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Anti-Missile Defenses For Commercial Jets
The AP reports that the first anti-missile defense system has been installed for testing on a commercial jet, a FedEx cargo carrier. The system is intended to detect the launch of a shoulder-fired missile at takeoff or landing, and disable the missile with a laser beam. Sen. Barbara Baxter (D-California) is one of the supporters of the system. She and other members of Congress are hoping to equip all US commercial passenger liners with this system in 20 years, at a cost of billions of dollars. Is this good common sense or the costly future of a society hobbled by fear of terrorism?
An absolute waste of money. The only thing it's good for is making defense contractors richer.
Why not just let airlines install the devices as the market demands, a portion of the market will want protection and a portion will not. The added cost will allow consumers to decide whether the protection is "worth it".
The system is intended to detect the launch of a shoulder-fired missile at takeoff or landing, and disable the missile with a laser beam.
What a great idea! Now when the terrorists eventually take over another round of planes, they can effectively block missiles intended to shoot them down before reaching sensitive targets.
How about if next, we equip subway cars with nuclear self-destruct devices so terrorists can't use them to make their speedy getaways?
Just out of curiosity, how many commercial airliners in the US have been shot down with shoulder fired missiles? I haven't had any luck trying to find an instance in Google.
I could see a system like this for a plane that has to fly over Iraq or South Africa, but inside of the US/Canada/Europe/Australia/Asia it doesn't seem to be necessary, worse, a system like this is probably going to require massive power and have considerable complexity. Highly complex pieces of equipment are liable to malfunction at some point and possibly even cause a crash.
No, installing something like this in every airplane in the US fleet is just not realistic. Having it as an option for people who have to fly near areas where terrorists have shoulder fired missiles and a grudge against the west is good though.
I read the internet for the articles.
Wow. Running in debt, passenger cabins that aren't clean, meals that have been cut from shorter flights, and all on top of *higher ticket prices*. Now they want to install frickin' laser beams? That'll do wonders for affordability. Maybe a nice fat Government subsidy is in order?
Fantastic. Just fantastic.
Sony ha
Because by selling both the cause and the remedy, you get to profit twice! Happy days.
There is no such thing as security. Whatever one person can put together, another person can take apart. Virus scanners, the locks on my house and home, and the passwords on my bank accounts are all meant for one thing: To keep honest people honest. If someone really wants to, any security I could encumber some part of my life with can be undone by someone of focused malicious intent.
The more society spends on 'security' the harder it is to undo that security. Build a Great Wall of China and it keeps the invaders out. Build a Great Wall of the Rio Grande and it keeps the Mexican immigrants out. But given time or motivation, invaders and immegrants find ways around the walls.
The more society relies on 'security' the more devestating it is when that security fails. These planes will have protection against missles (how many times have planes been shot down by missles anyhow?!). I am sure some motivated criminal will determine that using a high powered large caliber rifle or remote controlled airplane with C4 attached works just as well for bringing down a plane; or something else we haven't even considered.
In my view, the only way to minimize acts of terror, keep illegal immigrants at home, and make the world 'safe' is with economic development. If a person has a full stomach and something to do with their hands so they can avoid hunger tomorrow, then that person is too happy and busy to 'terrorize' or risk life and limb crossing the dessert.
Money spent on walls, airline bomb closets and anti-air to air missle lazers, and even super cool rail guns are all poor investments, in my view. Better to spend the money on starting businesses, funding schools, and giving incentives to entrapeneurs. If everyone is fed and busy, the world is as safe as it could be (though still not perfectly safe).
"How is this 'costly'? How many human lives would be lost as you install these defense systems in passenger liners? I don't think any'
Just all the lives that would be saved (better health care, etc.) if this money were better spent.
if you were close enough to hit an airplane with a shoulder fired rocket, couldn't you instead use explosives to damage the runway enough to cause a crash? The aftermath of a failed landing or even a failed takeoff is probably enough to serve the terrorists purpose. Anyone remember the failed takeoff of the Air France plane at Pearson international? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_358
Not to mention the fact that I can't find a single instance of a commercial aircraft being hit by a shoulder fired rocket.
This is a stupid waste of money. Of course, it will earn some weapons manufacturers some cash, and it will make some people feel safer -at least until they realize that the next commercial hijackers now control a high-powered laser, but hey, who am I to mock attempts at the "war on terror"? Who'd have thought that waging a war against an abstract noun could have been so tricky?
How about a cost/benefit analysis of such a system before we knee jerk expensive solution to a low risk problem.
The problem here is that people equate one 450 person aircraft with more value that of 40,000 fatalities due to automobile accidents.
Air travel is one of the safest forms of travel, bar none. We don't need to spend BILLIONS of dollars making it safer, mainly because it isn't going to make it much safer.
