Joe Biden recently said that a another 9-11-type attack was unlikely.

Well, yesterday’s incident in Austin where nut-job Joseph Stack flew into a building targeting the IRS proves just how wrong Biden was.

If one desperate man can do such a thing, even posting up hi s suicide note online prior to his actions, are we supposed to believe that Islamic extremists, more dedicated to attacking America and in much larger numbers can’t pull enough another attack if we let our guard down?

Biden’s attitude is what the terrorists need to succeed. Our complacency paves the way for vulnerability.

Very good news:

A flying Boeing 747 jumbo jet equipped with a massive laser gun shot down a Scud-like missile over the Pacific late Thursday night, marking what analysts said was a major milestone in the development of the nation’s missile defense system.

The test shoot-down at 8:44 p.m. over a military test range near Point Mugu is expected to renew debate over spending billions of dollars for a system that seemed so far behind schedule that the Pentagon decided to significantly curtail its budget last year. The test, which the Pentagon described as a success, could be a major boon to Southern California, where much of the high-tech system has been developed and tested.

“Proving this technology is game-changing,” said Loren Thompson, a military policy analyst for the Lexington Institute, a think tank in Arlington, Va. “The program’s funding has been hanging on by a thread. A successful shoot-down of a ballistic missile will demonstrate to Capitol Hill that the airborne laser has potential.”

To translate from the MSM-ese: Obama and his liberals are gleefully gutting SDI because they are just plain and simple ignorant about it. They think in terms of the leftist slanders of “Ronald RayGun” from the 1980’s rather than in reality. Meanwhile, we desperately need this program in an increasingly dangerous world and smart people at Defense know this.

So, we get this successful test in an election year and the hope is that some Democrats – desperate to save their political hides – will vote for funding of SDI and that Obama will just sign it because its easier than opposing it. The United States gets defended by happy accident of Democrats wanting to get re-elected. Its a sad way to conduct affairs, but as long as Democrats are in charge, we’ll have to use such tricks to get anything worthwhile done.

Seems our liberals in the Obama Administration have no clue about the current state of the world:

U.S. and Russian negotiators have reached an “agreement in principle” on a successor to the decades-old START treaty that expired last year, the Wall Street Journal is reporting.

The deal would reduce the number of actively-deployed nuclear warheads from 2,200 to between 1,500 and 1,675, and the number of possible delivery vehicles — from missiles to submarines and bombers — would fall to between 700 and 800 per side.

“There may be finessing and fine-tuning, but the issues, from our perspective, are all addressed,” said Rose Gottemoeller, the Obama administration’s lead negotiator on the treaty.

The basic structure of the deal was reportedly approved last week during a phone conversation between President Obama and Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. The final drafting could take two months, officials said.

Why are we even doing this? START had its place in history – as a means of dealing with the old USSR and the over large stockpile of nuclear weapons we had built to confront that dead entity. Now things are different, and entering in to nuclear weapons agreements with Russia is as absurd as reviving the naval limitations treaty between the US, UK and Japan from the 1920’s. Why are liberals this obtuse?

What we need to be doing, now, is building (and testing) a new generation of nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles to confront the rising challenge of China – and the prospect of a series of Third World dictatorships obtaining nuclear arsenals. Our efforts should be geared towards the means of having a first-strike capability against such nuclear forces coupled with the ability to defend ourselves against any response. But here we are, negotiating treaties with Russia as if its still 1986!

As I noted in Developing a New American Foreign Policy, it is time for us to discard the failed foreign policy of the past and build a policy which actually serves American interests. Writing up pointless agreements with Russia about nuclear weapons is stupid, foolhardy – in short, just what we could expect from an Administration stocked with liberals.

Well, looks like Obama got the message…

White House officials have told the Justice Department to consider other venues for the 9/11 terror trial that was to be held in lower Manhattan, the Daily News has learned.

The decision came after Mayor Bloomberg and other politicians across the state railed against President Obama’s plan to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Manhattan Federal Court.

Attorney General Eric Holder now has to think of other places where the trial could take place, officials said.

