Pentagon to begin national missile defense system this summer

[Fleshdancer]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A4411-2004Feb1?language=printer

The Pentagon plans to begin operation of a national missile defense system this summer, putting the first missile interceptors on alert weeks ahead of a previous autumn deadline, according to senior defense officials.

The accelerated schedule, if realized, would enable President Bush to claim fulfillment of a major 2000 campaign pledge earlier than officials had indicated. The United States currently lacks a defense against intercontinental ballistic missiles. Erecting such a system has been not only a top Bush priority but also a longtime Republican Party goal.

Democratic lawmakers have challenged the urgency and expense of the project, and scientists and other critics have warned that Bush's approach relies on unproven technology.

Disclosing the planned summer start, Pentagon officials insisted in interviews that politics played no part in revising the schedule. They said the change grew out of the realization that the system could begin providing some anti-missile protection before all 10 of the interceptors slated for fielding this year had been lowered into silos in Alaska and California.

[ixion]

1. right... and it doesn't even work yet

what, did the Pentagon take lessons from Microsoft?

[aquart]

2. How much money are we wasting on this garbage?

And who gets it? Bechtel? Halliburton? Carlyle?

[lovedems]

3. This will REALLY HELP the war on terra, won't it.

Just more propaganda to line the pockets of the big campaign contributors. When will the public realize this is a complete waste of time and money? We are suppose to be in a real war right now where people are blowing themselves up, not sending missles our way. The pile of shit is so thick in the WH, the EPA is going to need extra funding to clean up the toxic waste.

[TexasMexican]

4. Good...

hopefully they will get it working properly before we actually need it.

[leftchick]

6. lol....

that was a joke, right?

[mbperrin]

5. Reagan took $2 trillion out of social security to build

this twenty years ago,so where TF is it?

Nobody's curious? The IOUs on Social Security have never been paid back. If they were, the system would be solvent for the next century at least!

[Karenina]

7. Can you spell

BOONDOGGLE, boys and girls? I knew you could. :eyes:

[Dudley_DUright]

8. It is the perfect weapons system from the Bushco point of view

It funnels money to the big defense contractors that kickback money to their reelection "warchest". So what if it does not work? If no one ever attacks us with ballistic missiles, no one will find out; and if they do, no one will be around to care.

[Zhade]

9. Best description ever of the "SDI":

"Well, since you really want to know, quite simply a missile defense shield is a net, made of magic, held in place by pixies." -- David Cross

[midnight armadillo]

10. BMD is for offense

The point is to allow preemptive strikes with nuclear weapons or conventional forces against, specifically, China and Russia. This makes BMD an offensive shield - it eliminates the mad logic of MAD to the detriment of US targets. Once up don't be surprised of BushCo gets very belligerent towards China about Taiwan, for example.

At least that's the idea. The problem is that countermeasures are infinitely cheaper than an interceptor and are capable of trivially overwhelming the best BMD technology, making BMD a tool of dangerous fools. Any nation capable of launching an ICBM is capable of defeating BMD.

[mulethree]

12. Umm

So to work,

It needs to be incredibly sensitive such that it can see "stealthy" warheads, and distinguish between a warhead and most countermeasures. Able to see pretty much the whole world, to ensure sufficient processing prior to interception - to avoid wasting expensive interception on meteorites, false alarms and such.

It requires self defense of space satellites. Whether they are space-based interception platforms or they are sensors, they become vital to security such that we now need the capability to protect our space assets against re-directed satellites, ground-based energy weapons and anti-satellite type missiles. .

Powerful, Can't just prevent a warhead from detonating - can't just disable it, if a warhead landed without detonating it would still produce a lot of vaporized plutonium fallout and be a potent "radiological" weapon instead of thermonuclear. Also, as some opponents could field hundreds of warheads at once, thousands of targets once you include undetectable decoys and redundancy to ensure interception - it needs to be able to "fire" a hundred or more interceptions per minute.

Basically extremely sensitive global, and near-space surveillance, huge processing power and artificial intelligence, and the capability to strike any spot on earth, atmosphere, near space - rapidly repeatedly, with massive force. Of course it's not perfect and occasionally does fall for an especially warhead-looking meteorite or launch-looking bonfire, but it's just a coincidence those politically inconvenient people got in the way.

How effective could it be, before it scared ..... well who wouldn't be afraid of that? .... into pre-emptively striking to prevent it ever working? What kind of OBL type "network" would form to prevent that? Think they would have any trouble recruiting from our allies and citizens?

Basically it would either be so ineffective as to be a waste of money, or so effective that we could never implement it.

[IndianaGreen]

11. A total waste of money!

A technology that doesn't work against an enemy that doesn't exist.

Who voted for this shit?

[45th Med]

13. Waste of money is an understatement!

Frankly, I'm insulted that the PENTAGRAM just pisses away our hard earned tax dollars on such enormously STUPID things! The worst thing about it is WE CAN'T DO A DAMN THING ABOUT IT!

Joe Blows like you and me, have absolutely NO SAY in the way this country is run.....there's thanks for ya.....

[mulethree]

14. So I guess they have already worked out

How to keep "them" from -

hiding that warhead in a shipping container and mailing it to ground zero?

slipping it aboard a cargo plane?

into Mexico and then across the border on a handtruck?

into Canada and across the border on a (boat, handtruck, snowmobile ..)?

straight to the beach ala Golden Venture?

Basically screening of all legitimate routes and stopping all smuggling?

Why rationale for a "rogue state" to spend a bundle conspicuously launching an ICBM, when they could - anonymously - smuggle a big box to the desired target?

[truthisfreedom]

15. no, these are righteous CHRISTIAN missles, and they strike their targets

under the ALMIGHTY'S command! unproven technology is irrelvant. science be damned... bush wants his CHRISTIAN missles and he's damned well going to get them.