Missile Envy

The super-secret (or not-so-much) satellite designated "USA 193" originally was expected to re-enter the atmosphere "on March 18, plus or minus one week, if nothing was done to hasten the event." Now, the U.S. plans to obliterate it with an SM-3 interceptor missile as early as Wednesday this week.

The insulting part of this is that the Bush administration thinks we're dumb enough to buy their cover story.

There are only three explanations for why Bush made the "go-ahead decision" to blast the satellite to smithereens before reentry. One is he wants to let the Navy "test its missiles in an anti-satellite mode for the first time since the end of the Cold War." The second is, as the Moonie newspaper reports, to show "missile muscle" to China.

The third reason, John Pike says with tongue-in-cheek, is "they want to avoid the possibility that this stuff will show up on Ebay."