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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 - 07:30pm Aug 18, 2003 EST (# 13328 of 17697)
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.

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8693.htm reads in part:

" gisterme and I discussed the notion that Americans, and especially American officers, can look too much like Major Strasser of Casablanca , subject matter discussed, with connections in MD3383-3385 (links: rshowalter 9/8/01 8:24pm ) in the following passages, which I believe are very interesting now, both in terms of things to be hoped for, and things to be concerned about.

" Gisterme argues that I'm making some unfair analogies, and in some ways (s)he's right.

"But I argue that the analogies deal with matters that it is vital for Americans to understand, if we are to have certain kinds of practical hope.

Conrad Veidt as Major Strasser in Casablanca (1942) http://www.powernet.net/~hflippo/cinema/cvfoto08.html

http://www.powernet.net/~hflippo/cinema/cvfoto08.html is also a good picture of Captain Renault and Herr Heinze

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md3000s/md3380.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md3000s/md3385.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md3000s/md3411.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md3000s/md3420.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md3000s/md3434.htm

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md4000s/md4039.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md4000s/md4044.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md4000s/md4070.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md4000s/md4119.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md4000s/md4156.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md4000s/md4157-59.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md4000s/md4748.htm

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md5000s/md5031.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md5000s/md5037.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md5000s/md5105.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md5000s/md5107.htm

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8354.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8596.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8693.htm

An archive of this thread is at http://www.mrshowalter.net/ . The archive contains a great deal of material, in convenient form, and some summary sections.

Much of the thread is available by date at http://www.mrshowalter.net/calendar1.htm - - and there are indices with links, easy to get at, for all of the thread that is still up on the web.

I believe that if we "knew" more explicitly the things that have long been known an appreciated, less explicitly, by the people who wrote, acted, and have watched Casablanca - - we'd be able to sort out a great many problems that are damaging us, and may destroy us, because, so far, we've fallen short of the collective courage needed to solve problems.

I've been as couragious as I've thought I could be, playing this "game" - in the situation in which I've found myself.

I'm doing, to the best of my ability, exactly what I promised Casey and Eisenhower I would do. And what I have to do, to live with myself.

rshow55 - 07:37pm Aug 18, 2003 EST (# 13329 of 17697)
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.

The story of Kelly's "apparent suicide" is at least as consistent with murder as it is of suicide.

Dr. Kelly seems to have bowed his back - and insisted on telling the truth. People who are cornered like that, and refuse to fold, typically fight on.

For a man of Kelly's background and expertise in killing to kill himself by slashing a single wrist has always seemed far-fetched.

I think it is very easy to "imagine a story" where Kelly was murdered - by the order of someone close to Blair.

For me, the story that Kelly killed himself is harder to imagine. By a good deal. Though not quite impossible.

The idea of a "license to kill" is hardly far-fetched at that level - as the James Bond movies, my own training, and many discussions in the open literature ought to make clear.

I think this is serious:

E-Mail Says British Arms Report Was Heavily Rewritten By WARREN HOGE http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/18/international/worldspecial/18CND-BRIT.html

I believe leaders do have to have the power to kill people under some circumstances. But if the story is as I suspect - those limits were overstepped in this case.

There are honest mistakes - but there need to be limits.

Both the press, and leaders of nation states with interests in international law, ought to insist on that, it seems to me.

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