US Missile TEST in Pacific

[theguvnorgc]

Gee, think the Chinese heard this firwork go off?

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Missile-Test.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[SutaUvaca]

1. Nope, just routine stuff.

Besides, Kwajalein is a couple thousand miles from everywhere.

[gulfcoastliberal]

2. My woodshop teacher in HS lived out on that atoll...

Said the splash from the dummy warheads were huge. Also said once the "dummy" landed on their generators, cutting power for sometime - and lucky no one killed. Maybe that's why they used the GPS.

[slackmaster]

3. And it was waaaaaay foggy all along the SoCal coast

Dammit.

[sweetheart]

4. the sound of your taxes being pissed in to the drink

Dontcha feel safe.

[Sirveri]

5. Would you prefer we don't test things and watch them fail.

Especially if we should ever actually need them.

[sweetheart]

6. we NEEEED our nukes to keep us safe... bollocks.

IF we dismantled all the nukes tomorrow, nobody would invade!!! suprise.

The evil we project on the world is our terrorism.

The money would better be spent on roads, schools and urban renewal.

Let the grotty rockets rust in their silos.

[Nihil]

7. Don't always agree with you but this time you're spot on!

Your whole post is correct - well done! :hi:

[Sirveri]

8. I sort of agree and sort of don't.

Basically while I agree that our military budget is incredibly overblown and needs to be scaled back dramatically, at the same time nuclear weapons were partly responsible for insuring that we didn't do anything too outrageously stupid while the USSR was around. Like say invade Eatern Germany. They tend to make battlefields much less likely to occur with the countries that possess them. Nuclear weapons exist, and they are not going away any time in the forseeable future. Nuclear weapons make diplomacy seem like a much better route to pursue. Which is how we know that NK probably has them and Iran probably doesn't simply due to rhetoric.

[Hekate]

9. Unfortunately we currently have an administration that wants to use nukes, not diplomacy

Back in 2002 it came out that Cheney, Rummy, et al. seriously wanted to create a generation of "tactical usable nukes". They were referring to "smaller" megatonnage, but the fact is, they were talking about actually using them in battle at the first available opportunity. The euphemism is "bunker busters".

I was stunned when I first read about this, and wondered aloud if they are actually insane.

Since that time the Bush admin has given every indication that it does not know the meaning of the words diplomacy or negotiation. Bush, who has a Manichean worldview nurtured by his theocratic and Neocon pals, declared there was an "axis of evil" and essentially named for us the countries he wanted to invade.

He then proceeded to invade Iraq despite all the evidence that this was not necessary and would be a disaster.

Now he is ramping us up to invade Iran.

In the hands of presidents like Eisenhower and Kennedy, nuclear weapons were safe (or at least contained). They were from a generation that not only understood the horrors of war first hand, but recognized that diplomacy done right does not equal cowardice or blind optimism, but instead is a cornerstone of national security. And it should be noted that Eisenhower, as he left office, warned us that the "military industrial complex" exists for its own reasons, unrelated to the national good.

I truly think the current so-called Commander in Chief is a madman surrounded by enablers.

The launch of yet another obscenely-expensive missile from Vandenberg AFB, which is just over the mountains from where I live, is business as usual for them.

But the premise that this weaponry somehow makes us safer is, alas, folly in the current circumstances.

Hekate

[lonestarnot]

10. Do these tests kill ocean life?

I know I read that the missile was unarmed, but does it blow up or anything or just crash?

[unkachuck]

11. I wonder....

....if North Koreas' feelings were hurt....not long ago, they launched a few missles a few hundred miles and the world went ballistic...

....GPS for guidance? How reliable in a nuclear war would that be?....

[Nihil]

12. To be honest ...

> GPS for guidance? How reliable in a nuclear war would that be?

In the event of a nuclear war, accuracy is just about the last thing
on their mind - the world is already f*cked so just get them out the
door to make sure it isn't destroyed in situ ...

The nature of the launch ensures it isn't going to land on the
continental USA and the lack of GPS simply means that there are no
in-flight corrections to the original "best guess" trajectory.

I am far less worried about the details of the eventual accuracy
than about the issue that the launch can still be ordered by a
delusional drunk drug user and his puppet-masters for at least
two more years.