Missile Defense: Told Ya It'd Work

The Pentagon announced Friday a successful test of the missile defense system after an interceptor launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California knocked down a missile fired from Alaska. The Alaska dummy warhead simulated the speed and trajectory of a North Korean attack.

The Missile Defense Agency, the organization charged with developing America's missile shield, has been quietly moving forward with the system ever since Ronald Reagan's monumental 1983 speech calling for national ballistic missile defense.

Over the years the plan has received a lot of ridicule, first from Soviet apologists, then from post-Soviet peaceniks. There are still those who think it can't work, and they call each successful test a fluke. Granted, what we have now is far from the perfect system that Reagan envisioned, but Friday's test, like several successful tests before it, proves that missile defense is possible. Why on Earth would we ever pass up an opportunity to protect our country when we possess the technology to make it happen?