American Military Tests Antimissile System: Smart Move, I Think

Well, that's interesting:

"Test of newest U.S. missile defense technology will simulate attack by Iran"
CNN (December 19, 2009)

"The U.S. military's Missile Defense Agency will practice protecting the United States from a simulated Iranian missile attack next month in an exercise using the agency's newest missile-killing technology, Pentagon officials said Friday.

Previous tests have been focused on a missile trajectory that mimics an attack from North Korea, but the January test will have a trajectory and distance resembling an intercontinental ballistic missile launch from Iran...."

One point that makes this newsworthy is that similar tests had been performed, simulating incoming missiles from North Korea. This time, the virtual warheads started in Iran.

The conventional wisdom I encountered, some thirty to forty years back, was that just about everything was America's fault. Like the Soviet Union doing mean things.

The idea was that if the capitalistic, imperialistic warmonger military-industrial complex would just apologize for causing poverty, racism, and bad crops, and abolish the armed forces: everything would be nice. Given the starting assumptions that folks who held similar views had, it practically made sense.

It's Different, When You're in Charge

I've said this before: President Obama is not, in my opinion, a fool; nor is he, again in my opinion, particularly stupid. He also probably wants to have a second term as president of the United States. A prerequisite condition for that is that there to be a United States to be president of.

Whatever sort of 'happy face' rhetoric he (or any other candidate) used during the election campaign: now that he's president Obama has shown a (distressing, from some points of view) tendency to act as though there are people out there who aren't very nice, and who want to kill Americans.

Imagine.

I Don't agree with him on many points: but credit where credit is due.

Iranian missiles reaching American states?

The last I read, Iran's missiles could reach most of the Middle East, the more heavily-populated parts of Russia, and some of Europe and Africa.

I doubt that they've got intercontinental-range missiles yet. On the other hand, it's not that much of a stretch to imagine that Iran could outfit a cargo ship with a launch platform and deliver missiles from not-all-that-far offshore: anywhere.

I live a little east of the geographical center of North America, a thousand miles from the Atlantic Ocean. Central Minnesota is, I would think, a fairly low-value target anyway. I mean to say, would you get quite the same bang for your buck, wiping out a place like Long Prairie, Sauk Centre, or Glenwood: compared with the impact of finishing the job in New York City or Washington?

Still, although I'm pretty sure I live far away - and upwind - of the prime targets, I'd just as soon not have any cities subjected to instant urban renewal.

That's not "American cities" - any cities. Iran's Ayatollahs and Islamic crazies hate America - and Israel - but they don't seem all that fond of most other people and places, either.

Related posts:

• "Iran, Protests, Internet Blackout, and Nuclear Bombs"
  (December 7, 2009)
• "Iran's Need(?) for Power, the Natanz Underground Uranium Enrichment Site, and the IAEA"
  (December 5, 2009)
• "Imperialist American Aggressors Attack Poland?"
  (October 30, 2009)
• "Iran's Nuclear Weapons Program: Oops, Let's Look at That Again"
  (October 16, 2009)
• "Obama, Iran, Missiles, Europe, and "What the heck did they tell him?""
  (September 17, 2009)
• "North Korea and the Kim Jong Dynasty: Not All Countries are the Same"
  (June 9, 2009)
• "Iran Has Heavy Metal for Bomb, No Bomb: Yet"
  (March 1, 2009)
• "Unintended Consequences? The West May be Getting Over Hiroshima"
  (January 25, 2008)

In the news:

• "Test of newest U.S. missile defense technology will simulate attack by Iran"
  CNN (December 19, 2009)