Quote:
Originally posted by Spanky
This debate reminds me of two other decisions Democrats made that were a screw up and the fact that they still deny they were screw ups shows why they can't be trusted with foreign policy.
2) SDI. North Korea has a nuclear weapon and the means to deliver it. Iran may be in the same situation soon, but the liberals still argue that SDI is a mistake. Until they admit they were wrong on SDI they can't be trusted.
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Spanky, I don't know whether the Democrats were right or wrong to oppose the program, but I know:
(a) it was funded and proceeded;
(b) it was initially pitched as a defense against the Soviet Union -- not rogue states (no one worried too much about rogue states then) -- which made it even less plausible technically; and
(c) as anyone who is paying attention knows, even now -- nigh 20 years later --it still doesn't work worth a damn.
It is only recently that the program "passed" about the simplest possible test (i.e. hitting one slow missile that they knew was coming) after numerous failures. For a long time, BTW -- the program folks hid how badly it was doing.
It may still be worth pursuing, because we have the money now and who knows how technology can leap forward, but odds are that shit ain't gonna save us from anything in any of our lifetimes.
Point of all of the above -- opposing SDI in the 1980s and/or early 1990s was not at all irrational, given the state of the technology, and budgetary constraints. Also, it was reasonable to believe that it could be needlessly destablizing to try to break out of the implict compact of Mutual Assured Destruction for shit aht wouldn't work anyway.
S_A_M
P.S. To answer Hank's anticipated query -- I am neither a rocket scientist nor an expert in missile or signalling technology. My perceptions are based on reading and on secondary/tertiary sources. One of those sources, however, is a very smart government physicist who happens to be an expert on some of the above -- and who basically says that any time someone says "SDI" you should call the cops because there's a robbery in progress.
