Will Kerry support Missle Defense like Clinton?

[PoliticsSportsMusic]

This is an area very sore to me. This so-called project is such a dirty trick on the American people. They keep the money and give us a defense system that 1)doesn't work and 2)would have been appropriate only in the cold war days. We must cut the defense budget drastically. Our military is stuck in a cold war mentality...not because they are stupid but because it pays very well. Also,why do we need places like area 51 anymore....you know they have nobody watching them...they can,and have gotten away with murder, not to mention wasting trillions of our tax dollars.

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. I hope he doesn't but fear he will. What a waste of money.

How about we shift it and put it into vouchers for every graduating high school senior to put towards their post-secondary education institution or training of choice?

[blm]

2. I can't believe people haven't studied his positions by now. He's AGAINST

the militarization of space. AGAINST Star Wars. He'll CANCEL the mini-nukes program.

[EDT]

3. Missile defense does work, though Friendly fire incidents for some systems

have left a bad mark on it's scorecard. Patriot did a flawless job intercepting enemy missiles in Iraq this time around, but some software and operator screwups resulted in several in-excusable friendly fire deaths.

I have tried arguing this point in several threads in the past, but find if someone has pre-decided missile defense does not work, no argument of mine, no matter how strong, will be accepted.

I will say this one more time though, the systems out there now do work, and work well. Friendly fire incidents are the ugly mar that needs repair.

[tabasco]

5. Maybe because you post unsupported claims.

If you think Patriot and Star Wars are the same deal, I'm afraid you don't have much credibilty.

Do some research. Don't post unsupported nonsense.

[EDT]

7. It begins....

[Massacure]

6. Patriot Missile and Star Wars are too different ball games.

Hitting a scud at a couple hundred miles per hour, and hitting an ICBM with decoys at 26,000 miles an hour are two different ball games.

[EDT]

9. Hitting a Scud at a couple hundred mph? Try 6000 mph closing

speed between the two missiles.

[Massacure]

11. Oh ya, thats right. I forgot it is a combo of the two missiles not one.

In that case it would be 52,000 miles per hour vs 6,000 miles per hour. It's still two different ball games.

[EDT]

12. Missiles can't maneuver as much at true ICBM speeds- the difficulty

is timing the fuse precisely.

[Massacure]

13. Yes -- They have tried since Reagan

Spending Billions. Give it up.

[EDT]

14. There's the spirit! Claim failure and give up. Then fake a moon landing

or missile intercept.

[Pepperbelly]

15. it can never work because it ...

is so subject to counter measures. Never mind decoys, which it cannot discern from a real target, consider the effect of a high altitude burst on the entire electro-magnetic spectrum.

That and the velocities of an ICBM when it's arcing down is far more than the systems can handle with much hope. Even the platforms currently available and discounting exotic weapons, cannot hope to match the speed.

[Salviati]

4. for those who may not have too much information on the problems

inherent in the missle defense system, here is a link to the Union of Concerned Scientists page:

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_security/missile_defense/index.cfm

[eridani]

8. Yeah, right.

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_security/missile_defense/page.cfm?pageID=1403

The multibillion-dollar U.S. ballistic missile shield due to start operating by Sept. 30 appears incapable of shooting down any incoming warheads, an independent scientists' group said on Thursday.

A technical analysis found "no basis for believing the system will have any capability to defend against a real attack," the Union of Concerned Scientists said in a 76-page report titled Technical Realities.

<snip>

The Missile Defense Agency "appears to be picking numbers out of thin air," the report said of past Pentagon assertions of a high probability of shooting down targets.


"There is no data to justify such an assumption," added the scientists' group, which is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Its findings dovetailed with an audit last month by Congress's General Accounting Office (news - web sites) that said the system's effectiveness would be "largely unproven" when the initial capability goes on alert.


http://www.space.com/news/missile_defense_000523.html

Now, accusations of a cover-up are fueling the criticism. Theodore Postol, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology science professor who studies national security policy, says he has documents showing that crucial data in an early test of the system were removed to make the results appear successful.

The tampered data "clearly indicate that they have no way to discriminate between the balloons and the warhead," Postol said. "They tampered with the data."

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0713-06.htm

Tens of billions of dollars have been spent developing ground-based, sensor-equipped rockets — "kill vehicles" that would intercept and destroy incoming warheads — the first of which is to be installed in the fall of 2004.

There's just one problem, according to Postol, a 57-year-old missile systems specialist at Boston's Massachusetts Institute of Technology: They do not, cannot and will not work.

The system is fatally flawed, he says, because the sensors are incapable of distinguishing between a missile and a decoy — and decoys would be part of any enemy attack.

Postol charges that the findings were manipulated by the contractor, TRW Inc.

Moreover, when MIT's prestigious Lincoln Laboratory was asked to review TRW's research, rather than risk millions a year in government funding, it rubber-stamped the work.

Or, as the blunt-speaking physicist prefers to put it: "They lied and concealed evidence. They covered up a scientific fraud. They may be in criminal violation."

[olddem43]

10. Clinton supported the ABM treaty -

which was originally with the Soviets and Russia honored the treaty too. One of Bush's first acts was to announce that he was unilaterally abrogating it. This has the potential to set off another arms race. What a complete ass! The patriot missile system is a different matter.