If at first you don't succeed...

...lie, lie again.

The Pentagon continues to insist that the anti-missile-missile system to be deployed in Alaska and California is not only effective against an "accidental or unauthorized launch" of a ballistic missile against the US, it would in fact be "irresponsible" to do otherwise.

This is despite the fact that even in tightly-controlled tests, the Pentagon succeeded in only five of eight tries against dummy missiles that used no countermeasures whatsoever.

The latest blast against the idiocy came on Thursday:

Washington (Reuters) - The multibillion-dollar U.S. ballistic missile shield due to start operating by Sept. 30 appears incapable of shooting down any incoming warheads, an independent scientists' group said on Thursday.

A technical analysis found "no basis for believing the system will have any capability to defend against a real attack," the Union of Concerned Scientists said in a 76-page report titled "Technical Realities." ...

Overstating the defensive capabilities was irresponsible, said the report by the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based group. It cited past Pentagon statements the capability was limited only by the number of interceptors.

"If the president is told that the system could reliably defend against a North Korean ballistic missile attack, he might be willing to accept more risks when making policy and military decisions," the report said.

"I actually worry that it's worse than useless, that it's really dangerous," George Lewis, a report co-author who is associate director of the security studies program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told reporters at a briefing.

The General Accounting Office, Congress's nonpartisan investigative arm, said last month the system's effectiveness would be "largely unproven" when it becomes operational.

What I find so fascinating about the whole this is that this system keeps coming back to life, like Jason. Every time you think it's good and dead, it springs up again with a new rationale for the same old crap. This time, believe it or not,

[t]he initial goal is to protect all 50 U.S. states against a limited strike from North Korean missiles that could be tipped with nuclear, chemical or biological warheads.

You read that right. The new bogeyman is North Korea, replacing unnamed "rogue states," which replaced China, which replaced long-time champ the USSR.

All the old technical arguments against this stupidity are still valid, as are all the old political arguments, with one exception: We used to say that a false feeling of invulnerability could cause us to act rashly and brazenly in a way that would damage the possibility of peace and increase risks faced by others as well as ourselves.

Shelve that argument; it's hard to imagine us acting more rashly and brazenly than we already are.