The tizzy over missile defense

The liberal voices in opposition to a proposed national missile defense
system produced a near deafening crescendo last Friday in advance of the
Pentagon’s third test of a system designed to protect the American people
from errant — or intentional — nuclear ballistic missiles.

Story after story ran questioning the need for such a system in a world
even the most rabid socialist would agree is becoming more dangerous.
Journalists also seemed broken record-like in their accusations that such a
system would not even work.

“Of all the shameful acts Bill Clinton has committed since becoming
president in 1992, none is quite as galling as his administration’s decision
to roll over and play dead before the defense industry’s missile defense
campaign,” bleated Eric Alterman of MSNBC.com last week.

When in doubt, blame the “military-industrial complex.”

As it turned out, the missile defense test on Friday didn’t work. But
rather than scrap all plans to continue to develop and eventually build such
a system, Americans should prompt the leadership and the Pentagon to
redouble efforts at building a system that does work. We need it;
it’s just that simple.

Forget the “rogue threat” theory that the administration and the Defense
Department are using to justify building the system. North Korea, Iran,
Syria, Iraq and Libya put together, over the next decade, will not even have
enough nuclear-tipped ICBMs to equal a real threat. Some of these nations
won’t have a single weapon that can threaten the continental United States.
If they ever launched one, they’d be dust an hour later. They know that. We
know that.

Instead, the leadership in Congress and the administration should stop
pussyfooting around with that absurd “rogue threat justification” for
building a national, regional and theater missile defense system. Instead,
they should tell the world exactly why such a system is not only
necessary but crucial to national defense.

China and Russia. Enough said — and if Moscow and Beijing don’t like it,
tough. What are they prepared to do about it? Nothing — because there is
nothing they can do about it. For now.

In a few years, however, that could change.

Both of these countries don’t much care for America as they have made
patently clear in recent years. So to hell with what “they think” about a
U.S.-based national missile defense system; they’re complaining about it
because they can’t build one themselves and, hence, wouldn’t be able to
shoot ICBMs at American cities with impunity sometime in the future,
whenever they felt like it.

So, they don’t want us to have one either.

Which is exactly why we need one. We should never let
potential adversaries tell us what we do and don’t need as far as military
offensive or defensive weapons are concerned. That’s like a fox telling a
chicken farmer he really doesn’t need to have all that wire around his
coops. Get real.

You know, we wouldn’t need laws against stealing if there weren’t any
jerks walking around who made their living by stealing from other people. We
wouldn’t need a national missile defense system if we didn’t have enemies in
the world who would love to lob nuclear bombs at us — and have the
capability to do it.

The fact that the latest missile defense test failed means nothing. It
failed; fine. The Pentagon should go back to the drawing board and
try again. And again. And again.

Until they build something that works.

It’s hard to fathom why whiners in the establishment press cannot
understand this necessity. Even though they criticize the Pentagon and
accuse the Department of Defense of blowing every dime taxpayers ever give
them, they at least have the luxury of complaining in a country that, for
now, is safe.

Our country is safe, by the way, exactly because the Pentagon and the
Department of Defense help keep it safe. We have the best fighters,
ships, tanks, and weapon systems in the world because our Department of
Defense developed them and then built them.

Maybe that’s why everyone steals our technology.

Because of the proliferation of ballistic missile technology (again,
Russia and China come to mind), our country won’t always be safe from
these threats. Thinking in terms of weeks and months when it comes to what
will be needed defensively ten years from now doesn’t work; that’s why
building this system now is imperative. We may not have time to build
it later on.

You know, when the missiles come. And they will.

These same whining press and congressional pundits will then blame the
Pentagon again for “letting” the American people get bombed. That is, if
anyone’s still alive.

Department of Defense can’t win — unless they build us a functional
national missile defense system. Then we all win. And we all
remain safe.

Even if all we want to do is complain about how much it cost us to build
it.

The latest missile defense test didn’t work? So what? To the boys and
girls at the Pentagon, in Congress, and in the Department of Defense, I say
this: Don’t stop now. Get to work. Find out what went wrong, fix it,
and get this country a missile defense system. We can’t afford to wait.