It all sounds good, but really, it is a waste.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Would more lives be saved inventing and installing an in-cabin fire suppression system instead of an anti-missile system?
UNIX/Linux Consulting
So one plane in the history of aviation might have been saved. Maybe
I think this would make good terrorist MasterCard commercial:
A year of nationalized health care in Canada = about $1,900
A year of food in American = about $3,000
A habitat for humanity house = about $35,000
Scaring Americans into spending "billions" to possibly save between zero and a couple of hundred lives instead of spending it where it's guaranteed to make a difference = Priceless
TW
And before anyone responds with "But smart-ass comments like yours don't enhance the discussion", Just set Funny to be -5 for you. Problem solved. Or grow a sense of humor.
Why are we such pussies? Look around, in the US, something like:
40,000 people die/year in car accidents
20,000 murders/year
And we get all worked up because some people managed to hijack 4 airplanes and killed 3,000 people? It really sucks, and I understand the pain that the people left behind had to face (as well as the people who died that day). But because of that one attack, we've completely gone bonkers and blown an entirely disproportionate amount of money on making sure it doesn't happen again compared to larger social ills.
Ugh, it just burns me.
-Bucky
What if the US spends less money on defense , and instead behaves less like a dick. Instead we should concentrate on being a little less arrogant, and be more world friendly. Foreign relations has really taken a turn or the worse in the last 6 years or so. Or we can continue the current trend, and then just travel everywhere in personal sized mini tanks, with anti missile/IUD technology.
People keep on trying to put bandages on the problem, instead of addressing what is actually wrong, kind of like treating a fever with some aspirin, instead of treating the infection.
..........FULL STOP.
This is the sort of ridiculous, slippery-slope argument that the government loves to throw in our faces when trying to justify the erosion of our civil rights and the wanton military spending that are ostensibly necessary "because of the terrorists."
There are not going to be actual "gangs" of Islamic fundamentalists running around in your neighborhood, killing people in front of your kids. First, there are not actually enough fundamentalists to make this happen. Second, we do have a police force, you know -- it's their job to deal with gangs. You could argue that they don't do a particularly good job of that in some parts of LA, but to be honest, even there is nothing like it is in the movies. People with families live in Compton. There are gangs, to be sure, but even there, people killing others in front of your kids is an uncommon occurence, not an everyday affair.
Let's talk about a "reasoned" response: 3000 people died on 9/11, that's all. It's tragic, but come on. How many people die in car crashes every year? The reason people keep bringing it up is because, every year, nearly 40 thousand people do!
Here's the reality of the situation: 6 years later, we've accomplished nothing that is actually relevant to 9/11. Osama Bin Laden is still at large, as much as the government tries to understate his importance. No replacement for the WTC is on the horizon, despite much in the way of planning.
However, we have used the event to justify tremendous, unreasonable spending on cockamamy schemes like this one that will do exactly nothing to help prevent terrorism. Seriously, the people that came up with the 9/11 plan and executed it were brilliant, from a logistical, strategic, and creativity perspective. Do you really think they're a one-trick pony? That now that they've done 9/11, the only possible terrorist attack they can think of involves running a plane into a building? Because that seems to be the way our administration thinks.
We've gone to the ends of the earth to make flying a pain, hurting our economy and annoying our passengers. And for what? To prevent another 9/11? Why not just blow up a building? Why bother with the plane? We're expecting it, it would be stupid.
Maybe George Bush was right, after all -- maybe they did attack us because they "hate our freedom." Lamentably, our response seems to be to throw our freedom away to appease them.
Here's a wild thought: how about just ignoring them?
If that still doesn't make sense, consider this: The only time that this cycle reaches near 100% cyclic efficiency is if you pay a domestic worker for a labor-only task. Ex: A wealthy guy pays someone to wash their yacht. Of course, even that isn't a perfect cycle since water and gas to drive there and food and electricity and soap were all consumed in the process. These defense systems for passenger jets are a drop in the bucket compared to the war in Iraq. If we used that logic, then we would spend money on everything and anything. Because, it surely is cheaper than the war in Iraq! That's not an argument FOR doing this. It is an argument AGAINST the war.
Let me concede you your idea though: If the goal is to make people think they are safe, and to make terrorists think it isn't worth trying -- then we should test a system like this, then pretend to install it.
Terrorists will just attack somewhere else. The most obvious target is mass transit. Leave a bunch of bombs on the New York Subway, just like they did with the trains in Madrid- that would probably be a lot easier than smuggling a Stinger missile into the US. Or plant an IED on the Northwest Corridor and wait for a packed Acela train to go over it. Plant a limpet mine on the bottom of a ferry- if you can sink it fast enough you could kill a few hundred people.
