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Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (13730)	11/15/2004 7:29:49 PM
From: Michael Watkins	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20773

NMD is nothing but a damn boondoggle at this point in time. Absolutely. Just look at even a supposedly "simpler" system - the vaunted Patriot Missile Battery - 2003; "Does the Patriot work? The short answer is, we don't know," said John Pike, a defense technology expert at GlobalSecurity.Org, an Alexandria, Va.-based defense research group. On Sunday, a Patriot protecting the airfield at Ali al Salem in northern Kuwait from incoming Iraqi missiles blew apart a British Tornado fighter-bomber, killing its two-man crew. On Monday, an F-16 about 30 miles south of An Najaf destroyed the Patriot's radar system after it locked onto the American fighter. globalsecurity.org Patriot: Friend or Foe? The list of threats is significant here. In fact, the Patriot was hurriedly modified for anti-ballistic missile service in Desert Storm. It was heralded as a great success at the time for its performance against Scuds - particularly in Israel - but later analysis told a different story. The tally of Scuds claimed was, in fact, fictitious. An initial kill rate of 40-50 per cent soon became a mere 5-10 per cent. Worse still, Patriot suffered from a serious software problem which quickly manifested itself with disastrous results: theregister.co.uk 1991: February 25th 1991, during the Gulf War, In Dharan, Saudi Arabia - A Patriot Missile failed to detect an incoming Iraqi Scud Missile The Scud missile hit American Army barracks, killed 28 soldiers and injuring 100 others fas.org Instead of spending money honestly preparing the country for energy self-reliance, the government practically shoves hundreds of billions each year in offensive and defensive weapons research, production, and give-aways (like 4 billion a year given away to Israel AND Egypt). If Persian Gulf oil were anywhere near fairly priced (based on the 100 Billion or more spend in the region each year now) each barrel would cost 166$ (did the math recently) and the gasoline produced would be over 6$ a gallon. If taxpayers want to pay the real cost of foreign oil dependency, let them pay for it up front, not shove the cost onto future generations. And thanks Raymond for jumping in.

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (13730)	11/15/2004 7:47:03 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20773

Thanks for a well thought and well written response. In the late '80s I was at Bell Northern Research and one of the topics we discussed in details was the SDI. Although the researchers there were not directly involved in the field, they did have the theoretical background to analyze it and the conclusions were identical to yours. The comment from one of the researchers always rings in my ears, "It is a good thing we can easily show SDI cannot work and is just pork for the defense industry. Because if I were the Russians and I believed for a minute that an effective defensive missile system was a possibility, I'd nuke US with everything I had right away". When I looked at him, he said from the Russian's perspective the preemptive attack would be the most prudent thing to do before US renders their nukes worthless and beats them into submission. Which brings us to this point: any technology that hugely shifts the military balance of power to one side will be deemed very provocative by others and in itself may cause the war it is advertised to prevent. ST

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (13730)	11/16/2004 1:37:14 AM
From: tsigprofit	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20773

Disagree Ray. But I can always count on you to let me know your opinions :--0 BMD is going forward, and won't be stopped by either of us. I think it is a good thing, but it will progress either way...LOL If it works 50% of the time in 10-15 years, and stops one out of two warheads - one headed for LA, and one for SF, I think it will be deemed a great success. If it is never used, and convinces N. Korea that to attack us would be folly, it is a good use of the 1% that it takes. Ray - you have now turned into a fiscal conservative! Who would have thunk it! LOL Don't have a hissy fit - just teasing you! t