Word: targetting
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...technology may have been flawless, but the people were not. Scientists at a U.S. Air Force ground station on a Maui mountaintop fired a laser beam 220 miles through space at a minute target, an 8-in. mirror attached to a hatch window on the left side of the space shuttle Discovery, which was speeding above the Hawaiian island at 17,500 m.p.h. The intention was to bounce the low-powered ribbon of light off the mirror and send it flashing back to Maui. But as the blue-green laser beam successfully "painted" the spacecraft over the test site...
...which almost anyone could be a target any time, anywhere, while carrying out the most innocent activities: waiting for a flight in an airport lounge, dining at a sidewalk cafe. A war waged by shadowy enemies who could be almost anyone: the passenger in the next airplane seat, the occupants of the next car driving by. Worst of all, a war in which civilized society so far is a bewildered, if not impotent, loser...
American intelligence experts have no doubt what will be the prime target: the U.S. "The next attack will be here, on the American continent, and aimed to hit the heart of our system," predicts one high-ranking intelligence official. Some experts fear that a retaliatory strike against terrorists abroad could provoke reprisals inside the U.S. Thousands of Iranians and Lebanese have recently settled in the U.S., and there is no way to distinguish the tiny minority who may be potential terrorists from the great majority who are legitimate refugees...
Lashing out at a target, almost any target, would serve at least one purpose. It would be cathartic. For a nation seemingly humiliated, for a people fed up with too much talk and too little action, dropping a bomb on Baalbek or shooting a few Shi'ite fanatics would be grimly satisfying. Yet for policymakers the ultimate goal must be not simply to avenge terrorism but to stop it. Doing nothing, it seems certain, invites more atrocities. Yet force often begets force. For Ronald Reagan, the hard question is whether retaliating against terrorists will deter terrorism -- or only provoke more...
Though some Doonesbury fans might view Trudeau's treatment of Sinatra as heavy-handed, friends of the cartoonist speculate that the attack reflects a delib erate change of tone. When Trudeau returned from a 21-month sabbatical last September, his favorite target, Reagan, was heading for a thunderous re- election. Instead of poking fun directly at the President for four more years, Trudeau is taking a harsher satirical stance against issues and people close to Reagan. Trudeau, as always, declines comment. "I haven't been able to sit still for an interview for some time," he says...