Something tells me, given the outrage by pretty much everyone outside of his administration, that Obama decided to do this a while ago… but chose to wait until after the State of the Union… the day after, no less…

The decision by Obama to hold public trials for captured terrorists is undoubtedly stupid. On so many levels this decision is simply boneheaded. 

I’m sorry, but what message are we sending to the entire world, who will be watching, that American justice includes prejudged trials? We expect such things to happen in Iran, not here.

Obama allegedly taught constitutional law. So, perhaps he can explain the constitutionality of this situation? Obama has given terrorists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed the same constitutional rights as all American citizens. So, tell me, if you were ever on trial for something, how would you feel if everyone had already declared you guilty, and determined your punishment? Is that what America is about?

And if you were Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s lawyer, wouldn’t you take advantage of these blatant abuses and violations of civil rights to declare a mistrial?

An act of war merits a military trial. If these terror trials are allowed to continue, especially when being used as examples of American justice, no matter what happens we lose.

Aside from the safety concerns, and the potential for intelligence gathering methods being revealed in public, there is another aspect of this situation that is troubling: the potential damage to our country’s civilian justice system.

Victor Davis Hanson notes our societal attitude about Moslems and terrorism:

…The society at large, driven by the sermonizing of its elites, has come to an unstated conclusion that, unfortunately, a few Americans will have to be sacrificed from time to time, for the larger goal of establishing the fact that Americans in no way think Muslims are any more likely than any others to commit either random or premeditated terrorist violence. I think that is the initial lesson of Fort Hood. (I remember something similar from the 1980s and 1990s, when we accepted that to be a diplomat or a soldier stationed in the Middle East or Africa or anywhere in the Muslim world meant that there was some chance that your barracks, camp, hotel, embassy, or ship would be attacked — and very little chance that the U.S. government would do much in response other than launch an occasional ineffectual cruise missile or offer a bombastic “this will not stand” speech.)

If the lone-wolf incidents start happening ten times a year, rather than three or four, and if one or two terrorist plots succeed and result in several hundred killed, then attitudes may change (at least for a while).

This seems to be it. I know Moslems – good, decent people who offer no threat at all; but what we are actually doing is transposing our view of these decent people on those who are hate-filled and always just an instant away from going on a personal Jihad. While I am distressed to think that patriotic, law-abiding American Moslems will have to be discomforted, I believe that we must do it. We don’t want an “acceptable level of violence”. I don’t want to bow down before Political Correctness on a pile of innocent, American corpses. I’d rather offend than attend funerals.

And, in truth, patriotic Moslems should be eagerly seeking such scrutiny – and they should be making loud, bold statements of loyalty to the United States and disdain for people who murder in the name of Islam. The fact that such actions are rarely – if at all – seen after incidents of Islamic terrorism is in itself disturbing. And it may be indicative of a fear in the Moslem population – fear that if they speak out, they’ll be the next victims of the Islamists; fear that we, their fellow Americans, won’t protect them from the radical Islamists who pour hatred in to our midst.

We must start treating radical Islam as a subversive element in our society – an internal enemy which must be rooted out. They are trying to overthrow our government and, indeed, our entire way of life. This is the United States of America. We are a Judeo-Christian nation. We are part of Western civilization. We welcome all who come here – but if you are to live in the United States of America, you’ll have to live as an American. This means, at a minimum, you never seek, advocate, justify or even mildly excuse violence against your fellow Americans. And if you are a member of a group which is routinely producing people who violate this basic trust, then you’ll have to accept a certain level of inconvenience as we attempt to separate the good from the bad.

We reported earlier that Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan attended the same mosque at the same time as two 9/11 hijackers, but now we’ve also learned that he “had been attempting to make contact with people associated with al Qaeda.” months ago, and federal officials were aware of it.

It is not known whether the intelligence agencies informed the Army that one of its officers was seeking to connect with suspected al Qaeda figures, the officials said.

[...]

Investigators want to know if Hasan maintained contact with a radical mosque leader from Virginia, Anwar al Awlaki, who now lives in Yemen and runs a web site that promotes jihad around the world against the U.S.

In a blog posting early Monday titled “Nidal Hassan Did the Right Thing,” Awlaki calls Hasan a “hero” and a “man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people.”

According to his site, Awlaki served as an imam in Denver, San Diego and Falls Church, Virginia.

Does this information point to Hasan being just a guy “who snapped” or a guy who thought long and hard about what he planned to do?

The real tragedy here is that this could have been prevented. For liberals who convinced themselves that Bush either knew 9/11 was gonna happen and didn’t do anything about or just ignored the warning signs, I’d love to know how they feel about the fact intelligence officials were well aware of Hasan’s actions months ago and nothing was done about it.

Perhaps we need to be asking what did Obama know and when? Or was it just political correctness that let this happen? There was clearly plenty of warning and actionable intelligence. But nothing happened.

After 9/11, no one knew what lay ahead for this country. We can only guess at how many attacks on U.S. soil were foiled thanks to the efforts of the Bush administration and our intelligence agencies, It appears that symbiotic relationship designed to keep us safe has broken down..

I guess Obama is just too busy.

Bush administration policies made it tough on tyrants. Saddam Hussein was toast. Mohammar Khadaffy, seeing the writing on the wall, suddenly turned into a good guy. Even Kim Jong Il thought twice about beating his chest and preening his trollkin hair in touting his nuclear capabilities.

Yep, to paraphrase a rap song, during the Bush administration, it was hard out there for a tyrant.

Enter Barack Hussein Obama: Since his inauguration, Ponyang has re-started its nuke program, Ghadaffi is now supporting Iran’s nuclear program, and Iran is…well, kicking its thermonuclear program into full gear.

Ain’t it a caution as to the difference nine months can make, now that Barack Hussein Obama is doing his level best to make the world safe for tyranny…

President Obama dismayed America’s allies in Europe and angered his political opponents at home today when he formally ditched plans to set up a missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

The project had been close to the heart of Mr Obama’s predecessor, President Bush, who had argued before leaving office in January that it was needed to defend against long-range ballistic missile attacks from rogue states such as Iran and North Korea.

But it had hobbled relations with Russia, which considered it both a security threat and an unnecessary political provocation in its own backyard.

This of course, comes on the heels of this news:

VIENNA — Experts at the world’s top atomic watchdog are in agreement that Tehran has the ability to make a nuclear bomb and is on the way to developing a missile system able to carry an atomic warhead, according to a secret report seen by The Associated Press.

The document drafted by senior officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency is the clearest indication yet that the agency’s leaders share Washington’s views on Iran’s weapon-making capabilities.

It appears to be the so-called “secret annex” on Iran’s nuclear program that Washington says is being withheld by the IAEA’s chief.

The document says Iran has “sufficient information” to build a bomb. It says Iran is likely to “overcome problems” on developing a delivery system.

At any rate, since Putin and the neo-Soviets in Russia got their way, at the very least, Obama’s decision to pull a Nancy will reap dividends in getting Russian cooperation, right?

Not so fast, appeasement breath:

“Those who are talking about a concession to Russia are primarily those who are looking for a bargaining chip in seeking extra dividends of some kind from us,” said Dmitry Rogozin, the Russian envoy to NATO, in remarks carried on the Interfax news agency. “In actual fact, the Americans have simply put their own mistake right. And we are not duty-bound to pay for someone to put their own mistakes right.”

The Obamateur makes the world less hostile to tyrants, destabilizes the balance of power, and continues to weaken the United States to the point of impotence in the process.

A socialist utopian trifecta.

There. Don’t you feel safer, now that hopenchange is here?

Nile Gardiner of the Telgraph (UK) calls it a shameful surrender… I have to agree.

I blogged a couple of weeks ago that the Obama administration was about to abandon its plans for Third Site missile defence installations in Poland and the Czech Republic. I wrote then that “if enacted, this would represent a huge turnaround in American strategic thinking on a global missile defence system, and a massive betrayal of two key US allies in eastern and central Europe. Such a move would significantly weaken America’s ability to combat the growing threat posed by Iran’s ballistic missile program, and would hand a major propaganda victory to the Russians.”

It now looks as though the president has surrendered to Russian demands to kill off Third Site.

Pouring salt on the wound, the announcement came on the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland.

Well, President Bush was right,”This is a dangerous world, & [Obama] isn’t remotely qualified to handle it. This guy has no clue, I promise you.” 

Senator Mitch McConnell issued the following statement with regard to the news:

“The administration’s decision to abandon an important missile defense program for the defense of NATO and our allies in Poland and the Czech Republic, in my view, is both shortsighted and harmful to our long-term security interests.  We must not turn our backs on two loyal allies in the War on Terror.  Further, the administration has secured no apparent commitment from the Russians to work with us to reduce either the missile or nuclear threat from Iran.  More troubling will be if the administration has made these concessions to Russia in pursuit of expediting ill-considered arms control deals.”

True enough, The Wall Street Journal reported today that Russia “welcomed the news but said it saw no reason to offer concessions in return.”

So, Obama, what they hell are you thinking?

What also gets me about this whole thing is that Obama and the Democrats have claimed that Bush was the one alienating our allies and making us less safe. Ain’t that something? After such stupid allegations against Bush, Obama can insult our allies time and time again, end the war on terror, approve of the release of the Lockerbie bomber, and now this — without blinking an eye. Obama has done more to appease our enemies that protect this country and there is no reason why any American should stand for it.

UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: It makes no sense . Why do we even care what Russia thinks? Does anyone seriously contemplate war with Russia? We don’t need an arms control agreement with Russia…we don’t need anything with Russia.

We’re selling out superb allies in order to…what? What the heck are we doing? Is this just rote liberalism? Because liberals wanted arms control agreements with Russia in the 80’s, we must continue to want arms control agreements with them forever? Russia is a dying nation – Putin’s an arrogant ass, but one day he’ll be gone and Russia will face the stark fact that unless we support them, they won’t be able to hold their country against China and Islam. We need give them nothing – but we’re giving them this gift, on the 70’s anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Poland on conjunction with Hitler’s Nazi Germany.

Fool or idiot? More and more, “idiot” is coming to the fore in my view of Obama.

Causing a bit of a stir:

Coast Guard Blames Media For Potomac Mishap

‘Routine Exercise’ Sparks Questions As Reports Surface That Shots Were Fired At Boat

Gibbs Criticizes Outlets That Reported Erroneous News

Ok, so CNN appears to have messed up – pretty much par for the course for CNN and, anyways, its not like Obama’s Administration has been keen on seeing to it that CNN reports are accurate. The larger question I have: why on Earth would you schedule a “routine” anti-terror exercise on 9/11? Either someone is lying, or someone is stupid. This, also, is par for the course – for the Obama Administration.

Yep, the nation is in the very best of hands…

This happened about a half mile away from my house:

Police say an interagency homeland security unit is looking for several men seen leaving the area after an explosion damaged equipment at a North Las Vegas construction site.

No injuries were reported, and authorities haven’t said what type of vehicle the men were in.

North Las Vegas police Sgt. Tim Bedwell says the apparent bomb blast left a football-sized hole in the side of a water truck.

Bedwell says several neighbors reported the explosion just after midnight at the construction site near Aliante Parkway and Grand Teton Drive.

He says police didn’t find the source of the noise until construction workers arrived about dawn and found the damage.

The Mrs was heading out to get a bagel and soda early this AM and the police blocked her path and turner her around. Other than what is in the story, we know nothing about what is going on. The water truck, for a while part of our local scenery, is parked in a vacant lot immediately adjacent to a large electric power substation.

Side note: No, I didn’t hear a darned thing.

Or, “how to sound like you’re talking tough, but you really ain’t“:

GREGORY: Did you mean to suggest that the U.S. is considering a nuclear umbrella that would say to nations in the Arab world that an attack on you, just like NATO or Japan is an attack on the United States, and the United States would retaliate?

CLINTON: Well, I think it’s clear that we’re trying to affect the internal calculus of the Iranian regime. You know, the Iranian government, which is facing its own challenges of legitimacy from its people, has to know that that a pursuit of nuclear weapons, something that our country along with our allies stand strongly against. We believe as a matter of policy it is unacceptable for Iran to have nuclear weapons. The G-8 came out with a very strong statement to that effect coming from Italy.

So we are united in our continuing commitment to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. What we want to do is to send a message to whoever is making these decisions that if you’re pursuing nuclear weapons for the purpose of intimidating, of projecting your power, we’re not going to let that happen.

First, we’re going to do everything we can to prevent you from ever getting a nuclear weapon. But your pursuit is futile, because we will never let Iran — nuclear-armed, not nuclear-armed, it is something that we view with great concern, and that’s why we’re doing everything we can to prevent that from ever happening.

GREGORY: All right, but let’s be specific. Are you talking about a nuclear umbrella?

CLINTON: We, we are, we are not talking in specifics, David, because, you know, that would come later, if at all. You know, my view is you hope for the best, you plan for the worst.

Our hope is — that’s why we’re engaged in the president’s policy of engagement toward Iran — is that Iran will understand why it is in their interest to go along with the consensus of the international community, which very clearly says you have rights and responsibilities; you have a right to pursue the peaceful use of civil nuclear power; you do not have a right to obtain a nuclear weapon; you do not have the right to have the full enrichment and reprocessing cycle under your control.

But there’s a lot that we can do with Iran if Iran accepts what is the international consensus. (emphasis added)

First off, Madam Secretary, it is absurd to talk of Iran not having a right to nuclear weapons. No nation has an intrinsic right to such horrific things – some nations have them, and some don’t. As a nuclear-armed nation the question for us always will be: do we want “Nation X” to obtain nuclear weapons? If you’re going to argue a point that Iran doesn’t have a right to the weapons, then Iran’s position in any negotiations will be to get us to agree that Iran does have a right to such weapons. We’ll be arguing in circles and making no progress. So, do we want a nuclear-armed Iran?

The official Obama Administration position is, “no” – but the statements of Secretary Clinton indicate we consider a nuclear-armed Iran a foregone conclusion unless the Iranians, by some chance, voluntarily agree to eschew such weapons, out of the goodness of their hearts (the same hearts which gun down young women in Iran’s streets, that is). We have just telegraphed, loud and clear, that we will not act to prevent Iran from obtaining such weapons…the talk of “we won’t allow” or “we will stop” is just mindless yammering right after anyone in the Obama Administration says, “What we want to do is to send a message to whoever is making these decisions that if you’re pursuing nuclear weapons for the purpose of intimidating, of projecting your power, we’re not going to let that happen”. What needed to be said is, “we will not tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran and Iran should pay heed to our resolve and seek to make the best deal they can in return for their voluntary surrendering of the nuclear option”.

Once Iran has a nuke, they will inherently intimidate their neighbors and will inherently be able to project their power – these two things are the result of building nukes, not something you do with a nuke after you’ve built it. A nuclear armed Iran changes the power calculus in the middle east because the statements of Iran’s leaders cannot be ignored – while it might all be bluster, everyone will have to work on the assumption that they’re crazy enough to use them. And don’t think a “nuclear umbrella” will do much…no one in Saudi Arabia or Turkey is really going to think we’ll risk a nuclear counter attack on ourselves because Iran nuked Ankara or some other city. And the Israelis won’t care about it – a couple nukes over Israel means the end of Israel, period: Holocaust II. It wouldn’t even be cold comfort to think that after 5 million more are murdered the US will possibly nuke Tehran in response.

Clinton, speaking for Obama, has blown our chances of using something short of all out war to prevent an Iranian nuclear force. Nice job. No we’ll either get a nasty war in a couple years, or a generation of nuclear brinksmanship and even worse terror-sponsoring.

