me.."Well, when this sets off an arms race come back and see me in about ten years when the Shield still doesn't work"
you..I don't think it will, and it may or may not work in 10 years. The gamble is we will waste some money in the high tech field and most likely have some significant technilogical breakthroughs that will help us in some other way. The worst case is that we don't do it, someone does nuke us, and we lose Washington.
counter...If we lose Washington in the next ten years it will be from Chem Bio Nuclear attack that the shield has no effect against and never will" We need to spend huge sums to solve these problems and the 100 billion on a project that will have limited success against even ballistic weapons is a good place to start
me....."the real threats which the shield is absolutely completely useless against"
you..This statement assumes you know all the variations of deployments for such a system and every known type of possible attack to be launched. I doubt that you do.
counter......I know that the shield has no effect against anything weapon launch that doesn't have a ballistic trajectory thus it is extremely limited. Let's see in the last 50 years "not one nuclear ballistic missile has ever been launched except as a test" meanwhile cruise missiles can be launched by almost anyone now and all you need to do threaten the US is get a ship within several hundred miles of our coastline. And the guy with the suitcase at metro center can bring down DC
me.."Building up war machines"
you..A defensive system to prevent us from an attack is not "Building up war machines" imo. It is protecting us, and it is a prudent thing to do.
counter...Do you think China is just going to sit there and allow us to become this massive threat with a defense system in place. They are going to build extensive nuclear delivery capability which will overwhelm any shield that can be built, India and Pakistan will have to respond, as will Russia and NATO, and the US and we will all be building a lot on Nuclear Ballistic Missiles to make sure the shield can be defeated. Yep an arms race!
me.."Keeping America safe needs us to prevent terrorists activity from succeeding"
you....I think you know that President Bush is doing a masterful job at this. It is a separate, and even more important part of our national security. No reason we can't do both.-
counter.......If we are doing both why does deterrent from the logical and most evident threats get a pittance compared to the great shield in the sky?
"I would be much more concerned a nuclear attacks using stingers, cruise missiles, torpedos, suitcases, bombs, cars, and trucks"
I am, and President Bush is too I would bet. Note that we have started working rather feverishly on the issues above and will continue to do so for quite some time. Bush has just indicated that we will be pulling out of this agreement in 6 months, which is the requirement. That is next in priority for America's defense. Where you may think he is paying off his friends in business or something he is really thinking about America's safety now, and 50 years from now. Very prudent imo.
Counter.......you are giving Bush a lot of credit for being smarter than Colin Powell, NATO, Russia and everyone else who is against this unilateral action. The ABM treaty survived Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr, Clinton and now George is so smart that all these guys were dumb
"So keeping America safe is lost in this wasted effort"
You act like it can only be one or the other. Not sure why you think that way (if you do) because that is not how it is. We will have both, and we will learn a lot along the way and be a safer place in the future.
counter.......as I explained all it will result in is an arms race and make the world more dangerous and US less safe |
