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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 - 10:36am Mar 3, 2003 EST (# 9418 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.

Unedifying at the UN A fight for survival as Iraq crunch nears Leader Monday March 3, 2003 http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,3604,906296,00.html

The diplomatic tug-of-war over a second UN resolution on Iraq is turning into a charade. . . . . . . The US president's candid although still very blurry focus on a post-Saddam settlement, rather than on disarmament, makes it clear that nothing less than physical as opposed to behavioural regime change will now suffice. US determination to impose its will by force renders the UN debate redundant in terms of practical outcomes. It makes a mockery of the security council.

. . .

These abuses of the overall UN system are particularly short-sighted, given the post-war role UN organisations will almost certainly be asked to play. But with the stakes so high, it seems such worries are a luxury. The Iraq "end-game" at the UN has become a highly destructive political struggle largely unrelated to any objective analysis of the Iraqi threat. It is a tainted exercise likely to produce a tainted result. It is now more about brute political power and political survival than about doing the right thing for Iraq.

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Warning of even bigger Commons revolt UN majority is crucial, rebels tell Blair Anne Perkins, political correspondent http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,3605,906234,00.html

Tony Blair was warned again yesterday that he would need Tory backing in any Commons vote if he went to war against Saddam Hussein without UN support.

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People can act certain, and perhaps be certain in every way they're conscous of - and be very wrong - and have logical reasons, in retrospect, to know it.

Shuttle's Chief Puts Pained, Steely Face on Shared Trauma By DAVID BARSTOW http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/04/national/04CHIE.html

Today, Ron D. Dittemore, manager of the NASA space shuttle program, presided over his third televised news conference since the Columbia broke apart over Texas on Saturday morning.

I looked at some of those conferences, and had a great deal of sympathy for Dittemore - a man who has plainly excelled in the NASA system - and a man who would almost certainly have excelled many other places in the government. An able man. An honest man. Most people I know would be proud to know Dittemore - or be related to him. Even so - what happened - and what did his organization, under him, and many people like him, actually do?

http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.DDr1b0YuYGb.1128134@.f39a52e/124 or http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.DDr1b0YuYGb.1128134@.f28e622/10890

our "logic" - is mostly a choosing between many alteratives going on or being fashioned in our heads - and in the course of that choosing - people believe what "feels right."

But what "feels right," most often, is what, in our minds "cooperates with the interests of authority - with our group." Look at Pritchard's notes on Milgram's experiment - and on Jonestown - to get a sense of how wrong it feels, for most people, to go against authority. http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/~epritch1/social98a.html

And how wrong it can feel to admit mistakes and make adjustments - when that is just exactly what the person involved should do

When people look rigidly certain - or when they are agressive - bullying in their certainty - that should be a dead giveaway that they know very well that they're taking a precarious, indefensible, or dishonorable position. Surely other people have noticed this?

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A Stalwart of Certainty: Bush Undeterred on Iraq By DAVID E. SANGER http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/03/international/middleeast/03ASSE.html

WASHINGTON, March 2 — The political and logistical obstacles to realizing President Bush's goal of ousting Saddam Hussein within weeks seem to keep mounting.

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