Via Robert at Lawyers, Guns & Money, comes this NY Times report on the latest failure of the US Missile Defense Shield.
...after an embarrassing series of test failures in the ambitious, expensive and highly criticized program to build a national missile-defense shield, the U.S. military is slowing the deployment of interceptors while it conducts more testing.
[...]
The government has spent about $100 billion on missile defense since 1983, including $7.8 billion authorized for the current fiscal year. Interceptors, however, have failed five times in 11 tests, even though some critics of the program say the tests have been practically rigged to succeed.
[...]
Philip Coyle, a former chief of testing for the Pentagon and a critic of the missile defense system, said that if highly scripted tests fail, it is hard to see how they could succeed in a surprise attack.
''The basic challenges haven't changed. Basically, hitting an enemy missile out in space, at 15,000 mph, is like trying to hit a hole-in-one in golf when the hole is going 15,000 mph,'' he said. He added that enemy countermeasures and decoys make the job even tougher.
This is one of the biggest white elephants the US has ever pursued and does nothing to secure North America from attack.
Canada's own Stephen Harper can be expected to jump on the bandwagon if he ascends to Prime Minister. There will be no objective analysis of the cost effectiveness of the system; just a request from George and the nodding bobble head of Stephen. Of course, you won't find the US Missile Defense Shield in the Conservative platform, but Harper has already indicated he would entertain joining. But there's no hidden agenda.Oh yeah, based on the US tests, the unguided nuclear wreckage of a fluke "shoot-down" lands somewhere between the Queen Charlotte Islands and Edmonton.... whether we join or not.
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