Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 16:03:46 -0400
To: Matthew Gaylor <freematt@coil.com>
From: Matthew Gaylor <freematt@coil.com>
Subject: Les Earnest On WTC attack and missile defense
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"

[Note from Matthew Gaylor:  Les Earnest is the retired chair of the 
Computer Science Dept. at Stanford and inventor of the spell checker 
among numerous accomplishments.]


Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 12:16:54 -0700
To: Matthew Gaylor <freematt@coil.com>
From: Les Earnest <les@cs.stanford.edu>
Subject: Re: WTC attack and missile defense

Steve Turner wrote:
>I have been puzzled by the recent hyperbole claiming uselessness

>of a missile defense system in light of the WTC attacks.  Would

>these same folks claim that fireproofing is useless because it can't

>prevent floods, or that automobiles are useless because they can't

>cross the ocean?  Reasonable people may oppose a missile

>defense system on the basis of moral, ideological, or monetary

>concerns.  But to oppose such a system because it cannot protect

>us from every conceivable (and inconceivable) form of attack is

>ludicrous.


The main reason to oppose such a system is that the technology needed 
to do it doesn't exist and is not within sight in the long term. 
That has not deterred the politicians and military industry leaders 
in the past, of course.  The French paid an enormous amount before 
World War 2 for the useless Maginot Line and the American taxpayers 
were bilked out of billions of dollars in the 1950s and '60s to pay 
for the deployment of the SAGE air defense system which also didn't 
work, though fortunately it was never tested.

SAGE was kept operational at great expense for many years even though 
the manned bomber threat essentially had been replaced by the 
ballistic missile threat before SAGE became fully operational.  I 
have direct knowledge of its many fatal defects, having helped design 
it.  I eventually got out of that project in order to preserve my 
self respect.

>On an unrelated note, following is a direct quote from Richard

>Gebhardt, House Minority Leader (approx. 21:30 EDT, national

>[ABC] news): "We will have to find a new balance between freedom

>and security."


Yes, that is the real threat.  The terrorist burning of the Reichstag 
was small potatoes compared with the resulting eventual takeover of 
Germany by the Nazis.

  -Les Earnest



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