Political Quotes

“space-based missile defense is the true faith-based initiative because it takes a mighty big leap of faith to believe we can master the technology, distinguish the decoys and achieve perfection. Of course, in the real world this spacey shield idea has been rather hit or miss, mostly miss, since you need perfect weather and a honing beacon on the incoming missile for it to work. But the experience never seems to faze those who have seen so many Star Wars sequels that they abide by the questionable principle, ``build it and it will work.'' I prefer the wisdom of Dr. Steven Weinberg, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist at the University of Texas, who says this system will ``worsen our security'', and that of former Defense Secretary William Perry, who warned that ``a relatively small deployment of defensive systems could have the effect of triggering a considerable nuclear arms race.'' If terrorism is now our greatest threat, if we have learned anything from September 11, we know an ICBM is not the most likely way to wreak devastation and that putting so many more taxpayers' dollars in this one NMD basket makes so little security sense. We can spend billions trying to build a shield to blunt every sword or we can invest our resources and diplomacy more wisely to keep the sword, or missile from ever being drawn.”