For those in our audience who are
too young to remember or too old to want to, a long, long time ago, in a far
off part of the galaxy called Awstralya, there was once a Minister for Defence
- Senator “Wookie” Hill.

Now “Wookie” was in charge of
Awstrayla’s stockpile of second-hand & redundant “boys toys”, acquired for
enormous sums of money from the Amerikan Military Industrial Complex (AMIC),
the people who run the United States government (aka The Universal Policeman –
TUP): Awstrayla’s special friend.

Like all diligent AMIC galactic
managers, Wookie was always busy promoting the latest models of you-beaut,
state-of-the-art, shiny whatevers being churned-out by AMIC. In fact, the level
of Wookie’s enthusiasm was always a reliable gauge of the purported
sophistication & cost of whatever AMIC was trying to flog - the more
sophisticated & expensive, the greater his enthusiasm. 

Now Wookie & his handy
helpers were particularly adept at persuading Awstraylens that their
governmental masters could only keep them safe if vast sums of their money were
used to buy helicopters that wouldn’t fly properly, tanks that got bogged, old
boats that would sink if they were untied from their moorings, funny AMIC
helmets for our soldiers (like the bad Germans used to wear) & lots of
other shiny & expensive toys.

But nothing could contain
Wookie’s excitement & enthusiasm for the most advanced AMIC product ever
released – the AMIC Anti-Missile Defence System (AMICAMDS) dubbed: “Son Of Star
Wars” (SOSW).

In 2001, TUP’s Chief Of Universal
Police (COUP), the Great Decider (GD), George W (Witless) Bush (affectionately
known as “Bushit” by his friends), had announced TUP’s intention to develop
AMICAMDS:SOSW.

Some 15 years before, TUP’s then
COUP, the Great Actor (GA), Ronald (call me Ken) Reagan (affectionately known
as “Shirley” by his friends) had announced the birth of an earlier AMICAMDS,
SOSW’s father, known as “Star Wars” (SW). Having spent US$46 billion on developing
AMICAMDS:SW, TUP unceremoniously shelved it, quietly acknowledging that the
technical barriers were too high.

The reality was that AMICAMDS:SW
had proved to be the stuff of pure science fiction, with Interceptor-missile
tests routinely failing badly. Even the much-vaunted Patriot Missile had fared
pathetically against Iraq's almost comically slow SCUD missiles during the 1^st
Gulf War.

Notwithstanding the treasure
& time already wasted on AMICAMDS:SW, & much to AMIC member, Raytheon’s
delight, TUP’s COUP, Bushit, announced that it was going ahead with
AMICAMDS:SOSW, at an estimated cost of between US$18 billion to US$28 billion.

Wookie was hysterical about the
potential value of AMICAMDS:SOSW for protecting Awstraylan cities & their
fearful citizens from missile attacks mounted by the awful swarthy &
slanty-eyed foreign looking people (terrorists) from The Axis of Evil (TAOE)
& he was determined that Awstrayla should have one.

By January, 2004, at the height
of his career as the local AMIC representative, Wookie breathlessly told the
ABC’s 7:30 Report:

“Already in trials now we are seeing intercepts really in quite
extraordinary circumstances, the most recent one was the one just before
Christmas where the Americans picked up the launch from one Egis ship,
identified the launch, identified the track the missile was going to take,
communicated that to another Egis ship which was closer to the target range. It
picked it up in its radar system. It fed the input, launched a SM3 missile that
basically knocked the incoming missile out outside of the atmosphere.”

Now what Wookie said wasn’t actually accurate.

In fact, what Wookie said was very, very misleading,
because AMIC had only succeeded in getting AMICAMDS:SOSW to fire an SM3 missile
to intercept another missile, at a specific pre-determined point in its known
trajectory.

Of course, the marketing team from AMIC wanted everyone
to believe that AMICAMDS:SOSW was capable of far more than that & Wookie
was ready to oblige.

AMIC wanted Awstraylans to believe that AMICAMDS:SOSW
could independently track, target & intercept offensive missiles, where
both missiles were travelling at a combined closing speed of 22,000mph &
where the trajectory of the offensive missile was unknown. Moreover, AMICAMDS:SOSW
was spruiked as being able to perform this miraculous task simultaneously
against multiple missiles, whilst being capable of telling the difference
between genuine offensive missiles & multiple decoys, launched at the same
time.

Wow ….. would it were true.

Now, Wookie was determined that Awstrayla was going to
join the latest AMIC partnership, notwithstanding that local disloyal,
anti-democratic insurgents had cast strong doubts on the capabilities of its
much vaunted technology & highlighted the fact that it was totally
unproven.

