs of action to be, then you have to have something more on the other side of the ledger than just the possession of weapons of mass destruction,'' he wrote. Whether that ''something more'' that would justify that greater sacrifice meant evidence that Iraq was on the verge of using its weapons, or the prospect of establishing Iraq as an outpost of democracy, or a smoking gun tying Iraq to Sept. 11, he did not specify. ''In the end, it has to come down to a careful weighing of things we can't know with precision, the costs of action versus the costs of inaction, the costs of action now versus the costs of action later.''

We're now in a situation where the Bush administration has escalated beyond the standards set by Wolfowitz - a man thought to be a radical - an ultra-hawk - only a few months ago.

Could it be that the interests involved in maintaining an enormous military-industrial complex continuously bias argument to more and more confrontational positions - in a process without adequate controls?

To me - it looks that way. If responsible leaders - including Putin - ask questions related to that - and checking the assertions about fact on this thread would be a big step in that direction -.

If the body of assertions about fact on this thread, including those posted by Almarst , were checked - and the cost of doing so would be tiny compared to the costs of war - and the costs of continued and excessive containment policies - we could take the incidence of agony and loss from war way down from where it has been - and where it may otherwise be.

If leaders of NATO countries or nations on the Security Council asked for this - it seems to me likely that it would happen directly.

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