New York Times on the Web Forums Science

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 - 11:05am Feb 14, 2003 EST (# 8893 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.

As of now, the Bush administration is preparing to wage war against Iraq - with estimates of American casualties well over a thousand - and estimates of Iraqi losses in the tens or hudreds of thousands - - and with estimates of refugees at many millions.

U.N. Planning to Feed Iraqis in a War, Annan Says By JULIA PRESTON with JAMES DAO http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/14/international/middleeast/14NATI.html

UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 13 — Secretary General Kofi Annan told the Security Council today that the United Nations was planning to feed up to 10 million hungry Iraqi civilians and care for at least 2.6 million refugees in the wake of an American-led war in Iraq.

Saying that his organization was moving to a "higher level of preparedness" for military conflict in Iraq, Mr. Annan met with the 15 Council ambassadors in his offices here to appeal for $120 million to pay for urgent contingency planning.

For a million dollars - at most a few million - the key assertions in this thread could be checked to closure - in a format where anybody in the world could look for themselves - and with umpiring that would work for almost all reasonable people in the world. If that were done - the processes that generate the gross stupidities and horrors we are blundering into would be much less likely - and we'd live in a far safer, more prosperous, more fair world.

As it is, the US is pushing for a war, terribly unpopular in the world, and not well understood or very popular even at home - involving some fundamental and very large risks. Most of them "easy" to see.

Poll Shows Most Want War Delay By PATRICK E. TYLER and JANET ELDER http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/14/politics/14POLL.html

"Even after the administration's aggressive case for going to war soon in Iraq, a majority of Americans favor giving United Nations weapons inspectors more time to complete their work so that any military operation wins the support of the Security Council, the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll shows."

America's 48 hours to kill Saddam From Roland Watson in Washington http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-574703,00.html

rshow55 - 11:05am Feb 14, 2003 EST (# 8894 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.

As this goes on Iraq makes concessions

Iraq Bans Weapons of Mass Destruction By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 8:36 a.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-Weapons.html

Assertions which may be "true" as stated - in formal language where "how much " questions can't be handled - seems immune to issues of proportion and context - and are presented to facilitate and justify actions with enormous consequences:

U.S. Will Ask U.N. to State Hussein Has Not Disarmed By DAVID E. SANGER with ELISABETH BUMILLER http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/14/international/middleeast/14IRAQ.html

WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 — "The Bush administration is drafting a United Nations Security Council resolution with Britain declaring that Saddam Hussein has failed to disarm, and must now face unspecified "consequences," senior administration officials said today.

"The resolution, which they expect to present next week, is designed to counter efforts by France and Germany to give the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq more heft and more time, an approach that administration officials insist would be futile. Senior officials describe the drafts of the resolution as a short restatement of key passages of Resolution 1441, passed unanimously in November.

We're facing massive disagreements about facts - especially facts in proportions -and about what reasonable human action can reasonably be:

For Old Friends, Iraq Bares a Deep Rift By RICHARD BERNSTEIN http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/14/international/europe/14EURO.html

BRUSSELS, Feb. 13 — As antiwar demonstrators prepare for what they are saying will be among the largest protest marches in history this weekend, many in Europe are asking themselves: how did trans-Atlantic relations, which were so good so recently, get so bad so quickly?

What has become clear to many here is that the Bush administration's preparations for a possible war with Iraq have provoked something far beyond the normal disagreements that sometimes take place among allies — as happened many times during the cold war and more recently over such questions as the Kyoto Protocol on global warming or the International Criminal Court, both favored in Europe but rejected in Washington.

Now, something deep and fundamental in the different views of Europe and the United States seems to have been brought to the surface by the Iraqi crisis.

(1 following message)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense