That's a recent North Korean missile launch on top. You remember North Korea; its that patch of land on the Korean peninsula north of the 38th parallel, ruled by a deranged despotic dictator who was, in 2000, the recipient of a Michael Jordan autographed basketball - a gift from our former secretary of state Madeline Albright. That's him under the missile.
The soft diplomacy of the past several years, through both Democratic and Republican administrations, did not stop the madman from pursuing his nuclear weapons, and the missiles with which to deliver them. He gets closer each day to having the capability of taking out a piece of the United States, and, according to intelligence sources, has been proliferating nuclear technology to other rogue nations - pleasant thought, there.
It should be obvious to any observer of the political scene that we will not be playing offense for at least the next four years, which makes the honing of our defense more important than ever, right?
Would that it were so, but it apparently is not, given what happened yesterday in the House Armed Services Committee. While marking up the FY 2010 budget for the Defense Department, the committee voted down an amendment to re-insert $120 million to fund the remaining 14 ground-based interceptors for our missile defense program. The additional 14 ground-based interceptors would have brought the total to 44 such interceptors - something requested by Defense Secretary Gates a year ago. Now Gates has acquiesced in the diminution of this defense capability.
According to The Heritage Foundation: The US has already spent $235 million on these remaining 14 interceptors. It would take another $120 million to finish the deployment of these 14 interceptors. In addition, if DOD does not deploy the 14 interceptors, they will be charged a $75 million cancellation fee. So in reality, the DOD and Congress is gambling American security to save $55 million.
Of course there will always be defenders of our previous and ongoing soft diplomacy in dealing with North Korea, and maybe they're right. Were it not for that Michael Jordan autographed basketball, we might now all be charcoal.