Indeed, whilst Wookie was busy
spruiking AMICAMDS:SOSW, the Pentagon’s (AMIC’s PR organisation) Director of
Operational Test & Evaluation (DOTE), Thomas Christie, said: “existing data
gives only limited confidence in a missile defence system” & “even with
successful intercepts in both of these attempts [referring to the two missile technology trials scheduled in 2004],
the small number of tests would limit confidence in the integrated interceptor
performance” (Thomas disappeared from view shortly after that untimely brain
explosion & is today rumoured to be the junior doorman at Pine Gap).

Elsewhere, the Sydney Morning
Rogue’s Mike Seccombe described Wookie as being “Like a man planning how to
spend his lottery winnings, before he’d even bought his ticket”, whilst Ron
Huisken, a senior research fellow, Strategic & Defence Studies, at the ANU,
ridiculed Wookie’s hyperbole about AMICAMDS:SOSW.

But, more importantly, Wookie’s
government colleagues stuck by him & defended AMIC’s claims about
AMICAMDS:SOSW.

In particular, Awstraylan Foreign
Minister, Duffer Downer (call me Lord Fishnets), spoke out in Wookie’s
defence, telling the ABC that AMICAMDS:SOSW was “a commonsense
measure, as it would stop US cities from being attacked by missiles” & that
“AMIC has “a proposal where they can build & they are going to start
deploying it, not in 10 years time, but in September (2004)" & “to
oppose missile defence is to say you wouldn't want your allies developing a
system which would stop missiles falling on their cities or on allied troops.”

Nothing like a bit of patriotic
fervour to kick things along, eh?

Sure enough, Wookie persuaded the
Awstraylan government that it should commit to a 25 year development program
with TUP & a secret memorandum of understanding with AMIC was duly signed.

Speaking about the expected
benefits of AMICAMDS:SOSW for Awstrayla, Wookie’s then Press secretary,
Catherine Fitzpatrick, explained that Awstrayla was planning to install
AMICAMDS:SOSW missile batteries aboard its three new Air Warfare Destroyers
(AWD), scheduled to be built & delivered in 2013, at a cost of between
A$4.5billion & A$6billion.     

That cost was just the estimate
for the ships that didn’t exist yet, but the cost of AMICAMDS:SOSW would need to
be added & was also expected to cost A$billions.

In spite of the unknown but
astronomical cost of TUP’s AMICAMDS:SOSW:AWD solution to Awstraylan taxpayers,
Wookie & his colleagues dismissed suggestions that an alternative, like the
Japanese were building, might be a safer & cheaper option.

Meanwhile, Awstraylan
AMICAMDS:SOSW insurgent detractors continued to question the need for any
system at all, pointing out to Wookie that the threat to Awstrayla from TAOE
wasn’t real.

They explained that the Russians & Chinese had had the
ability to target Awstrayla for years, whilst TAOE member, North Korea, had no
missiles capable of even reaching Awstrayla & even if it did develop a
handful of long-range missiles at some future date, why would they waste them on
Awstraylan cities, over more delectable targets like Tokyo, Moscow, Washington
or Beijing.

But Wookie stood unflinching against that criticism & Awstrayla loyally
& formally joined with its AMIC partner across the Milky Pacific in pursuit
of AMICAMDS:SOSW. 

When TUP’s COUP, Bushit, originally announced AMICAMDS:SOSW, it was
scheduled to be operational by 2004. Indeed, Lord Fishnets had also claimed a
similar operational date, when he was busy helping fend-off the Wookie’s
critics.

Fast forward to today …..

Wookie is no longer with us.

AMIC’s servant has retired from Awstraylan political life & has been
kicked upstairs to a better & more cerebrally relaxing life in diplomacy.

Wookie’s successor, Dr Brendan (call me Bandit) Strangelove, has his hands
full these days in trying to cope with Wookie’s legacy, whilst working his way
up the AMIC partnership tree.

On an ordinary day, he doesn’t have to announce a budget blowout of an AMIC
project or that one of the shiny toys supplied by AMIC won’t do what it was
supposed to.

On a good day, he’s not apologising for another ADF stuff-up or announcing
another investigation into allegations of abuse against or by ADF personnel.

On a great day, he gets to announce things, like the Awstraylen
government’s intention to spend even more money on shiny new AMIC toys. 

Then, in the past week, the galaxy once again stood on the edge of
oblivion.

TAOE member, North Korea, was discovered to be planning a test for its
long-range ballistic missile, the Taepodong-2. 

