The days of America leading the way in intelligence and innovation seem like such a distant memory. The NY Times covers a failed test of our government's highly touted missle defense system which is estimated to cost $50 billion over the next five years. It gives the impression that our leaders not only have no idea what it is they're trying to do, but they don't have a clue as to how to do it either. So they'll just throw as much money at it as they can and hope for the best.
Naturally optimistic, a program spokesperson pointed out that this aborted test was a "very good exercise". Please note that this one "exercise" had a pricetag of $85 million. But wait, says the spokesperson, we can reuse the malfunctioning rocket again in another exercise. So, we're going to reemploy a missle that didn't work in the first place? Riiiiight. Not deterred, the spokesman adds that the agency says the tests are devised "to build confidence in the system that we are working to design." Well, I think I can sleep safely at night.
How about this for an alternative? Instead of paying a whole lot of money to blow up things that might be shot at us, how about we try to stop pissing people off to the point where they want to kill us all?
With the largest budget and biggest trade deficit in history, the U.S. is looking more and more like a little kid who just started getting an allowance and runs out to waste it all on the shiniest, newest toy out there. We may not need it. We may not know how to use it. But dammit, it's the biggest, baddest one out there. Now all we need is a parent to reach down and smack us for being stupid and tell us that we're cut off.
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