Altered States, Three.

Going back in time to the Days of the Gipper, it is easy to remember the condemnation of the Strategic Defense Initiative. Beyond claiming it was unnecessary, the force of the argument was that the entire concept was beyond anyone's capabilities. "It will never work," I recall hearing time and again.

Time to share something: the first system has been deployed. Don't you find the timing rather, um, suspect?

MISSILE DEFENSE BRIEFING REPORT NO. 150
American Foreign Policy Council, Washington, DC
http://www.afpc.org
July 26, 2004

FIRST GROUND-BASED DEFENSES DEPLOYED
Twenty-five months after breaking ground, the first interceptor of the Pentagon’s Ground-based Missile Defense program was installed at Fort Greely, Alaska on July 22nd, the Seattle Times reported the next day. The interceptor installation marks the first step in the roll-out of the Bush administration’s “initial deployment” of defenses to protect the United States against ballistic missile attack. Five more interceptors at the Greely location – as well as another four at the Vandenberg Air Base in California – are expected to be installed by the end of the year. These will be followed by ten additional Alaskan interceptors by the end of 2005. “We’re coming to the end of an era where we have not been able to defend our country against long-range ballistic missile attacks,” the Scotsman newspaper (July 23) cited Major General John Holly of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency as remarking at the historic event.