An Instapundit reader asks:

Notice how there was no “antiwar” movement during the ‘90’s, even though we were at war the entire time in Iraq, Haiti, Kosovo, a dab here and there in Afghanistan and Sudan. Then, after 9/11, it was the “Next Vietnam” with a passionate “antiwar” movement with the NYT’s full treasonous participation, just like the good old days. And now, even though the daily death count has matched the highest daily rate we ever saw in Iraq, there is no “antiwar” movement or daily casualty count in all the newspapers. It’s like the “antiwar” movement can be turned off and on like a switch, depending on which party is in the White House.

Well, where are you guys? Where the “no blood for oil” demonstrations? The attempts to put Obama up on war crimes charges? The “Obama lied, people died” posters? Come now – or is being “anti-war” really just a matter of being “anti-GOP”?

We’ve had wall to wall coverage of the sad, pathetic Michael Jackson…but no coverage of someone far more important in the grand scheme of things:

“Mr. Jackson received days of wall-to-wall coverage in the media,” Martha Gillis wrote to the Washington Post. “Where was the coverage of my nephew or the other soldiers who died that week?”

Gillis’ nephew, Lt. Brian Bradshaw, 24, died in Kheyl, Afganistan, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle. Bradshaw, of Steilacoom, Wash., was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Airborne Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division in Fort Richardson, Alaska. He was one of at least 13 U.S. soldiers to die in Afghanistan since Jackson’s death on June 25.

Bradshaw’s mother, Mary, said she agreed with Gillis, saying the nonstop coverage of Jackson’s death has become “totally ridiculous” and laughable.

“I can watch the news many nights and there’s no mention of what’s going on in Afghanistan or Iraq and there’s boys dying over there,” Bradshaw told FOXNews.com. “Oh God, I can’t talk.”

And why is our President so silent about this? These are the men he sent in to battle – they are carrying out his orders; dying to advance the cause of the United States. He can spare time for a bogus health care fairy tale on TV, how about some time for the best and bravest?

• How Many Jobs Are Being “Saved” In Massachusetts?
• Welcome Back, Carter
• Ask Yourself Why Obama Is Trying to Fast-Track His Agenda
• Restoring America’s Standing?

I also starting blogging at Healthcare Horserace, a project of the American Liberty Alliance.

• Wal-Mart Backs Obama’s Health Care Plan?
• More Updates From The Health Care Battle Front
• Baucus, Grassley, and a Consensus on Health Care?

Enjoy.

No, I’m not kidding:

With the clock running out on a new US-Russian arms treaty before the previous Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, expires on December 5, a senior White House official said Sunday said that the difficulty of the task might mean temporarily bypassing the Senate’s constitutional role in ratifying treaties by enforcing certain aspects of a new deal on an executive levels and a “provisional basis” until the Senate ratifies the treaty.

If isn’t ratified then it isn’t a treaty and thus isn’t a law – the President cannot enforce figments of his imagination. This is grounds for impeachment, if he does it…though with solid “don’t-give-a-hoot-about-the-constitution” Democrat majorities, nothing will come of it…

Goodness, I hope this report isn’t true:

The United States is opposed to enacting a new set of financial sanctions against Iran that are due to be discussed in the G8 summit next week, diplomatic officials in New York reported Friday.

According to officials, sanctions against Iran are expected to top the G8’s agenda. Sources are also predicting a pointed debate between the heads of the industrialized nations over an appropriate response to Iranian authorities’ suppression of reformist demonstrations in Iran led by Mir Hossein Mousavi and other Iranian opposition leaders…

…diplomatic sources in New York reported that American officials are working behind the scenes to prevent new sanctions from being imposed against Iran.

U.S. officials claimed that a tough stance toward Iran could backfire, bringing about an opposite outcome to that desired by those who support such measures.

The Obama administration, according to the diplomatic sources, has discarded the notion of direct talks with Iran. However, the United States is still interested in re-engaging Iran through the renewed discussion of its nuclear program through the five permanent United Nations Security Council members and Germany.

