June 20, 2006, More from the "bad ideas" file
The latest "bad idea" comes from the very same Pentagon that gave us "Start long, ugly, protracted, bloody, expensive invasion of country posing no threat to us followed by occupation and intervention in said country's sectarian civil war in Southwest Asia after dismantling all potentially stabilizing institutions in name of ideological purity based on advice from probable Iranian agent."
Their great new idea is "Bear-bait unstable nuclear-armed regime on doorstep of two most critical allies in East Asia using method almost guaranteed to result in failure and probable national humiliation."
Yes, that's right: plans are afoot to try to shoot down North Korea's apparent upcoming missile test.
I'll not even go into the fact that an act of provocation toward the unstable, nuclear armed North Korean regime at a time when it is trying to provoke us just seems like a bad idea. To be honest, I tend to think that this element is less serious; the fact that something like the last three major missile tests have all resulted in abysmal failures under controlled conditions makes a test of our anti-ballistic missile system under these sorts of systems ill-advised.
Best keep the North Koreans guessing as to whether or not we can shoot down their missiles... even if we can, they'll just go back to the drawing board and do what the Soviets did and frustrate our plans by "MIRV"ing (multiple impact reentry vehicle) their missiles (one of the terms I learned back from my days studying political science as an undergrad at dear old Columbia when the Soviet Union was still in a position to incinerate all 200,000,000 of us, i.e., when the threats to us were somewhat more worrisome then whether or not a few Arabs might sneak over here and take out a couple of thousand of us.)
Ah, but if we can't shoot down North Korea's missile-- and there is no evidence to the contrary-- then showing them that we can't will just embolden them to keep on with their damned missile program, and that they are on the right track (just as they already believe that their acquisition of nuclear weapons is a good idea to stop us from our "regime change" as opposed to the poorly armed, disorganized Saddam's Iraq.)
Oh, and a failure in this area will make us look bad. Whatever that's worth.
So... in this case, best to follow Franklin's advice and hold our tongue and be thought a fool rather than speak up and remove all doubt.
Just saying.