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The Guardian moves to the next argument against self-defense

UK Guardian:

"The Pentagon claimed a victory for America's missile defence system last night when a mock warhead was successfully destroyed in space in a test which cost $85m"

Ok. So, weve quickly moved from " It wont work, it cant work" on to " Sure it works, but it costs too much"

Hmmm. I can think of one thing that is more expensive:

Yes. Defending yourself can be expensive. Dying is much cheaper.

I would like someone to explain to me why anti-aircraft systems are "ok" but anti-missile systems are "not ok".

Is anyone advocating that we shouldnt have anti-aircraft systems? They dont always work, they fail from time to time, they cost a lot too, but no one, not even John Kerry says "It's a Waste of time and money, lets not shoot down other peoples military aircraft as it would be provocative"

Ok, I agree that its hard to shoot down missiles but thats why everyone is not doing it.

Its hard.
But we do it anyway.

It's also hard to make aircraft invisible to radar and make them out of plastics instead of metals. We managed to pull those impossible things off, despite everyone saying that they couldnt be done too. We are so good at doing impossible things that we have civilians making their own spacecraft. Thats something that other countries dont even try to do, but put a bunch of "sideburn wearing" free people in Mojave with enough time and money and you never know what is going to roll out of the Hangar.

Going into space is hard.
Going into space is expensive.
But we do it anyway.

Imagine for a second that we didnt decide to make Ballistic Missile defense a priority. Look at the world for a second. North Korea and Iran, working every day of the week to build missiles and atomic weapons. North Korea has already launched their missiles - weapons systems, not camera laden publicity shots - over their neighboring countries.

Do you seriously want to live in a world where we didnt even try to defend ourselves from those to psycopathic regimes?

Making Nuclear Aircraft carriers is hard.
Making Nuclear Aircraft carriers is expensive.

But we do it anyway. And we have 12 of them.

Everyone, on our side or our enemies side cares where our carriers are. If your country is hit by a natural disaster and you need help you care a great deal about where our Navy is. If you oppose the United States and a US Navy Carrier Task Force shows up on your doorstep, you care.

France has two nuclear carriers, and no one cares.
Ever.
Not even the French.

The one thing the world can count on is that the French Navy is always somewhere else when their is hard or expensive tasks to be done.Don't think so? just ask the Lebanese.

So, who is wasting money on "questionable weapons systems", The US or the French? Could the French Navy be a force for freedom in the world instead of floating brothel customers? Sure they could, but they choose not to. Yet they spend the money anyway on systems they have no intention of ever using.

The UK could use a Nuclear Carrier, atleast they use their Navy like a Navy. If the French arent going to use theirs, perhaps they should lease it out to someone who will?

The way I see it, if the Russians and Chinese are going to continue to proliferate missile technology to criminal client states, then we dont have much of a choice. We can either do the easy thing and start shooting at their cities, or we can do the much harder thing of trying to defend ourself against the threat.

Just like every generation has done since the beginning of time.

Rock.
Which leads to -
Shield.
Which leads to -
Stick.
Which leads to -
a bigger stick with a sharpend end.
Which leads to you -
lining up your best friends with big sticks with sharpend ends.
Which leads to you -
lining up your best friends with big sticks with sharpend ends and carrying shields.
Which leads to -
Bow and Arrows.
Which leads to -
Lots of Bows and Arrows.
Which leads to -
a big steel stick sharpened on both sides.
Which leads to -
a suit made of metal.
Which leads to -
arrows with metal tips.
Which leads to -
Gunpowder.
Which leads to you -
throwing a box filled with gunpowder.
Which leads to you -
using metal tube filled with gunpowder to shoot a big rock.
Which leads to you -
using a metal tube filled with gunpowder to shoot big metal rock
Which leads to you -
using a metal tube filled with gunpowder to shoot big metal rock filled with gunpowder.
Which leads to you -
using airplanes to drop big metal rock filled with gunpowder.
Which leads to you -
Using metal tube filled with gunpowder to shoot down airplane.
Which leads to you -
using another airplane to shoot down that airplane.
Which leads to you -
Launching a big metal tube filled with gunpowder.

Which natually and quite understandably leads to -

you shooting down the big metal tube.

Well, atleast "trying" to shoot it down.

Of course you could just "do nothing", which was an option at any one of the steps along the way. The result would be like this:

Rock.
Which leads to -
you doing nothing
Which leads to -
you sitting on your fat ass around the campfire one night singing
"give peace a chance" while your enemy sneaks up from behind and beats your brains in.

Well that worked out swell now didnt it? Only now it isnt one soon to be dead dork sitting around a campfile, its the very real possibility that picture above will come into reality for millions of people all over the world.

Am I being a real reactionary by mentioning the word "enemy"? The idea that some people might just be "out to get me" or do me harm in some way, isnt that a little paranoid?

Well, yeah it is, but I've got 10,000 years of human history backing me up on my assertion, what have you got that says we should ignore what is written so clearly on the record of humanity? Pick any continent, any culture, any people at any time since the end of the last ice age and show me any group of humans, anywhere - anytime, that didnt at some point take up arms against the folks on the other side of the hill at some point in their history.

My grandfather used to say; "Humans just aint nice people".

Well I'm not that cynical, but I know what he meant. Some people are nice. In fact, out of 8 billion humans I'd go so far as to say that most people are nice. But there are still lots of people who are decidedly "not nice". There are still lots of people in the world who believe that killing and enslavement are just the natural actions of the state.

The problem I have with many people on the left is that they fundamentally dont understand that pacifism in the face of genocide is not a virtue. In fact, by promising to not fight they ensure that more people are killed, not less. Sometimes being a pacifist can be a brave act, but there are times when being a pacifist is just another name for being a coward.

In a free society, a democracy, a place where men are not the property of the state, but the state is the servant of the people, if you call yourself a citizen of that society, you don't have a right to defend your country against its enemies -

you have a duty.

Posted @ September 01, 2006 09:52 PM | Current Affairs

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