Nothing like shooting down (pardon the pun) 30 years of diplomacy in 30 seconds.

Let's see, we got your mad suicide bombers, terrorists flying planes into buildings, fanatics checking out crop-dusters, anthrax on the loose, enough guns and explosives in our society to blow up half the country, plans on how to make a dirty bomb, insane Islamic "evil-doers" with 3rd grade educations running all over the freakin place, and hijackers with box-cutters stabbing stewardesses in throat. Did I leave anything out?

Hmmmm...all those problems aside, spending a couple trillion dollars and alienating all of our allies on the 0.0001% odds that some idiot is gonna suddenly wake up a genius one day, and not only build a sophisticated nuclear warhead, but also construct a rocket capable of carrying it half-way around the world and actually hit something with it really makes a lot of sense.

Am I missing something here?!?

The NFL is behind it. They are going to use the BM Shield to protect the quarterbacks. If I was a linebacker I would not be happy. ;-)

I expect his approval rating to be effected by this. He is taking advantage of the current situation, and he will end up paying for it. Remember his Dad had an incredible approval rating at one time too, and it vanished over night.

Suppose India were to launch a nuclear strike against the US. If they took out the right comms centers, then our SSBNs would miss "an undisclosed" number of consecutive broadcasts. The SSBN's, after losing multiple sets of redundant comms, are tasked with assuming that the United States has been struck; per Mutually Assured Destruction, the SSBNs launch their ICBMs (guaranteed that if the USSR even mounted a successful attack, there would still be a return from our hidden SSBNs). When an SSBN goes to sea, the targets are already assigned to the missiles. Targets are chosen as being, "most likely" sources of aggression.

So, if India were to mount a successful nuclear attack, our SSBNs might return fire on places like Beijing, Vladivostok, Moscow, etc.

Now that so many countries have nuclear ability, MAD is no longer reliable. Now that a nuclear attack can come from any number of sources, its best to find a way to keep any missiles from reaching our shores rather than to risk returning fire on a country that never attacked us.

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The Republicans are acting like a kid in a candy store now that they have the ultimate governmental power. It's a crying shame.

Missile defense is not about protecting us from "rogue nations" or any of that other horse**** the Repubs are babbling about. It's about lining the pockets of fat-cat defense contractors who are lobbying the Repub bigwigs with bushel baskets of cash. It's about a handful of millionaires recouping the money they lost the first time missile defense failed. Anybody remember the Star Wars Defense Initiative?

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Missile defense is nothing but a sham. Since there is only about a million to one chance we'd ever have to use it, how on god's green earth would we have any idea whether or not the damn thing even worked. By a few govt controlled experiements? Sheesh! Are people really that naive?

Who are our enemies anymore, anyway? I think the rest of the world is cowering in fear after what we did to Afghanistan, and that was a mere drip in the bucket of our potential WITHOUT this missile defense bull****.

I can't believe Bush is pulling this crap.

You might remember- the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics?

Show me on a map where the USSR is located!

Hours after pulling out of the ABM Treaty(and also a few hours after the OBL Tape was release), our government approved this garbage! Their timing is disgusting!

The large portion is for the research and development of this Anti-Missile defense system. And an AMAZING 1 billion dollars for Bio-Warfare research! When will this circus end? I have had enough, and no longer support our government's actions. they have all failed us.(Democrats & Republicans together, it takes 2 to tango)