MISSILE DEFENSE SHIELD: Is it needed?

[RyanH]

MattTheSkyWalker: Your points are well-taken. Although, I have no military experience, I can also see where the existing military force has been neglected. But, how would ground troops help us in the face of missile attacks? Isn't missile defense technology the only way to prevent this type of particular threat?

While you are certainly right---there have been no large scale missile attacks, how do we know this will be the case in the future?

For instance, if an unstable leader fron North Korea or even China were to unsensibly launch missiles at us.....what would our defense be? Isn't speculation always necessary when planning military strategy?

At any rate, I'm surprised by your response. I expected you would argue the opposite.......

 

[danielson]

apparently scientist have likened it to trying to shoot down a bullet shot across a football field. the technology we have probably aint that good. go with lasers.

and wht the feck. if u guys put a base in britain we become a target therfore we should be shielded. if we're not then we might as well rename the country 'americas bitch'. but i can understand that any president wants to protect his country. but it just potentially renders other counrties weapons useless, making them seek new weapons opr be at a tactical disadvantage, hence increasing the arms race. me thinks thats why countries are opposed to it (olh andd the fact they aren;t under it!)

if one is built in the UK u guiys better foot the bill. our rifles are turd, we should have bought M16's in the first place, they better notspend money on siometing that may not work when they need to make sure they have rifles that are robust enough for military udsage

 

[MattTheSkywalker]

Ryan,

My point about the ground troops was merely that they suffer most from this egregious mis-allocation of defense dollars. Their basic soldiering needs are not being met, yet we are spending megabucks to implement something that will not work. (Read on).

North Korea? Well, now that Kim Il Sung is dead, the threat of irrational action has diminished. Yes, the current ruler is unpredictable, but he is faced with the daunting task of bringing a country back from famine and poverty. Just recently, North and South Koreans were visiting each other. This (if anything) is a harbinger of better times over there.

And China? Well, although the administration may want a Cold War environment to justify this monstrosity, but the reality is that huge sums of foreign money has been invested in China, and this has allowed them to become a major player on the world economic stage. It seems unlikely even unrealistic that they would jeopardize that with a "rogue missile launch" (to use popular CNN language).

Yes, it is good to be proactive in matters of national defense. However, this is unwarranted, and it comes at the expense of improving the day to day living condition of our servicemembers.

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On to the next point: THE FUCKING PATRIOT DOESN'T WORK. If you want I can quote many Air Defense Artillery officers that I know from my days in the military, who will tell you how shitty the Patriot really is.

It is a failure. There is also something called THAAD, which stands for Theather High Altitude Air Defense. This is an anti-missile system that was intended to protect ground units deployed in the field. (A "theater" in military-speak is where a campaign is waged - for example the Persian Gulf was the "theater" for Desert Storm. In WW2, there was the European "theater", the North African "theater" etc.)

THAAD failed two of the three tests that the pentagon held to determine whether it should be put into production. Since it failed, it was sent "back to the drawing board" and not mass-produced.

Another anti-missile failure.

It is unreasonable to think that a SPACE-BASED system could be successful if a ground based one is not.

As I said - this is a bad idea - a payback for the campaign contributions.

 

[YellowD]

Don't forget the foreign policy implications undertaking a project like this will ultimately alter. Every foreign country that ever invested in ICBM's is sure as hell going to be pretty PO'd at the US for even attempting a project like this. If successful, we could nearly neutralize thousands of missiles aimed for the U.S., which is a frightening prospect for those countries using that as leverage.

 

[Champ]

I think that it is bullshit that the weapon system failed in its trial run. I mean common, it makes the enemy feel better that the darn thing didnt work. But in reality it would work otherwise they wouldnt spend the money.

ALso the money that was funneled intot the starwars project did not produce a missile defence, but it brought many new technologies to market. This money would go alot farther than just providing missile defence. It would help the us take the next step in military technology.

I mean how do you think we developed the lasers that read and write cd roms and do surgerys.

 

[WODIN]

It is tough enough to triangulate a point with a solid stationairy reference point. Try doing it with all three moving. You need a fourth point that isn't yet calculated in order to acheive a point to point contact. And if your off my a 1/100,000 of a percent which is about 100 miles, your fucked! It wont work with today's technology. Period.

 

[Wfabrizio]

This MDS is such a crock of shit, I can't believe it's still being pushed. MDS is a great way for the new administration to secretly funnel billions of dollars into other programs and into the pockets of their corporate military industrialist friends. Just like all of the programs put forth by Reagan.

It's pretty obvious that it's bullshit since even most of our allies even doubt it's ability to do jack shit.

 

[MR.?]

The Patriot Missile was highly inaccurate. Initial reports of the accuracy of the missile system by US military officials were exaggerated. After the war ended hearings were held to determine its true capabilities. In the end research and the studies proved the missile to be highly ineffective due to software and design problems.

If you have any doubts...here is a link.
http://www.cdi.org/issues/bmd/Patriot.html

 

[MattTheSkywalker]

I think that it is bullshit that the weapon system failed in its trial run. I mean common, it makes the enemy feel better that the darn thing didnt work. But in reality it would work otherwise they wouldnt spend the money.

I can give you the addresses of people that watched the THAAD tests and saw the miss. I could give you the home phone numbers of officers in charge of Patriot batteries and let them tell you how sorry of a system this is.

ALso the money that was funneled intot the starwars project did not produce a missile defence, but it brought many new technologies to market. This money would go alot farther than just providing missile defence. It would help the us take the next step in military technology.

Champ - not to flame you - but anyone who has ever served in the military can tell you that better technology is not what we need to win the war, which is after all, the military's mission.


The fucking stealth bomber doesn't have stealth capability in the rain. Yet it is pushed, when a real ass-kicker like the A-10 warthog is being retired.

I'm getting off teh point - but the last fucking thing defense dollars need to be spent on is a missile shield that will NOT work, and will suck up much of the Defense budget for the next decade.

 

[Frackal]

This is a total sham...listen, Saddamn Huessein, and the leaders of these so called 'rogue' nations, which are only conisdered 'rogue' nations when it serves our political interests, are not stupid.

No person smart and devious enough to be the leader of a country, ie. Saddam Huessein is going to launch a nuclear/biological/chemical weapon at the United States from his country, in turn facing total annihilation for a chance to take out a part of Manhattan. It won't happen, if they are going to bomb us, it would be covert terrorist style, like sneaking it over on a boat.

Also, this system is for OFFENSE. Having a web of powerful space lasers circling the earth will basically give us complete 'space superiority' over the entire world. Later I will find some quotes on this aspect of the 'BM Defense System.'

Oh, and yeah, Bush is in the pocket of the military industrial complex...