Anybody Want to Buy a Bridge? - Missle Defense

[michaeledward]

I found this report in the Washington Post today.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58080-2004Sep28.html

I also saw this report a few days ago.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6091020/

Candidate Bush promised to deploy a Missle Defense System. These two reports represent the first implementation of President Reagan's 'Strategic Defense Initiative'.

Since Reagan's plan, the scope of SDI has been downsized considerably. Primarily because as components of the systems were tested, they failed.

In fact, those items being deployed this fall have not been tested according to the 'normal' oversight the Pentagon gives to weapons systems ($400.00 hammer anyone?).

Lastly, in the Spring and Summer of 2001, while the Bush Administration was working hard to guarantee funding for this 'Missile Shield', 19 middle-eastern men were planning, and eventually demonstrated that the concept of a 'Missile Shield' is not sufficient to protect the country from the threats of a Post - Post - Cold - War world.

The exciting part of this new system, is that it has only cost the United States Taxpayer $100,000,000,000.00. Yep, that is 100 Billion Dollars.

I post this here to see what your opinions of this might be. Also, we can be certain of hearing about this as a big success on Thursday evening when the President and the Senator have their first 'Press-Conference' ... I mean debate.

Are you folks on the Pacific Coast feeling any more secure where North Korea is concerned?

Mike

 

[Spud]

Have they even been able to hit a missile without a homing beacon attached? From what I've read through a couple of physics listservers it seems that they have a long long way to go before obtaining a reliable system.

To date, the testing has been completly unrealastic and the results spun to put the best face on this pig.

I'm far more concerned about black market nuclear materials ending up in a dirty bomb or a suit case nuke. $100 Billion would be better spent on these threats.

 

[rmcrobertson]

Beyond the extent to which this shiny new "missile defense," is symptomatic of the extent to which science fiction--and I do indeed mean the literary genre--has sunk into government policy (for beautiful discussions of which, see H. Bruce Franklin: "Robert A. Heinlein: America As Sccience Fiction," and "War Stars"), I consider all this crapola to be exactly the sort of stupid boy's error that we sometimes see in martial arts--you know, where a guy spends all his time attending endless classes, seminars on guns, knives, "urban combat," lifts weights all the time, but can't be bothered to a) look at where and how he's living, b) simply avoid trouble, c) consider heading off trouble far in advance by working for a better society.

But of course, they always have some sort of prefab ideological statement about technology or human nature, ready to stuff into the breach, just in case somebody asks.

Hi-tech my ear. (Weren't the Trade Centers taken down with box cutters, really?) Poverty and social decay scare me a lot more---not to mention the fact that if they rally want to do something nice for national security, they might put, say, 10% of the boondoggle money (hey...how's it working out with that whole B-2 bomber thing?) into silly, irrelevant, peacenik stuff like the onrushing depletion of the Ogallalla Aquifer, or the crashing fish stocks on the Grand Banks, or the growing "dead zones," in the Gulf of Mexico.

Just not sexy enough, I guess.