Comments for US boosts Hawaii defense to counter NKorea threat »
Posted By orndorffter 6 months, 3 weeks ago in NewsThe United States has deployed anti-missile defenses around Hawaii amid reports that North Korea may fire its most advanced ballistic missile toward the U.S. islands early next month, adding to already high tensions in the region.
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hyperbola6 months, 3 weeks ago
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Our corrupt "military/industrial" complex must need another hit of the heroin of public money!
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The US missile defence system is the magic pudding that will never run out
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/1...
.... The good news is that, at the present rate of progress, reliable missile defence is only 50 years away. The bad news is that it has been 50 years away for the past six decades.
The system has been in development since 1946, and so far it has achieved a grand total of nothing. You wouldn't know it if you read the press releases published by the Pentagon's missile defence agency: the word "success" features more often than any other noun. It is true that the programme has managed to hit two out of the five missiles fired over the past five years during tests of its main component, the ground-based midcourse missile defence (GMD) system. But, sadly, these tests bear no relation to anything resembling a real nuclear strike.
All the trials run so far - successful or otherwise - have been rigged. The target, its type, trajectory and destination, are known before the test begins. Only one enemy missile is used, as the system doesn't have a hope in hell of knocking down two or more. If decoy missiles are deployed, they bear no resemblance to the target and they are identified as decoys in advance. In order to try to enhance the appearance of success, recent flight tests have become even less realistic: the agency has now stopped using decoys altogether when testing its GMD system....
.... Missile defence is so expensive and the measures required to evade it so cheap that if the US government were serious about making the system work it would bankrupt the country, just as the arms race helped to bring the Soviet Union down. By spending a couple of billion dollars on decoy technologies, Russia would commit the US to trillions of dollars of countermeasures. The cost ratios are such that even Iran could outspend the US.
The US has spent between $120bn and $150bn on the programme since Ronald Reagan relaunched it in 1983. Under George Bush, the costs have accelerated. The Pentagon has requested $62bn for the next five-year tranche, which means that the total cost between 2003 and 2013 will be $110bn. Yet there are no clear criteria for success. As a recent paper in the journal Defense and Security Analysis shows, the Pentagon invented a new funding system in order to allow the missile defence programme to evade the government's usual accounting standards. It's called spiral development, which is quite appropriate, because it ensures that the costs spiral out of control.-
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hyperbola6 months, 3 weeks ago
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So why commit endless billions to a programme that is bound to fail? I'll give you a clue: the answer is in the question. It persists because it doesn't work.
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US politics, because of the failure by both Republicans and Democrats to deal with the problems of campaign finance, is rotten from head to toe. But under Bush, the corruption has acquired Nigerian qualities. Federal government is a vast corporate welfare programme, rewarding the industries that give millions of dollars in political donations with contracts worth billions. Missile defence is the biggest pork barrel of all, the magic pudding that won't run out, however much you eat. The funds channelled to defence, aerospace and other manufacturing and service companies will never run dry because the system will never work.
To keep the pudding flowing, the administration must exaggerate the threats from nations that have no means of nuking it - and ignore the likely responses of those that do. ....
If we seek to understand American foreign policy in terms of a rational engagement with international problems, or even as an effective means of projecting power, we are looking in the wrong place. The government's interests have always been provincial. It seeks to appease lobbyists, shift public opinion at crucial stages of the political cycle, accommodate crazy Christian fantasies and pander to television companies run by eccentric billionaires. The US does not really have a foreign policy. It has a series of domestic policies which it projects beyond its borders. That they threaten the world with 57 varieties of destruction is of no concern to the current administration. The only question of interest is who gets paid and what the political kickbacks will be.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/1...
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prophyporcritesComment removed: Spammer, Hard Banned
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libsRfunnyComment removed: Hard Banned2 Replies
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Commodore16 months, 3 weeks ago
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Our technology is better than Ding Dong Il's. He does know that doesn't he? NK is just now coming out w/nukes but we've had them for a while and we can shoot them down right? Does he really think he has more than a snowball's chance? Or does he believe Obama doesn't have the nerve? Does he know something about Obama that we don't? Is he expecting an apology from Obama? Is that it?
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Albmore6 months, 3 weeks ago
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Why are we only applying defensive missles? What about counter attack missles?
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Also why isn't China N. Koreas main support line saying anything. They did meet wish Russia and the US was not allowed to attend. To me it looks as if N.Korea is carrying out China and Russia policy -
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pokydoke6 months, 3 weeks ago
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N Korea is sabre rattling. Kim Jong il is getting old and probably not in the best of health. The NK army is rotting away and the country is in terrible shape with many of the people starving.Mostly China and Russia are worried about failed state status and millions of refugees crossing into their perspective countries. I don't think any country wants to invade NK because of the mess they'll have to clean up. If you think Iraq is a mess, wait til you see North Korea.
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Tangent0016 months, 3 weeks ago
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It's idiotic to think this is anything more the Kim Jong Il posturing like a schoolyard doofus. Given his apparent psychological stability, I think it's prudent of Gates to have a defense in place, however.
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So what happens if Captain Spaz gets a brain f*rt and launches? Do we immediately turn the entire country of mostly poor, horribly oppressed people into a vast field of black glass? -
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hefaa1Comment removed: Hard Banned
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orndorffter6 months, 3 weeks ago
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Obama was born in the US we have seen and congerss has seen. And if N.Korea seems to think hes going to set back and let them fire at United States they"ll see just how mad and what that calm taking man can do, N.Korea better think a 2nd time because they are going to need a lot of body bags , the old saying , when you have a man who is calm and queit watch out the he comes out fighting like a bare.
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orndorffter6 months, 3 weeks ago
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We have got it covered, Obama is smart enough not to leak out everything and what we are going to do if they atempt to fire at Hawii,He knows we cant tell only what hes let out becauce that would be a mastake and he knows that he also knows there are ones here pretending to care for America that would turn their back on us in a sencond to tell what he has plans if the fire that missile. when it comes to a threat like this we would be stupid to let everything out.
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I asure yous he got plans that well take care of N.Korea they better hang their head and think befor they try to launch at Hawii.
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