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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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rshow55 - 05:09pm Feb 20, 2003 EST (# 9139 of 9164)
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.

9056 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.DWgdaEvx3Uc.1760581@.f28e622/10582

Here's a problem summary from Wizard's Chess http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/05/opinion/05SUN1.html

. Washington must simultaneously cope with three separate and potentially grave threats — from Iraq, from North Korea and from the threat of reconstituted international terrorist networks.

Those are all real, valid reasons for concern. How are current developments inconsistent with full satisfaction of these concerns?

From the American perspective, and also from the perspective of other nations that hope for international order, and international law, some key things may be going very well. If people, both Americans and others, take reasonable care, and show some courage - including the courage to face the fact that nations, even the US, are fallible - and bear checking.

It is much too easy for people, including almarst , to discount honest and worthwhile ideals on the part of the US and the UK. Motivations for real nations are, of course, mixed. But by world standards - both the US and the UK have stood for - and made sacrifices for - some very admirable things.

8985 <a href="/webin/WebX?14@28.DWgdaEvx3Uc.1760581@.f28e622/10511">rshow55 2/16/03 11:13am</a>

All the same, things are going strangely - and responsible people who have been bending over backwards to avoid the issue are going to have to face up to this question:

" are the interests of the US, and the US military-industrial complex built to win the Cold War, the same?

They aren't identical interests. The military-industrial complex can "desperately need" a war in Iraq - under circumstances where that doesn't meet the reasonable needs of American citizens at all. This is a question that is getting harder and harder to avoid - under conditions where international law is having to be negotiated into being.

There are good reasons for Americans, and people elsewhere, to be concerned about disproportions between means and ends. And unnecessary carnaget. The things Eisenhower warned about in his FAREWELL ADDRESS of January 17, 1961 have happened . - http://www.geocities.com/~newgeneration/ikefw.htm That needs to be faced.

One good way to face some key things would be to check the assertions about fact on this board - specifically the technically straightforward facts about missile defense that have been evaded - by institutions that have, most times, considerably less ability to predict and face up to consequences and disporportions than NASA does. http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/296

Currently, nations seem prepared to expend tens of billions to engage in fights that look avoidable - kill tens or hundreds of thousands of people - displace millions, and anger hundreds of millions - - but whenever there is any whiff of a reason not to - nations see to it that key facts can't be checked, - even if it could be done for tiny amounts of effort. Strange. But maybe a pattrn that may change. If, when it mattered enough, checking was morally forcing to at least most decent people - we'd live in a much better world.

rshow55 - 05:23pm Feb 20, 2003 EST (# 9140 of 9164)
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.

Roh stresses opposition to action on N Korea By Andrew Ward in Seoul http://www.nytimes.com/financialtimes/international/FT1045510894817.html

"Roh Moo-hyun, South Korea's president-elect, on Wednesday voiced his most explicit opposition to any US military action against North Korea, casting further doubt on the future of Seoul's alliance with Washington.

"The comments came amid a flurry of signals that the US could be prepared to withdraw some of its 37,000 troops from South Korea.

"Relations between Seoul and Washington have been strained by differences in their policies towards North Korea and growing anti-US sentiment in the South.

"I oppose even considering an armed attack on North Korea at this stage because that can provoke a war which would have serious consequences," Mr Roh said.

Consequences matter. This poem is a fine warning, that fits today.

Mesopotamia .....1917 by Rudyard Kipling http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee74d94/3625

Memory matters, too. How did the occupation of American troops come to Korea - and stay? Was it not to contain a messianic, threatening kind of Communism that no longer exists? Was in not in violation of the expectations N. Korea reasonably had when it signed the armistace in 1953?

When the Cold War ended, we didn't have an end game. Korea is a particualarly ugly example - with millions of lives blighted over a half a century. There are things to fix - and we are not blameless - "crazy" as the N. Koreans may be by now.

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