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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: one_less who wrote (81141)	2/9/2009 1:09:54 PM
From: TimF	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Effective active defenses will tend to cost more (sometimes a lot more) than the attack (although that's not a huge issue with Israel and Hamas, because Israel has a lot more resources at its disposal and can afford to pay multiples of the amount of resources that Hamas uses). One problem is that defenses are not perfect. Some attacks will get through, some defensive shells or missiles will harm something other than their intended target (for example if the a 20mm C-RAM shell's fuse fails and it comes down on civilians, or if a defensive system accidentally shoots down a civilian or friendly military aircraft). Still while these defenses won't solve the problem, they make a contribution. I don't think that having defenses (active like the one's in my link, and passive like shelters), morally precludes counter-attack. Maybe if the defenses where absolutely perfect, you could consider launching rockets to be more like a tantrum, or a form of protest, but absent perfect defenses (which probably will never exist), there still is justification for retaliatory or even preemptive attack.