Last week there was another in a long string of failures of the vaunted US missile defense system. This test failure followed a similar failure in January. Of the 15 missile defense interceptor tests run since 1999, seven have been failures. Don't jump to the conclusion that eight have been successful. The so-called "successful" tests were rigged with launch times, trajectories and speed all known to the interceptors (how do you spell r-i-g-g-e-d)? In a statement that defies logic, Major General Cartwright, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that, “the latest test involved an upgraded version of an interceptors but that older models currently deployed were reliable“. The failed tests show that the older interceptors were more reliable than the new “upgraded” version. Maddening.
And this Star Wars missile defense program has cost $140 billion with the costs still mounting. Let your mind wander about what $140 billion would pay for in the civilian sector - schools, hospitals, roads, jobs, medical research. What's that you say, "how about defending against the missile lunacy of North Korea?"? The retaliatory military power of the US has kept even lunatics from self-destruction. Proof: it kept the Russians at bay during the cold war and they were a far more powerful potential adversary than North Korea.
But the failure of another missile test is not the last or worse part of this story. If the test were successful, the news media would have been full of congratulatory reports about how wonderful the Missile Defense Agency is. Self-praise of the missile defense establishment would have filled the skies. Because the test was a failure, the news was buried or non-existent in the American press. News of the test failure came from a French source, the Agence France Presse. A controlled press enables a government in power that tells you only what it wants you to hear is a dictatorship. One of the first symptoms of this slippage into totalitarianism is a government that labels critical or incriminating reporting as “fake news” Ring home? If Americans can no longer rely on a free independent press, we have lost one of the bulwarks of democracy.