I respectfully disagree with your editorial “Our View: There’s no place in Maine for missile defense site” (Aug. 20). It seems to ignore a few important details, mainly that technology is rapidly improving.

Some of us remember that even the thought that President Reagan had “Star Wars” ready to deploy was a strong factor in ending the Cold War and splitting up the Soviet Union.

Our early Patriot missiles were not too reliable during the first Gulf War, but Iron Dome now has a nearly 100 percent kill rate against Hamas rockets over Israel.

These new missile silos in Maine would take a few years to build and deploy. Today’s nine out of 17 kill rate against ICBMs will improve by then, and improve more in the coming years.

Even if the kill rate doesn’t get any better, you would say that the silos were worth what we spent on them if you lived in one of the nine cities that were saved.

More importantly, Hamas knows they are not killing many Israelis with their rockets, and they know Israel will not go nuclear in response.

However, if Iran fires a nuclear ICBM at the U.S., they will have good reason to question its effectiveness, and no reason to question our response.


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