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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 - 01:05pm Sep 19, 2002 EST (# 4419 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.

MD1074 rshow55 4/4/02 1:17pm cites http://www.subvertise.org/details.php?code=453 , a very effective poster which includes this quote:

" Why of course the people don't want war -- but after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship . . Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country. ......... Hermann Goering - Nuremberg Trials.

It shouldn't be that easy. Almarst's points ought to be carefully attended to - in the US, and all over the world.

MD1075-76 rshow55 4/4/02 1:20pm have a lot on missile defense - and formats that could be useful to establish a great deal else about our current military-industrial-political arrangements.

1209 rshow55 4/8/02 11:41pm includes this:

" I don't think an American presidential administration in this century has ever achieved such low credibility as the current one. People, some inside the US, and many more outside, are getting more willing to ask for facts - - even when the issue of deception on the part of the United States has to be explicitly considered.

"Here's a quote from a mystery story writer, Dashiell Hammet in The Thin Man , 1933. Hammet's speaking of a sexy, interesting, treacherous character named "Mimi". He's asked by a police detective what to make of what she says:

" The chief thing," I advised him, "is not to let her wear you out. When you catch her in a lie, she admits it and gives you another lie to take its place, and when you catch he in that one, admits it, and gives you still another, and so on. Most people . . . get discouraged after you've caught them in the third or fourth straight lie and fall back on the truth or silence, but not Mimi. She keeps trying, and you've got to be careful or you'll find yourself believing her, not because she seems to be telling the truth, but simply because you're tired of disbelieving her. "

The United States, in its diplomatic and military fuctions, can be too much like that.

If world leaders want some things clarified, questions of US veracity are going to have to be adressed. If leaders want these matters clarified, these issues can be -- and I believe that it would be greatly to the benefit of the United States to have them clarified.

The "missile defense" boondoggle is one fine place to start, because so many of the technical issues are so clear.

almarst , you've asked a lot of perceptive questions - come up with wonderful citations -and made an enormous contribution to this thread since March of 2001. I don't think we could ask for a better "Putin stand-in". http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/218

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