Why is the U.S. Shooting Down A Satellite?

By now, you may have heard some stories about the U.S. has a "plan to shoot down a failed satellite with a missile defense interceptor in the coming days... aimed at preventing toxic fuel from reaching earth." But besides toxic fuel spillage, what else is at stake here? A lot, the experts to be saying.

The Washington Note's Steve Clemons opines that "Shooting down a spy satellite whose orbit is decaying is either an exercise in super power vanity or an action designed to escalate the further militarization of space." The latter seems to be the general sentiment. The Washington Times notes that-

U.S. officials and experts said yesterday it would also signal that U.S. missile defenses can be used to counter China’s strategic anti-satellite weapons.

And the NY Times has more on the stakes of all of this-

The order by President Bush for the Navy to launch an antimissile interceptor to destroy a disabled satellite before it falls from orbit carries opportunity, but also potential embarrassment, for the administration and advocates of its missile defense program...

...Should it succeed, the accomplishment would embolden those who champion even more spending on top of the $57.8 billion appropriated by Congress for missile defenses since the Bush administration’s first budget in the 2002 fiscal year.

It might even revive a dormant effort to focus the military on antisatellite operations, as well. Failure, on the other hand, would be cited as hard and fresh evidence for those who point to the futility of space-warfare programs.

So ultimately, this comes down to the hawks and neocons efforts to justify one of the longest-running, most maligned, and most expensive of military boondoggles. The 'Star Wars' project must be vindicated. And if they can stop some toxic fuel from smashing into the Earth too, well that's a bonus, I suppose.

If only our country's public schools would start leaking fuel, maybe we can shoot a few billion more into that system to save it too.