Reagan To The Rescue
When Ronald Reagan first proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative, commiesymps and Democrats (sorry for the redundancy), predictably, ridiculed him. The cover of Time magazine that week was an illustration of an ominous looking Reagan in front of a militarized outer space filled with killer satellites, lasers and missiles. Above it all, the headline "STAR WARS?"
The intense criticism and slanders never bothered Reagan. He repeatedly refused to abandon SDI research; it was not negotiable. And 20 years later, Reagan's steadfast confidence in SDI is paying off and may even save American lives in Iraq.
World Tribune
reports:
The United States is developing a laser weapon to defend against terror attacks like the shoulder-fired missile attack on an American helicopter Sunday . . . The U.S. Air Force has been briefed on a system that could automatically detect an infrared surface-to-air missile launch and emit a laser beam to destroy the projectile. The system would be based on the Tactical High Energy Laser developed by Israel and the United States in 2001 . . . Northrop Grumman has shown the Air Force a deuterium-fluoride chemical laser system that could either be mounted on a mobile or stationary platform. The concept, called the Hazardous Ordnance Engagement Toolkit, is designed to protect military and civilian airports from man-portable shoulder-fired missiles such as the Soviet-origin SA-7, which was fired toward a U.S. F-15 outside a Saudi air base in 2002.