Obama, if you are doing this, then you are a fool; and your folly will eventually be paid for by human blood. You can’t do this – you can’t back off on sanctions and then hope to negotiate a nuclear agreement with Iran: if you back off, you see, all you’ll do is convince the blood-soaked mullahs that you are a coward and that they can get away with anything as long as you are in office. Doesn’t matter if, deep down inside, you have an American backbone – the damage will be done and no one will ever believe you have it. And like the appeasers of old, you might be forced to show a bit of steel at the worst possible moment.

I drove around town a bit today and the American flag is still flown proudly by Americans – don’t make betray the trust of those who showed their patriotism today..

Since you guys have been saying for 26 years that SDI wouldn’t work and your own guy, Obama, campaign against SDI…why is Obama deploying SDI around Hawaii under threat of a NK missile launch? Shouldn’t he just say “there’s nothing we can do to stop it because – as I stated in my campaign – SDI doesn’t work…but, don’t worry, if NK does nuke Hawaii, we’ll nuke them to heck and gone because the way to ensure nuclear peace is via mutual assured destruction”?

Come now, liberals, what have you to say?

Because rigid adherence to out-of-date leftist talking points (and this one dates from 1983) trumps the safety and liberty of the American people:

Perhaps no part of the Obama administration’s planned Defense Department budget makes less sense than its effort to slash $1.2B from missile defense programs for FY 2010.

In light of the recent behavior of North Korea and the reminder that we face the prospect of a nuclear-armed revolutionary Islamic state in Iran, a group of Republican congressmen on the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday offered a series of amendments seeking to reverse the proposed cuts.

Sources on the Committee tell Pajamas Media that the Committee Democrats blocked the amendments — seemingly unaware that earlier in the day Obama had deemed North Korea’s nuclear ambitions to be a “grave threat” or that administration officials were reporting that North Korea could have an ICBM capable of reaching the U.S. west coast within five years. Minority Whip Eric Cantor told Pajamas Media: “As we watch what is going on with North Korea and the brutal regime in Iran, Democrat efforts to cut missile defense programs are not only misguided, but dangerous. As our enemies ramp up, it makes no sense to cut important defense and national security programs.”

This is complete madness – in leftist ideology, it was pronounced in 1983 (at the behest of Soviet propagandists and fellow travelers) that SDI would never work. In spite of the fact that the USSR was building as much SDI as they could; in spite of the fact that scientific theory showed a wide array of SDI options; in spite of the fact that technological developments over the past quarter century have only confirmed the validity of SDI; in spite of the fact that we’re dealing ever more with mad men possessed of nuclear weapons – in spite of all this, the left was never instructed to drop opposition to SDI. Obama, being the figurehead of leftism in America, was instructed to parrot opposition to SDI while Congressional Democrats, also under such instructions, just waited for the chance to have a President who would go along with cuts in SDI. And here we are.

I do wonder how anyone could ever be in opposition to anything which might prevent a nuclear weapon from reaching our territory – heck, if it cost $10 trillion and only stopped one nuke, it’d be worth it. Of course, it won’t cost that much and it will stop far more than one…in the end, it might stop them all and make nuclear weapons, as Reagan desired, obsolete. Certainly this is a worthwhile task to turn ourselves to…but nothing doing on the left; SDI was just Ronald “Raygun” trying to start a nuclear war (work with me here, I’m dealing with leftist thought – which really did state that a method to defend against nuclear weapons was actually a means of using nuclear weapons) and thus it had to be stopped (that stopping it would prevent the bankruptcy of the USSR just never made it through the fog of leftist “thought”…and that USSR is bankrupt and defunct in large measure because of SDI still doesn’t get through their thick skulls…that the opposition to SDI is now lead on the global stage by those very Powers which would become trivial on the world stage once we deploy a full SDI system also never seems to get past the “wall of separation” between reality and leftist). In the end, we’re dealing with people who are willing to be extraordinarily stupid in service of leftist goals – and the real trouble is that they have the power to stop SDI…

Way cool stuff for science geeks and sailors young and old.