The attack in NY shows that those who argued that we need to stop diverting resources to the anti missile defense experiments from realistic security needs were right. The only justification for the Star Wars farce is that it lines the pockets of the corporate welfare types. Most defense spending is on a cost plus basis with not enough bidders to really have competition. This is an emergency. Can we convince the anti missile welfare junkies to take a hit for national security?
And what would those people say if a rogue nation had nuked an American city? The fact is that there are a number of threats to the security of America. All aspects of our safety should be considered when funding various projects. Anyone who is using this particular tragedy at this particular time to argue political ideals is misguided. There will be a time and place to conduct a post mortem to discuss our nation's priorities and to find out what went wrong and what needs to be done to help ensure it won't happen in the future. This is not that time.
Bobrek, I disagree. This is an important time to discuss the security needs of civilized people, including the USA. Topics needing to be discussed run the gamut from airline safety procedures to military affairs to diplomatic measures. First, diverting spending resources needed for real existing threats to anti-missile experiments hurts present day security. An anti-missile shield, even if it eventually proves possible, leads to the US or an ally or two being the only countries in the world with such a shield. This leads to the type of arrogant disregard for the rights of other people that incites those who disagree to desperate, even suicidal, acts of terrorism. The shield, even if eventually possible, is only of use against countries that are sophisticated enough to have ballistic missile systems. Essentially it is of use against "rogue states" only. States., even Libya and Iraq are already deferred by our nuclear capability. Our realistic enemy that threatens the USA is small terrorism cells, not countries and states.
Sorry, I apparently did not make my point too well. Those people who <b>today</b> are saying "see, I told you we did not need to spend so much money on a defense shield" are misguided. There is a time and place for those in government to argue <b>political</b> policies and this is not it. I am all for the discussion to determine where and how our security budget should be spent but knee-jerk reactions to a terrible tragedy should not necessarily influence policy. Today, in retrospect, it is easy to point out fallacies in many facets of the decisions that have been made or not made which helped lead to this devastation, but we must continue to affect policy which looks at the global safety of the United States. We need to determine where the intelligence failed and what will it take to correct that problem. If it is more money and it can be diverted from other projects, that's fine with me.
The realistic enemy today is small terrorism cells, but there is nothing to say it won't be a nation/state in the future, just like it was when ICBMS and Nukes were developed. How soon we forget. Just a few months back the USA was in a fairly serious dispute with China. Last time I checked, China has nuclear capability and ballistic missiles. I have no problem with the USA being the only country in the world with missile defense. I have every confidence that the imbalance in power will not be abused, just as it is not abused now.
