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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 - 07:06pm Mar 17, 2003 EST (# 10124 of 10137)
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.

I started this year with rshow55 - 8:20am Jan 1, 2003 EST (# 7177 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.ha0KaTr56F7.2452967@.f28e622/8700 begins the year with this:

" I think this is a year where some lessons are going to have to be learned about stability and function of international systems, in terms of basic requirements of order , symmetry , and harmony - at the levels that make sense - and learned clearly and explicitly enough to produce systems that have these properties by design, not by chance.

9885-6 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.ha0KaTr56F7.2452967@.f28e622/11429 :

. 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 relatively tiny amounts of effort.

Is that really an unchangeable fact?

If key organizations got facts straight, relations in workable order, we could meet every reasonable need for international order: 9054-55 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.ha0KaTr56F7.2452967@.f28e622/10581

No one has a direct line to God: 9168-69 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.ha0KaTr56F7.2452967@.f28e622/10694

Key behavioral fact - people do what "feels right" - that usually works well - but sometimes, very badly. 9354 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.ha0KaTr56F7.2452967@.f28e622/10890

An alternative and supplement to force is information: 9435 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.ha0KaTr56F7.2452967@.f28e622/10974

The notion of "no solution" - many links 9531 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.ha0KaTr56F7.2452967@.f28e622/11070

consistency - legitimacy - truth - honor 9534 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.ha0KaTr56F7.2452967@.f28e622/11073

My favorite limerick - and getting facts straight 10017 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.ha0KaTr56F7.2452967@.f28e622/11562

It isn't very long until President Bush gives a speech - and I'm waiting to hear it. I hope in what he says he supports Prime Minister Blair's positions in full.

What would happen to the United States in the world - if it lost Blair - or if Blair lost office - or legitimacy?

We'd still have force. Force of a sort. Lethal force isn't everything- in a lot of cases, it isn't even so much. Here's a great poem by Jack Prelutsky:

Tyrannosaurus was a beast.

that had no friends, to say the least

It ruled the ancient out-of-doors,

and slaughtered other dinosaurs.

For all sorts of reasons, the Bush administration needs to do better than that, lest we all become extinct. I hope they do, and expect that they will.

almarst2003 - 07:15pm Mar 17, 2003 EST (# 10125 of 10137)

"legal attack"

Very Impressive. In a worst possible sense.

almarst2003 - 07:19pm Mar 17, 2003 EST (# 10126 of 10137)

EMERGENCY RESPONSE PROTESTS AND WALKOUTS - http://www.internationalanswer.org/campaigns/emerg/index.html#emergevent

SAY NO NOW - http://www.votenowar.org/

lchic - 07:23pm Mar 17, 2003 EST (# 10127 of 10137)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Almarst seem to be saying that 'thinking' should enter in - rather than it being a question of arguable legalities .... 'opinions' are a banque for lawyers -- yet base-wage-worker waiters actually foot the bill.

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense