Posted on 09/09/2001 12:39:52 PM PDT by super175
Edited on 04/22/2004 12:31:02 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
The secretary of defense said on Fox News Sunday that he will urge President Bush to veto a military-spending bill that cuts $1.3 billion from his request for missile-defense and restricts testing.
"There is a hard core of people who, for whatever reason, are determined to kill missile defense. And I just don't believe that vulnerability of the American people to ballistic missiles is a rational policy," Rumsfeld said.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Rummy is out to militarize space. Total control, minimum land infrastructure, minimum troops - see, it gets hard to find volunteers in a serf population to fight mythical enemies abroad for the elites.
And - if they get their little, evil appropriations, every one of you can bet that the surveillance and coercive aspects of it will be focused on you just as much as any foreign land.
It's really depressing that about 90% of people who post to this board don't understand the reality and purposes of NMD.
The democrats are using foreign policy to try and win the White House. They are not looking after our national interests.
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b99b69d7993.htm
Guys who talk so freely about how bad NMD is are completely uneducated as to the facts and are trying to paint a war mongering picture of the current adminstration.
NMD is there to prevent war, not cause one.
What we have here is a bunch of non experts thumping their partisan drums.
As soon as the green light is given, 22 million people on Taiwan get invaded. Odds are they will be fighting back.
But for the democrats, hey, who cares if millions of people die, just so long as I am in the white house.
The democrats are acting out of ideological fervor not honest assesments of the world situation.
They are doing little more than trying to win seats in Congress using NMD as a tool for that purpose.
Whether NMD is good or not is irrelevant to the democrat party. To them the only good thing that America can do is have democrats in the White House, and Congress.
China can launch missles off the back of an 18 wheeler and hit LA.
Those who are acquiring nuclear capability are doing so to prevent ever being bombed as was Serbia.
China wants to be dominant military superpower in Asia. They were building up their nuclear forces LONG before Serbia ever happened.
You have no clue about how China works or the history behind it.
Serbia is after the fact. That was just an excuse that they use to justify what they were already doing.
As for other places, the proliferation of nuclear weapons and missiles is a destablizing factor. It has nothing to do with the USA. If Pakistan has missiles that can fly 500 miles to India and carry nuclear war heads, that is cause for concern. No where is the USA in there. In other words, all these old world fights now have the capability to go nuclear.
China and other proliferators use proliferation as a method to gain stature in the world. They want the people that agree with their world views to be able to become the dominant forces in the world.
China is dynamically opposed to the US in many ways. They see us as Nazis. They want to stop a "Nazi invasion" and anything that threatens the CCP's ideology.
In order to counter balance what America stands for, they proliferate weapons.
Whether or not they can fly across the Pacific Ocean is just one aspect.
And, BTW, you are the one calling names, not me. I think you might be suprised at just how much history I do know, sport.
It is really short-sighted people like you who fall into the elites' trap that will cost us our liberties.
Ah yes, "missile defense is to protect Americans" - just like the social security number would never be used for any purpose except to identify individual citizen's pension account. Ha, ha.
And why do we need to protect Americans from foreign nukes? Is it because other people are just born hating America? Or is it because of our moronic State Dept peopled with Ivy League elitists which operates on a continuum no matter which party is in power?
We picked up Sadam's missiles by sattelite. Did that destroy them? A10s and Patriots did that but, as I am sure you know, not all of them.
As for militarization of space, better there than here.
NATO requires members to have interoperable equipment- it is not a "U.S." requirement.
While US carriers and forces are sometimes used arrogantly, the sailors and soldiers deserve protection from ballistic missiles.
The national missile defense program is only an outgrowth of the whole US ballistic missile defense program.
The day is coming when US forces won't be so widely deployed, but it's a few generations off.
I am no chest beater, just a believer in Mr. Murphy. If it can go wrong it probably will. To everyone who says everything everywhere will always be jimdandy and great, I disagree.
it is the US that is forcing foreign nations to spend on defense, including Eastern Europe's new NATO members. They want to, and should be, spending their resources on economic development.
Just how in the world is the US forcing people to spend money? The problem is a core, fundamental difference between what real Americans believe in, and what those places like China believe in. Their communist background creates this stereotypical driven picture of nazi America and themselves as peace loving defenders of communism and communist systems.
You are being anti-American by blaming America. In your view, America has to adopt those ideologies of communism in order to no longer be a threat to communist states. Japan and Taiwan, and South Korea, and Australia, and New Zealand, and many other places are not building up their army to defend from an American attack. But the Chinese are.
And why do we need to protect Americans from foreign nukes? Is it because other people are just born hating America?
Like I said, there is a fundamental difference in what we base our society on, the principles of the Constitution, and what those other places base their societies on.
Our system threatens their system because we give them a second opinion about the way it could all work. There are fundamental competing and conflicting differences in social and political beliefs that cannot co-exist in the same place. Two pieces of matter cannot occupy the same space.
Just by being who we are, we are a threat to them.
I was recently on business at the MAKS 2001 airshow near Moscow. While I did not go over to the weapons displays, I was really impressed with the flight displays and current level of quality engineered into the latest civil aircraft. As an A&P with 22 years in the aviation business, and a comprehensive background including inspection, overhaul, management, line maint, avionics - LMP release authority, etc., > I inspected several of their aircraft very closely for quality standards and compliance. "Awesome", is my feeling about the Be-200 and Tu-204/214 especially. There are many other examples in helicopters, general aviation, etc. I have developed respect in a place I once reserved for "other" feelings.
Policy-makers over here need to understand we do not live in a vacume, and that a market economy in Russia is now driving economic decisions, as well as funding systems development. Aircraft currently in production in Russia are designed to ICAO standards accepted by authorities world-wide. The Sukhoi flight exhibitions gave a very sobering impression of the direction they took several years ago toward greater aerodynamics and improved performance characteristics of their aircraft. Vectored-thrust engines allow maneuvers previously unobtainable by any aircraft, including all of our current fighter forces. Russia is going to sell - successfully - these new aircraft to all buyers, while the more expensive technologies made here (eventually) will prove unobtainable by foreign countries due to extreme expense. The largest problem is that Russia's customers will include many former US customers for fighter aircraft, and that even our air forces will not be equipped with the next-generation aircraft (JSF) for many years. NOW there is a vacume!
Worse, now that all the '80s and '90s b/s rhetoric about "stealth" technologies is being proven questionable, we are left with a procurement plan and unmarketable fleet of aircraft that will place us BEHIND Russia and some other nations in the defense marketing sector.
The time is now to get a "TRANSPOLAR" Free Trade Agreement WITH Russia, and realise a market system is ruling the sea and air. Trade is the strategy we need to employ. Not weapons-first dipolomacy.
You are talking about aircraft, weapons sales, etc. That is rather a couple of nuts and bolts out of the whole car, when Rumsfeld is looking at the whole car.
Unless you have a top secret clearance and are posting what you know on the web, I would not be so sure that America has not done a lot of research. Even if they haven't done research, blame the previous administration. Airplanes are not designed in 6 months.
What in the world does NMD have to do with what you are saying? So selling airplanes is more vital than NMD? If it is all economic, then last I heard Bush offered to let the Russkies build part of the NMD system! America has one thing a lot of countries don't MONEY.
NMD is rather about strategic thinking about the safety of the world. It is not about Russia, but rather every other Tom Dick and Harry who is going nuclear. That part must be economic too because China and N Korean keep on selling stuff to whoever wants it. It might sound like nothing more than economics, but those nuclear missiles are dangerous, even if they are not aimed at the USA.
If NMD were implemented IMO airplane sales would increase. Countries would no longer have to rely just on missiles, but rather would have to have a fighter force, pilots, etc. By doing that we limit the range and potency of militaries merely because economics cuts both ways. You can't have everything.
Pretty soon we could have a world market for NMD systems. There could be a lot of money made from such a move, and plus, everyone is a lot safer.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.