Awstrayla promptly backed TUP in shrilly calling for North Korea to abandon
the planned test, with TUP’s COUP, Bushit, calling the planned test a
“provocative act”. Shortly thereafter, TUP declared that it was placing AMICAMDS:SOSW
on standby & was considering using the system to shoot down the North
Korean missile if it was launched.

Awstraylans were promptly
transformed to full “fear mode” by hysterical news reports, including segments
on the once reliable ABCTV News. Indeed, the nation only survived the crisis
because it was otherwise consumed by its new found passion for soccer.

Needless to say, whilst the politicians & the media
beat their war drums, none reflected on the hypocrisy of it all, given that TUP
conducts its own long-range ballistic missile tests, firing minuteman missiles
from Vandenberg Airforce Base to Kwajelien Atholl in the Pacific, on a weekly
bais.

Then suddenly TUP calmed down. All talk of using
AMICAMDS:SOSW to shoot down the North Korean missile ceased. Indeed, it seemed
as though calmer heads had prevailed & diplomacy had been chosen ahead of
confrontation as the preferred solution to this latest crisis.

Or was their another, more practical reason that TUP’s
warlike rhetoric was suddenly turned down?

Before we address that question, let’s update our audience
on the progress of AMICAMDS:SOSW.

TUP has spent US$43 billion on the development of
AMICAMDS:SOSW over the 5 years since COUP Bushit announced the program.

As already mentioned, AMICAMDS:SOSW was to be operational
by September, 2004, but TUP government assessments & investigative reports
indicate little confidence in the centerpiece portion of the program.

 Eleven ground-based
interceptors in Alaska & at Vandenberg Air Force Base in Central
California, the cornerstone of AMICAMDS:SOSW, have not undergone a successful
test in nearly four years & have been beset by glitches that investigators
blame, at least in part, on COUP Bushit's order in 2002 to make the program
operational, even before it had been fully tested. 

In all, the interceptors hit
dummy missiles in 5 out of 10 tests, but these were under controlled conditions
that critics say do not reflect the challenges of an actual missile launch (ie:
targeting & intercepting a missile with a known trajectory). 

A little-noticed study by TUP’s
Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued in March found that program
officials were so concerned with potential flaws in the first 9 interceptors
now in operation that they considered taking them out of their silos &
returning them to the manufacturer for "disassembly &
remanufacture."

"Quality control procedures
may not have been rigorous enough to ensure that unreliable parts, or parts
that were inappropriate for space applications, would be removed from the
manufacturing process." the report said. 

Since COUP Bushit took office in
2001, AMICAMDS:SOSW has been one of his administration's most controversial
military priorities, advancing an array of programs designed to down enemy
missiles in various stages of flight.

As TUP’s Secretary of Defence,
Donald (call me the torturer) Rumsfeld, participated in the winding back of TUP
rhetoric over the planned North Korean missile test last week, he said:
"What we have is a developmental initial system that does not have all the
pieces in place but has some modest initial capability. And it will be some
months before all of the pieces are in place." 

In other words, nearly 2 years
after it was supposed to be deployed & 20 years after TUP first decided to
pursue its most ambitious AMIC adventure, it still doesn’t work.

Indeed, as my co-blogger T.G.
Kerr, reported only today: …... the command and control system necessary to
link everything together was cited in a recent report by the Pentagon's
Inspector General's Office as having such poor network security that it very
well could be hacked. That report proved so embarrassing that the Pentagon
subsequently removed it from the inspector general's website.  ... 

So, to sum up, TUP has
handed-over to AMIC over the past 20 years, treasure to the value of US$89
billion, to develop a system that doesn’t work.

Through our partnership with TUP,
Awstrayla is committed to purchasing the latest version of AMICAMDS:SOSW from
TUP, so it can be installed on our 3 new AWDs, costing an estimated A$6.5
billion & scheduled to arrive by 2013. 

Now it’s only another 7 years
before our new AWDs are scheduled to be ready for service & doubtless Dr
Strangelove is confident that AMICAMDS:SOSW will be fully functional by then,
even though we don’t know how much it will cost us if it is …. or if it isn’t.

But the thing is, TUP’s current
COUP, Bushit, along with Dr Strangelove, Lord Fishnets & local COUP deputy,
John (call me Winston) Howard (affectionately known as the rodent by his friends) will doubtless all be gone by then. 

In the meantime of course, our
AWDs will go up in price to A$30 billion & AMIC will doubtless have banked
another US$50 billion, whether AMICAMDS:SOSW works or not,

But fear not loyal Awstraylans, because
we’ll always have a Wookie ….