How does the Air Force propose making the US safer in these times of terrorism and unconventional attacks? Why, building space fighter/bombers, of course:
The Air Force believes "we must establish and maintain space superiority," Gen. Lance Lord, who leads the Air Force Space Command, told Congress recently...
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.
(Source: Washington Post Air Force Seeks Bush's Approval for Space Arms, May 18, 2005 [Emphasis added.]
Meanwhile, our ports are still undefended, the Coast Guard is undermanned, and we could do the same job by re-arming ICBMs with conventional warheads...
The
Washington Post describes some of the proposed weapon systems:
A new Air Force strategy, Global Strike, calls for a military space plane carrying precision-guided weapons armed with a half-ton of munitions. General Lord told Congress last month that Global Strike would be "an incredible capability" to destroy command centers or missile bases "anywhere in the world."
...
Another Air Force space program, nicknamed Rods From God, aims to hurl cylinders of tungsten, titanium or uranium from the edge of space to destroy targets on the ground, striking at speeds of about 7,200 miles an hour with the force of a small nuclear weapon.
Source: Washington Post
Critics suggest the rest of the world would not be happy about this:
No nation will "accept the U.S. developing something they see as the death star," (Teresa Hitchens, vice president of the Center for Defense Information) told a Council on Foreign Relations meeting last month. "I don't think the United States would find it very comforting if China were to develop a death star, a 24/7 on-orbit weapon that could strike at targets on the ground anywhere in 90 minutes."
(Emphasis added.)
Can't you just picture John Bolton telling the UN General Assembly how the "Rods from God" system is critical in the world fight against terrorism?