Democrats and Republicans alike have been caught up in the Star Wars revival. Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich are even more gung ho. Their Defend America Act aims to fully deploy the system by 2003. Now, I spent most of the past five years living outside the United States, so I thought maybe I had simply missed the news of a Star Wars breakthrough, just as I sometimes draw a blank on books and movies that came out while I was away. But it turns out there was nothing to miss.
Missile defense remains a mirage.
Rather than questioning the underlying falsehoods of missile defense, the press is content to ventilate at length Dole and Clinton's differences on tactical questions of timing and budget. Small wonder, then, that many Americans apparently believe we already have a functioning missile defense system. For years, we've seen fancy graphics on television and in newspapers showing incoming missiles being intercepted and destroyed. And the media was only too happy to pass along Pentagon claims during the Gulf War about the stunning success of Patriot missiles against Saddam Hussein's SCUDs. The few news organizations that have suggested Desert Storm's anti-missile defenses were flawed have suffered some consequences.