this trend far into the future. Or at least until they destroy America
completely...
This news was not entirely ignored. The New York Times/International Herald
Tribune covered it. But it has gone largely unreported elsewhere.
When a senior military officer says that a key defense system is operative,
newspapers should splash that on their front pages and television and radio
should begin their broadcasts with the news.
It's as if the media don't believe the U.S. is worth protecting.
But some Americans do, and last week they held another successful test. On
Friday, the kill vehicle from an interceptor launched from Vandenberg Air
Force Base in California hit a target dummy warhead launched in Alaska that
had been tracked by radar at Beale Air Force Base, outside of Sacramento,
Calif., as well as sea-based X-band radar and an Aegis Ballistic Missile
Defense ship. Multiple tracking is an important factor in neutralizing
decoys.
The outcome was enough for Gen. Victor E. Renuart Jr., commander of the
North American Aerospace Defense Command U.S. Northern Command, to declare
that the system is ready to be used at any time. With interceptor bases in
Vandenberg or Ft. Greely, Alaska, the U.S. has formed a virtual shield that
can protect the country from a limited missile attack launched from Asia.
"I'm fully confident that we have all of the pieces in place that, if the
nation needed to, we could respond," the Air Force general said.
The media's weak coverage of this milestone should have been expected. They
have long been an ally of the politically driven missile defense opponents
who said the system was the foolish dream of a doddering old man. It will
never work, they piously claimed. Can't hit a bullet with a bullet.
Yet the bullet has hit another bullet - six times out of the past nine tests
since 2001. Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry A. Obering III, director of the Missile
Defense Agency, has noted the system has not had a major problem in more
than two years.
"I think this goes a long way to answering" the skeptics' questions,
Oberling said.
The system is, of course, limited. But its development will advance - unless
it's derailed by senseless politics - as all technologies advance. Already
it is able to sift through other objects in the sky, select its intended
target and then destroy it.
The system's next test is scheduled for some time in the first half of 2008.
From that test, its ability to deal with airborne decoys will be assessed.
Further tests, and the inevitable improvements, such as multiple kill
vehicles deployed from a single interceptor, will continue as long as there
is a will to complete the job.
While the political left here and abroad continues to be skeptical, sober
leaders in Japan, Poland and the Czech Republic have expressed interest in a
system that Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy once derided as "Star Wars." At the
same time, Russia has threatened to aim missiles at Europe if parts of the
missile defense system are deployed on European soil.
Why so much fuss, we wonder, over a fanciful dream that can never be
achieved?
Next we take on the New Jersey demoncraps and the "REAL" culture of
corruption... Hahaha....