Still Hating America.

[Adder]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Ho hum. We weren't at war then.

We weren't? I thought your position was that the "islamofascists" had already begun their campaign against us, which we would have realized had Clinton not been getting his rod polished in the oval office.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Ho hum. We weren't at war then.

Sure we were. We were at war since the 1993 attack on the WTC, it's just that the Clinton Administration was too fucking stupid to see it, and the GOP Congress wasn't responsible for bringing that point up.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Gattigap
Sure we were. We were at war since the 1993 attack on the WTC, it's just that the Clinton Administration was too fucking stupid to see it, and the GOP Congress wasn't responsible for bringing that point up.

The title on this thread almost always makes that Night Ranger song go through my head. Ah yeah, all night.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Adder
Either that or the peace activists recognized it as yet another esacalation and provocation (leaving aside the expense and still miniscule chance of success).

But you know, you can just keep assuming that you are the only rational one. I do, however, suggest that you watch out for a mine shaft gap.

Are you one of those people that think the success of the patriot missiles in shooting down the SCUDs in Israel in the first Gulf War were actually staged?

[SlaveNoMore]

Gattigap
Sure we were. We were at war since the 1993 attack on the WTC, it's just that the Clinton Administration was too fucking stupid to see it, and the GOP Congress wasn't responsible for bringing that point up.

Yep, they all completely fucked up.

Just like all of Congress - and the rest of the entire world - was certain Saddam had stores of WMDs.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

With regard to the "successes" of the SCUD missiles in the First Gulf War, people with much more relevant credentials than yours or mine have disagreed about how well the Patriots worked.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
The six choppers shot down in three weeks (?) reflect either: (a) improved weaponry and/or and tactics by the insurgents (which the Army says is not the case) or (b) higher risk operations, involving more close air support in dense urban environments. Part of the price of the plan.

Page A1 of today's NYT:

• Documents captured from Iraqi insurgents indicate that some of the recent fatal attacks against American helicopters are a result of a carefully planned strategy to focus on downing coalition aircraft, one that American officials say has been carried out by mounting coordinated assaults with machine guns, rockets and surface-to-air missiles.

[Adder]

Originally posted by Spanky
Are you one of those people that think the success of the patriot missiles in shooting down the SCUDs in Israel in the first Gulf War were actually staged?

You believe that we have set up a series of laser-shooting sattelites that can shoot down any incoming missiles?

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Ho hum. We weren't at war then.

Of course we weren't, silly. He hadn't started it yet.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Adder
You believe that we have set up a series of laser-shooting sattelites that can shoot down any incoming missiles?

I had dinner with an actual rocket scientist last night. Based on what he said, the laser technolocy is getting pretty close (meaning single digit years) to being able to do this, although it won't be satelites shooting the lasers, it will be a combination of stationary ground and mobile ground lasers, as well as lasers shot from a 747. Apparently we have a joint program with Israel that is developing this (and they, of course, have a ton of incentive to get this done quickly).

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
With regard to the "successes" of the SCUD missiles in the First Gulf War, people with much more relevant credentials than yours or mine have disagreed about how well the Patriots worked.

The debate isn't over "whether" they worked, the debate is over "how well" they worked. The whole argument against SDI is that it is a pipe dream that can never work. That shooting down a missle in mid flight is next to impossible. The gulf war, which was just within ten years of the start of SDI showed that missiles could be shot down thereby showing the futility of that whole anti-SDI argument.

Why does it matter what the success rate is? Can't that be improved? Once it is show that they can be shot down, isn't is just an issue of improving the technology? If their success rate is ten percent, can't you just deploy ten times the amount of Patriots?

If things got really tense with China or North Korea, and it looked as though they might laungh, and you lived in San Francisco, would you not want a few Patriots deployed to protect the city? Or would you say that "their success was overplayed in the first gulf war, so we shouldn't use them".

The whole point was that they did work. Of course the anti-SDI people have argued, like you, from "that the success was overplayed", (which is irrelevent) to "the whole thing was a fabricated hoax" (that is from the anti SDI people who realize that even a few successes shows the stupidity of the whole anti SDI argument).

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Adder
You believe that we have set up a series of laser-shooting sattelites that can shoot down any incoming missiles?

I believe that the most important job of the Federal Government and the Defense Department is to protect our citizens. One of the biggest threats to the lives of our citizenry is if a Rogue nation gets a nuclear weapon and the means to deliver it to the United States.

Absent a defense against these missiles, then any nation (like Pakistan if its government gets overthrown) would have us at their mercy. It does not matter how poor they are, how lame their military is, they just need one nuclear tipped missile that can reach the United States and we are screwed. They could demand anything they want and we would have to pay up. Any system that would give us even the slightest chance of shooting down one of the missiles would be invaluable. How can you even put a price on an entire city like LA (and the lives in it)?

The only conceivable argument against producing a system that could possibly save entire cities would be that it could never possibly work. No matter how much money we put into that success would be impossible. Leaving aside that the idea that developing any technology is impossible is absurd, that is not even relevant here because the patriot missiles showed that it can work. And the Patriot technology is not that sophisticated.

I can't think of a single thing the Federal government does that could be considered more important than developing a missile defense system. Some day some lunatic is going to get their hands on a nuclear missile that can be delivered to the US, and anyone that argued against SDI is going to look even more shortsighted and stupid that those people that said airplanes or submarines were never going to be a useful military tool.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Spanky
Why does it matter what the success rate is? Can't that be improved? Once it is show that they can be shot down, isn't is just an issue of improving the technology? If their success rate is ten percent, can't you just deploy ten times the amount of Patriots?

The formula is not 10 x 10% = 100%, but instead is 1 - .90^10 = 65%; if you deploy 44 times as many, about 1 in 100 will still get through.

Think of it like birth control - nothing is quite perfect, and if one little wiggly gets through, life changes quickly.

This doesn't get to the underlying debate, just makes the way the math works clear.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
The formula is not 10 x 10% = 100%, but instead is 1 - .90^10 = 65%; if you deploy 44 times as many, about 1 in 100 will still get through.

Think of it like birth control - nothing is quite perfect, and if one little wiggly gets through, life changes quickly.

If you have ten nuclear missiles coming at the United States and you shoot down only one, isn't that infinitely better than not shooting any down (especially if you are the one that lived in the city that was saved)?.

And the rogue nations that come up with these aren't going to have a lot of missiles. Possibly just one or two.

And even if there is just a slight chance at shooting them all down, isn't that a chance worth taking considering the lives at stake?

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Spanky
If you have ten nuclear missiles coming at the United States and you shoot down only one, isn't that infinitely better than not shooting any down (especially if you are the one that lived in the city that was saved)?.

And the rogue nations that come up with these aren't going to have a lot of missiles. Possibly just one or two.

And even if there is just a slight chance at shooting them all down, isn't that a chance worth taking considering the lives at stake?

Who is arguing to the contrary today, or are you rehashing arguments from the 80s? I haven't heard much debate on this of late, but the debate in the 80s was mostly over MAD versus other strategies.