Posted on 07/09/2006 11:18:09 AM PDT by governsleastgovernsbest
by Mark Finkelstein
July 9, 2006 - 14:12
Twice in less than 24 hours, conservative columnist Jim Pinkerton left liberal talking-head rivals at a loss for words on the issue of missile defense.
Pinkerton's first victim was Neal Gabler, on last evening's Fox News Watch. In the context of the North Korean missile tests, liberal Gabler flatly stated: "Missile defense does not work. That is what we have learned." Shot back Pinkerton: "The Japanese believe in it. That's why they're building it right now." Gabler's silence was golden.
Then this morning, Pinkerton made his regular appearance with Ellen Ratner in their 'Long & the Short of It' segment of Fox & Friends Weekend. Fans of the duo should be advised that the segment has been moved from Saturday to Sunday morning, at about 7:15 AM. The good news is that the pair are now appearing during two segments, an expansion of the short slot they had previously been accorded.
Could there be some liberal talking points in circulation on missile defense? Because, sure enough, Ellen trotted out the same line as Gabler: "Missile defense doesn't work."
Pinkerton had his retort ready: "Then why are Israel and Japan building it?"
Ratner ventured a response: "People can build it, it doesn't mean that it's working."
Pinkerton: "They think it's going to work, who knows more - them or you?"
This time, the Ratner's only reply was nervous laughter.
Score it Pinkerton 2, skeptical liberals 0.
ping
As best I can deduce from the liberal knuckleheads that I am acquainted with, their opposition to a missile defense is the cost and that it won't be 100% effective 100% of the time. Also it is money that could be spent on some social program like cradle to grave healthcare and to buy more votes for the democRATS. It's little more than that.
Sure, getting a missile defense system operational is going to be very expensive. It isn't going to be 100% all the time, and there will then be an effort to defeat the effectiveness of it. Military secrets /technology are the most costly and fleeting of all.
RATs are so shallow, I think that SDI for them is nothing more than the link to Pres. Reagan, whom they hated and now to Pres. Bush whom they also hate, nothing more. They operate on pure hysteria/emotions. They are shallow and dangerous.
Reagan was wrong for standing up to the evil empire rather than appeasing them as the leftists demanded!
Result: Soviet Empire no longer exits.
There are NO WMD's in IRAQ, period. No matter HOW MANY WMD's have been found already and no matter HOW many are found in the FUTURE, the die is cast. THERE ARE NO WMD's in IRAQ!!
No matter how many successful test HITS we have had and no matter IF WE SHOOT down an incoming NUKE, the die is cast in the leftists' minds.
Star Wars does NOT WORK!
Yeah, that's exactly what is going on.
This may be the funniest post on FR EVER!
Thanks for keeping me informed.
I had a liberal professor in college who used to make the point often, calling it a "licence to wage war with no consequence".
She was totally against it (and she didn't hide her anti-americanism) arguing not that it would not work, but that if it did work, the US would not have any incentive to find diplomatic solutions or not to wage war at any time since it would not have to worry about retaliation anymore.
I'm here all week.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/102504E.shtml
Seriously, do skim the article. His prose is pure bombast and his argumentatitive skills laughable. Congress should pass a law prohibiting him from marrying straight.
thanks for the link here:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/102504E.shtml
You are soooooooooooo right!! Gabler is so full of venom, so full of hate, he reads like a mental patient ranting that his strait jacket is too tight!
"Rovism" Gabler calls it. Ever heard that word anywhere else? Me either. I guess it didn't catch on.....which is why Gabler is confined to the Norman Lear School of Spin....he can't even come up with a catchy insult.
Besides, according to the libs Russia no longer has missiles pointed at us. Their lying, rapist, draft-dodging, poll pimp told us so.
Missle defense doesn't work? Well then where is the former Soviet Union? It brought them down.
Read my tag line it exposes some of them.
Common myth. The deployed systems use circa 1990 processors. Computer processors are much faster than the physics you can drive with normal molecular materials. The guidance package can impact targets all day long if the vehicle is up to the task.
The limiting factor is the ability to reliably fabricate exotic materials with extreme precision. Most of the failures to date have been related to new rocket motor designs; the guidance package itself has been successfully deployed in other weapon systems for some time (the basic system design and software capability tends to get heavily reused across weapon systems).
The problem has never been finding the target, but making a high-performance rocket that can be steered with sufficient precision at the velocities desired. The error bound on most mechanical designs tend to expand rather quickly at high Mach numbers. (The laser ring gyros that are the core of modern JDAMs were invented in the 1960s to solve mechanical precision degradation under extremely high acceleration in the ABM system designs back then.)
Originally (going back to the late '60s and the Nike missiles) effective missile defense meant that we didn't have to bend over for the Commies. The communists and fellow-travelers in the media and the Democratic Party pushed the ABM treaty, and opposed President Reagan's later Strategic Defense Initiative because these missile defense pulled some of the teeth from the communist world. These people had and have no interest in defending an economically, politically, and philosophically free America; their interest is in pushing communism. Such interest didn't end with the fall of the USSR.
Leftists oppose our missile defense for a variety of reasons. For one thing, they *reactively* oppose all of President Bush's current plans. For another, they hated everything about President Reagan.
And leftists don't want the U.S. to put North Korea into a box with our missile defenses; instead, the Left wants us to appease North Korea with cash.
In short, the Left wants the U.S. appeasing and surrendering. It should come as no surprise that such views put them at odds with Reagan and Bush.
Democrats and other anti-Americans have held all along that a missile defense system is not worth the cost because it will not work 100 percent of the time. Of course no weapons system works 100 percent of the time, nor does it need to.
Luck and other factors always plays a part. Let's imagine that North Korea fired off 5 nuke missiles toward the U.S. Our missile defense system fires 10 missiles back. If even 50 percent work, at 2-1 odds they would intercepts all but say, one.
Out of 5 North Korean missiles only 3 might be expected to work because North Korean missiles are not 100 percent perfect either.
Question: Would you rather be hit by, one missile or three? And who's to say that the one North Korean missile that gets through is one of the three that works?
California is like a bowl of Granola. Those that are fruits and nuts are flakes.
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