Death from above

This is a bad idea. My research includes countless games of Fortress America when I was young and repeated viewings of Real Genius.

I have no doubt that Bush will love it.

Air Force officials said yesterday that the directive, which is still in draft form, did not call for militarizing space. "The focus of the process is not putting weapons in space," said Maj. Karen Finn, an Air Force spokeswoman, who said that the White House, not the Air Force, makes national policy. "The focus is having free access in space."

In other words, it's not about putting weapons in space, it's about getting permission to put weapons in space- weapons we have apparently developed and discovered don't work as well on the ground.

The mission will require new weapons, new space satellites, new ways of doing battle and, by some estimates, hundreds of billions of dollars. It faces enormous technological obstacles. And many of the nation's allies object to the idea that space is an American frontier.

If you're not with us, you're against us, I say. And this give Bush a perfect out for his failing privatization of Social Security plan. All that front loaded debt needs to be spent on space weapons. Perhaps a discovery on Mars could be pushed to an imminent threat..?

Captain Hardesty, in the new issue of the Naval War College Review, calls for "a thorough military analysis" of these plans, followed by "a larger public debate."

"To proceed with space-based weapons on any other foundation would be the height of folly," he concludes, warning that other nations not necessarily allies would follow America's lead into space.

Space is the place for the new arms race! Just like that board game I mentioned earlier...

And why is it always these people in charge:

General Lord said such problems should not stand in the way of the Air Force's plans to move into space.

"Space superiority is not our birthright, but it is our destiny," he told an Air Force conference in September. "Space superiority is our day-to-day mission. Space supremacy is our vision for the future."

If there is ever a time for intelligent life from space to pay us a visit, they should do it now before we destroy them all.