It's all just a show: most of the security efforts I've seen in place do comparatively little to make anyone safer, they're just designed to make us *feel* safer. They're not security, they're a security blanket.
quotes from t0rkm3 (666910)
"Sure... acquiesce to the world's body politic and cease to become a sovereign nation. Sounds like a plan."
He didn't say that he said "be less of a dick" to me that means not getting invlolved where we have no business and stop playing world police, one in the same I suppose. I and many other Americans agree with this. We need to fix the problems here before we go galavanting around the globe playing cop.
"Perhaps, nations should keep their own house in order and worry less about what the US is up to and how they could politically extort more money out of the US."
Perhaps the US should do the same thing minus the money part. although I sure feel like I have been Extorted when I see the amount taken out of my check for "taxes" but that's another subject.
"Or the almighty UN might actually try doing something... like rectifying the Darfur situation"
If the US is going to play world cop then why haven't we fixed it. I don't agree with policing the planet but if it's going to go on why not actually help instead of just taking over places that have lucrative natural resources.
", or addressing the fact that Hezbollah attacked Israel as a de facto representative of the Lebanese govt."
They didn't attack our country or our people so what does it matter. The Israelis are far from saints themselves and have done a lot to provoke attacks. I'm not saying the any attacks were warranted just that some were provoked.
" Or perhaps just prosecuting, and investigating aggressively the previous Secretary General for violations of the oil for food program... Considering both his son and brother-in-law have had shady dealings therein."
Good question and I agree with them but the US has enough of it's own shady financial dealings to look into. Haliburton(sp?) is the first one that comes to mind. How many people in our governement have friends and family making a ton off the "war on terror".
"None of this is likely, even as the smug people that complain about USA policy still come to the teat at supper time."
I for one am not coming. I am actively seeking employment outsdide the US because I can no longer live in a place where my rights are slowly being stripped despite having a constitution that is supposed to always protect them. I have gotten invlovled in politics and tried to make changes that way but unless you have a few billion to throw around change is not going to happen. Enough ranting for now hopefully I don't lose karma but I did reframe from using the term ass hat even though I really wanted to.
WTF?
By the same logic, I should wear a bullet proof (okay, knife proof as I'm in the UK, and they're subtly different) vest at all times, incase someone decides randomly to try killing me.
Okay, here's another one; why aren't we equipping trains with these? Why are people still allowed on trains with significant amounts of liquid. Is it because trains are actually less at risk, or because everyone's running around panicking about planes?
The US needs to sort out its foreign policy, stop worrying about planes all the time, and maybe, just maybe, think about things that kill people more. Like, disease, car crashes, natural disasters...
Controversial, perhaps, but I'd argue that these measures aren't designed to make us feel safer, but more afraid.
We little people are so at risk, what would we do without the government to save us?
Strangely enough, there are a number of countries where the populace is able to vote, women are required to go to school just like everyone else, and there aren't mass killings of children of the "wrong religion". Many of these countries are able to conduct their foreign policy in such a way that they don't get accused of being a dick.
Some of them even manage to enter into free trade agreements with each other without requiring that the smaller country implement something like the DMCA.
Etc, etc.
Disclaimer: I may live in such a country.
Pretend that something especially witty is here. Thanks.
Because those countries aren't, by and large, contributing to the environmental problem? They have nothing to contribute one way or the other (no offense to Tonga Tonga). And what does it matter what other countries do? There's a problem, we're a leading contributor to that problem, we're a leading nation in the world, and instead we decide that our economy is more important. Ironically, countries that have agreed to better environmental practices, particularly concerning the auto industry, are stomping American corporations on efficiency, productivity, and value.
And yeah, Bush broke a treaty Clinton had established with NK when he came into office. We were giving them food/medicine and light water nuclear reactors for energy so long as NK stopped its nuclear program (which they did). Bush decided not to and set up a blockade instead, prompting them to begin their nuclear program once again.
>most of the security efforts I've seen in place do comparatively little to make anyone safer
If the government had public safety as a goal, then it wouldn't have dropped security standards for chemical plants. If there's a manmade Bhopal in New Jersey, it's because the government chose not to prevent it.
If the government had public safety as a goal, there would have been screening for port personnel sometime in the five years after 9/11, and ABC news wouldn't have been able to put a steel cylinder with a uranium slug in it into a cargo container shipped from an area of al-Qaeda activity. Twice.
If the government had public safety as a goal, the intolerably dangerous liquids confiscated from passengers wouldn't have been poured into barrels in the middle of crowds.
Remember, the next time another chunk of Constitution is violated and the government says it's to protect public safety, that public safety is not the government's goal.