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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (179831)	9/12/2001 11:27:31 AM
From: DOUG H	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

What I believe about missile defense is that it will cost billions of dollars is imo very unlikely to work in real life, since it could be overwhelmed by decoys. Why would someone be firing "decoys" at us? To try deflect attention from an actual ICBM? I think US engineers are good enough to build a system that contemplates decoys. Nor has scientific evidence to date been at all reassuring on that score. If somebody showed me evidence that the system could work in the battlefield I would feel differently. So far all the tests have been unbelievably canned, and even so, most of them have failed. The same was said of the Wright Brothers.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (179831)	9/12/2001 11:44:12 AM
From: Srexley	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

From your post I will take your answer to be that you are smarter than our defense community. Here are some counter points: "What I believe about missile defense is that it will cost billions of dollars is imo very unlikely to work in real life, since it could be overwhelmed by decoys" 10 years before we went to the moon would you have thought we could do it? Do you think that rogue nations will suddenly develop enough missiles and resources to overwhelm the U.S.? The answer to the 1st question is that you have NO IDEA whether it would work in real life. Through what your dem leaders have told you, you believe it will not. From smart and honest men like Bush and Rumsfeld I hear that it might. I do not view your FEELING that it won't work as sufficient evidence to make ME and MY FAMIL feel safe enough to shit can the whole idea. "A perfect missile defense would not have made an iota of difference to yesterday's scenario" Nobody claimed it would. I think the point more likely was that yesterrday's actions showed they have NO PROBLEM killing tens of thousands of us, and that they will use ANY MEANS. You are comfortable that they cannot get to those means. I would like to race to have a protection system before they can do it. "If somebody showed me evidence that the system could work in the battlefield I would feel differently. So far all the tests have been unbelievably canned, and even so, most of them have failed." How can someone show you evidence when the dem leaders have already said it never would work. Only a dem can come to the conclusion that it will never work because some early tests did not. Did you know that we had some early failures in our space program? The system may not be perfected for 10 years, or 20. I plan on living that long, and unless more of these terrorists succeed like yesterday my kids should be around much longer. When a nuke arrives in 20 years you will be left (if you survive) to say we shit canned a program 20 years ago because me and my dem colleagues were pretty sure it would not work. "They may be a chance of being able to convincingly pin the blame on your neighbor" That was just one example that popped into my mind in a few seconds. These people spend their LIFETIMES trying to hurt America as bad as they can. Did you see ANY of the Iraq war? We could not find those damn scud launchers. Why do you feel they would be easier to find if they had nuclear warheads on them. The only differnce I can see is that they would be more deadly. You seem to think they would be easier to find for some reason. Very naive imo. "dropping nerve gas in a subway" They will do stuff like this too. That may kill hundreds or thousands of people. A nuke could easily kill a million or more as well as contaminate the area for a long time. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were firecrackers compared to VERY SMALL nukes today. I think they killed upwards of 100,000 each and completely demolished entire cities. Multiply yesterday by 100 or so to get the idea. "I think we should concentrate our efforts on better intelligence to guard against terrorism" We need to do both. Protecting our way of life is job one for the gov't. They protect a way of lifes that offers ALL OF US a chance to succeed and excel. You would rather give tax money to people that could make it on their own with some encouagment, I would rather protect the system that allows them to succeed. "Our defense establishment is in love with high tech solutions" They (high tech solutions) save American lives. Why are you offended by that? I can't think of a better way to utilize our technological superiority. "Let's just say that I don't share your faith in GWB's superior understanding of defense matters, particularly when it come to understanding the science." You will support that bet with American lives. I will not. Think how happy you dems will be if we spend it and it does not work. We will have wasted a few dollars and you can be in power with your social programs for the rest of time. If there is even a reasonable chance it will work I will put dollars aainst lives in an instant. Your leaders have convinced you it won't work, and you believe them (unless you are a rocket scientist with access to all technology involved and have drawn your conclusions based on that). It's a big gamble Nadine. You seem comfortable with your postion and I will let it go with that.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (179831)	9/12/2001 1:15:45 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Nadine: you wrote:"A perfect missile defense would not have made an iota of difference to yesterday's scenario, which is why I feel insulted at the Rummy's arguments. If yesterday shows anything, it shows that our enemies are very smart. They want to hit hard without being hit in return," Absolutely right, Nadine. Missiles would have been as useless as the intelligence that failed to avert yesterday's disaster. It was reported the CIA is going back over records to see what they may have missed.