Thursday, November 04, 2004
During the next four years the gang is going to go after a lot of stuff that has been on their wish list for a long time. This particular project for diverting public money to private corporations has been around so long that its entire justification for being implemented is predicated on an international dynamic that has gone the way of Duran Duran and leg warmers. Of course, I can't imagine that will stop Dick from pushing it through: (from here)
On the plus side if the Star Wars system is finally implemented, maybe Dick Cheney will have completed the last task of this mission and teleport out of here moving on to the next level.
Reagan's dream of neutralizing the Soviet Union's entire nuclear arsenal with an impenetrable space-based shield - a so-called "Star Wars" defense complete with particle beams, X-ray lasers and projectiles fired by electromagnetic rail guns - remains as unaffordable and impractical today as two decades ago. His words, however, are still a rallying cry for a new generation of conservatives on the verge of making a far less ambitious version of Reagan's dream a reality.
The Bush administration stands poised to deliver on its promise of deploying a limited defense against long-range missiles by the end of 2004. Although the ground-based system in Alaska never will be capable of preventing the Russian strike that Reagan feared, supporters contend it will at least protect the United States from a North Korean attack if that country develops a long-range threat.
Ridiculed in the 1980s, largely relegated to research in the 1990s, missile defense has enjoyed a stunning reversal of fortune under President Bush. Skeptics argue that the zeal with which conservatives have pursued the program has blinded them to the pitfalls of spending billions on a system that hasn't been realistically tested and ignores more conventional terrorist threats.
"It's a political, ideological system that has nothing to do with strategy," said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., an outspoken critic. "It's something they've wanted for 20 years; they're vindicating President Reagan and their view of the world."
On the plus side if the Star Wars system is finally implemented, maybe Dick Cheney will have completed the last task of this mission and teleport out of here moving on to the next level.
