Bush's Star Wars fantasy

While the US economy languishes and schools get "left behind" in the Bush budget, our president has somehow managed to eke out almost $11 billion (that's billion with a B) this year alone to fund and deploy a missile defense system that's so full of glitches and problems that its technicians don't know what's wrong with it or how to make it work. No matter - it doesn't make a difference whether it works or is worth $11 billion... as long as it's in place before election day. From Slate:

Back in the early 1980s, after some scandals involving major weapons systems that were deployed before they'd been adequately tested, the Pentagon adopted a policy of 'fly before buy.' No system would graduate from research and development to procurement until it had passed a series of tests - not just 'development tests,' in which a weapon demonstrates certain technical milestones, but 'operational tests,' in which the weapon demonstrates it can do what it's supposed to do in an environment simulating combat.

The interceptors at Fort Greely haven't passed development tests, much less operational tests. Yet they're being hoisted into their silos as we speak - 10 in the coming weeks, 10 more scheduled for next year.

This is so boneheaded that it never ceases to amaze me. Whatever the merits of a missile defense system may be, you don't spend billions of dollars to manufacture and deploy it until you've got the technology worked out and know it will perform as advertised. Why do you do this? (1) So that you don't waste oodles of dollars on a project that won't actually get the job done, and (2) so that you don't have a false sense of security about a technology that may well fail, when other avenues might have been pursued that actually would provide you with some protection.

The Americans who believe Bush's sales pitch on Star Wars are the same types who really do believe that the Ginsu knife will never need sharpening, even if you cut through pop cans and footballs with it. Wishful thinking is what it is... only we're talking wishful thinking that will cost us our economic future, and not just a crappy $20 set of Ginsu knives.