New York Times on the Web Forums Resource Area for Forum Hosts and Moderators

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 - 10:39am Feb 28, 2003 EST (# 9356 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 Bush administration is behaving in an insanely irresponsible manner when it refuses to talk to the North Koreans - and the whole rest of the world ought to notice how ugly, how backwards - the decision is, and what bad judgement it shows.

You can't expect enemies, or people from very different worlds, to sort out their differences, well enough to keep out of each others' way, and even cooperate, with radically less talking than people who work together need to sort out their relationships.

You may not need an unreasonable amount of talk. But it takes a lot of talking.

When people interact successfully, there is a lot of talk, while they're getting ready, if you count words (people have, and word counts are huge). People need this talk.

Want to ASSURE misunderstandings between groups - - enough so that they cannot really cooperate, except in very minimal ways?

Restrict conversation.

To see how very completely this can be done, here is a document which is, depending on your assumptions, either absolutely beautiful, or starkly ugly.

. NUNN-WOLFOWITZ TASK FORCE REPORT: INDUSTRY "BEST PRACTICES" REGARDING EXPORT COMPLIANCE PROGRAMS http://164.109.59.52/library/pdf/nunnwolfowithttp://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md9000s/.pdf July 25, 2000

People like Wolfowitz, and many, many of the luminaries at groups like CSIS - have set up the world so that things that ought to go well, and easily - are going very, very badly.

The things that Eisenhower warned about in his FAREWELL ADDRESS of January 17, 1961. http://www.geocities.com/~newgeneration/ikefw.htm have happened.

To think about some of the "logic" and "responsibility" many American arrangements - NASA Pressed on When Officials Learned of E-Mail About Shuttle By KENNETH CHANG and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/28/national/nationalspecial/28INQU.html and many, many similar horrors bear careful thinking about.

We have a mess. We should face it. Other nations may have to insist on that - if corrections are to be really possible - in a situation where the risks of carnage and death are now enormously larger than they reasonably have to be.

almarst2003 - 12:25pm Feb 28, 2003 EST (# 9357 of 17697)

Welcome the Western SCORPION: - http://www.consortiumnews.com/2003/022703a.html

Missing U.S.-Iraq History

As U.S. forces prepare to invade Iraq, the American people might first want to know some of the hidden chapters of recent U.S.-Iraqi history, including evidence that three U.S. presidents may have encouraged Saddam Hussein's aggression against his neighbors while the last two presidents have kept the secrets. February 27, 2003

fredmoore - 01:44pm Feb 28, 2003 EST (# 9358 of 17697)

Almarst ...

Isn't it true that without counter insurgency ploys during the cold war, the soviet union may have won that cold war and you would now be in a gulag ... if you were lucky.

Isn't it true that when dealing with history, all the relevant pressures of the time must be taken into account?

Put another way would you respect your past governments if they had not done everything possible to thwart soviet expansionism? Just because it was a cold war doesn't in any way mean that it wasn't a REAL war.

Today's Iraqi problem is more a mixture of disproportionate oil wealth and WMD technological superiority (thanks to certain opportunistic European countries) as it is to entirely necessary past US counter insurgency strategies.

But my guess is you probably know this already.

rshow55 - 02:00pm Feb 28, 2003 EST (# 9359 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.

It seems to me that a lot of things might work out well - though things seem precarious.

They'd work out better, it seems to me, if some responsible people searched "almarst", "almarst2002" and "almarst2003" on this thread - and looked at a lot of good stuff he's posted.

There's a lot of good stuff by gisterme , too.

Ugly as things are - compared to patterns of past centuries - or anytime in the 20th century - things seem to me to be going well. With just a little luck - maybe very well. Maybe I'm really screwed up - I'm feeling hopeful. There's some ugliness - but maybe it doesn't have to be too bad.

Sometimes - there have to be fights. Things have to be decided. To the extent that we can get ideas straight - get understandings to correct closures about facts - we can avoid a lot of agony and carnage.

There is such a thing as moral wrong.

And there are such things as right decisions.

Some of our most basic operational and moral problems are, in some key ways logical problems - and problems of courage - and a willingness to face facts.

(8338 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Resource Area for Forum Hosts and Moderators Missile Defense