The Pentagon's Madison Avenue Media Pimps for Missile Defense

The media is all over the news that an interceptor missile destroyed a mock warhead in a test of the missile defense system. Here's a report from ABC.

Of course, we've been fed exaggerated stories about the success of missile interceptors before. We got bogus stories regarding the success of the Patriot missile during the first Gulf War and exaggerated stories or stories with critical omissions regarding earlier missile defense tests.

Does the media give you the background of the Pentagon's prior deceptions or tell you that these prior deceptions have been used to raise billions for the missile defense program. Of course not. The media simply plays advertising agency for the Pentagon and the defense contractors who stand to make even larger fortunes off our tax dollars.

Buried in some of these stories - the ABC story, for example - is criticism from some group opposed to missile defense. But it's fact, not mere argument, that these tests are not real-world or "operational" tests.

To its credit, ABC notes at the end of its three page article, that the test did not include any of the simple evasions that can be made to avoid missile defense. Further up in the article, there was this nugget:

The launch was postponed from Thursday after fog socked in Kodiak Island. There was also fog over Vandenberg Friday morning but it burned off.

Thankfully, launching a missile in fog isn't something any of our enemies - good sportsmen all - would even consider.