Posted on 07/01/2004 1:11:17 AM PDT by Jet Jaguar
Fort Greely, just outside Delta Junction, will be the site of another military milestone on Saturday with a ceremony marking completion of the first six silos for the new national missile defense system. And, as if to punctuate the reality of it all, the first missile booster rocket has been delivered to the post.
That first missile could be operational sometime next month, with five more to follow this year. The six will be housed in the recently completed first pad, which can hold up to 20 missiles. An additional 10 are to come next year, followed by 10 more and a second pad.
It's certainly a topic of debate.
The arrival of additional missile boosters in coming weeks easily could be greeted with protests, as was the case when construction began two years and two weeks ago. But the missiles could just as easily be greeted with applause, since many people see the system as a necessary defensive measure and a program that is sending millions of dollars into the state, regional and local economies.
The debate continues unabated in Washington, D.C., too, where Democrats in the Senate recently tried to slow the system's deployment because its technology is still being perfected. They were uncomfortable spending just over $10 billion in one year, reportedly twice as much as that spent on any other single weapons system, knowing so much remained to be done. And this has been, and will continue to be, a multi-year project with billions more to be spent.
The system's capability, in fact, has been at the center of the debate, along with the political discussion about whether the nation should instead be defending against attacks like those of Sept. 11, 2001.
Missile defense opponents come in a variety of colors but share a belief that it makes no sense to deploy a system whose technology has yet to be proved reliable and that has had only limited success in the most controlled of circumstances. Some in the military establishment share those technical concerns.
President Bush, however, sees merit in having even a semi-reliable and limited system to guard the nation against incoming missiles. At the moment, today, the nation is virtually defenseless against such an attack, which is why the work out at Fort Greely is of such importance.
But it is an expensive undertaking. The military reportedly plans to spend about $50 billion on missile defense over the next five years, an enormous sum for a system that so far has a spotty record.
But the alternative is unacceptable.
And how much would a missle hit in a major city cost? Or two? After everything is added up? About what 9/11 cost or more.
The issue really isn't about the cost of such a strike on an American city. There are some technical objections regarding the effectiveness of such a system. Allow me to list a few.
1) The interceptions the system has 'achieved' are somewhat suspect, transponders being placed on the targets that the interceptors can home in on.
2) The cost of such a system will come at the price of cutting funds for the homeless, helpless, and those with no hope for a better future under the current administation.
3) You need to have more taken away from you in the interest of the common good.
4) Bush is a racist homophobe who was a deserter and probably eats homeless children for breakfast.
5) I hate Bush. Anyone but Bush. Saddam Hussein for President.
6) The system as proposed utterly fails to address the issues of civil rights for GLBT persons.
7) I hate Bush. He was selected, not elected.
8) Did I mention that I hate Bush?
I hope this reasonably sober appraisal of the system proposed will demonstrate to you the opponents of the system have good technical reasons to oppose the system, not merely crude partisan and ideological reasons.
"8) Did I mention that I hate Bush? "
Nor did you mention that you were in Vietnam.
Excellent point.
I wonder if a way to get the liberal socialist big cities to reconsider their support of anti-missle systems would be to allow them to opt out.
Because the tracking technology is so advanced the intended targets (even with MIRV) can be discerned early. For opt out cities the missles would not be intercepted. Correspondingly, their populations would not have to pay the taxes necessary to build the system, except of course for those that get income from constructing the anti-missle system.
They could have their cake and eat it too.
I thought about putting that in there but declined. The froth was getting fairly deep by that time.
You owe me a new keyboard.
Perfection of technology or even sound science is no impediment to pie in the sky environmental regulations. The America hating liberals will have to try harder to sound reasonable on this one.
Sounds like you have the enemy logic and rhetoric down pat.
I wonder if Kerry voted for the missile defense system.
First booster delivered this week. 25 tons, 3 stages. Flown to Eielson and trucked to Ft Greeley because Greeley doesn't have a heavy duty airstrip. It will be fitted and tested and then be put in the silo.
Real estate alone in Fairbanks is about $2-3 billion. It would probably take 12 warheads to get it all since the town is spread out over 500 square miles, and that means Greeley would be down to its last 6 ABMs after defending Fairbanks.
Now we might consider the cost of warheads and the cost of ABMs. Seems like a lot just to try to protect or take out Fairbanks, but real estate value isn't the whole story. Fairbanks happens to be one of the top ten marketing districts in the country. If you know what that is you know everything, if you don't know what that is you may return to the sports page. The real question is why each of the top ten marketing districts doesn't have it's own ABM system.
Only to simulate a radar that had not been finished yet. Since then, retesting was done with the actual radar, and the missiles actually worked better.
tech, tech, tech....... where's Rachel Corrie when you need her?
Her partners are here, we see some of them now and then still working on their Masters. Their task is hopeless, so much to protest, so little time. Their Datsun B-210s are getting a litle old, too, but there is often a fresh bumper sticker.
(Also, it would be difficult to believe that the US wouldn't knock down a missile aimed at ANY nation. You can already hear the Left whining that the US would be MORE culpable than those who fired it, since we would've failed to stop it when we had the chance.)
I understand that. But the meat of the technical objections were in objections 5, 7 and 8.
Once again I have to explain. All missiles have range safety transponders on them for tracking. They have destruct systems too, but data from the tests show that the "hits" were the result of the antimissile hardware and software, and the range safety transponders were Not part of the hit. Please understand that this idea that engineers would rig a test like this in front of hundreds of people is just anti missile propaganda.
Whether the money is used for defense or social programs is a matter for congress to debate.
The rest of your scree is silly.
sorry, I did not have my sarcasm screen on//
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