Posted on 09/17/2009 7:09:46 AM PDT by balls
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration plans to announce on Thursday that it will scrap former President George W. Bush’s planned missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic and instead deploy a reconfigured system aimed more at intercepting shorter-range Iranian missiles, according to people familiar with the plans.
President Obama decided not to deploy a sophisticated radar system in the Czech Republic or 10 ground-based interceptors in Poland, as Mr. Bush had planned. Instead, the new system his administration is developing would deploy smaller SM-3 missiles, at first aboard ships and later probably either in southern Europe or Turkey, those familiar with the plans said.
The White House will announce the decision Thursday morning and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who was first appointed by Mr. Bush, will then discuss it with reporters at 10:30 a.m. It amounts to one of the biggest national security reversals by the new administration, one that will upset Czech and Polish allies and possibly please Russia, which adamantly objected to the Bush plan. But Obama administration officials stressed that they are not abandoning missile defense, only redesigning it to meet the more immediate Iranian threat.
“The way forward enhances our homeland defense and protects our forces abroad as well as our European allies,” said an administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid upstaging the announcement by Mr. Gates. “Our review has been driven by an updated intelligence assessment of Iran’s missile programs and new advances in our missile defense capabilities and technologies.”
Administration officials said the Bush missile defense architecture was better designed to counter potential long-range missiles by Iran, but recent tests and intelligence have indicated that Tehran is moving more rapidly toward developing short- and medium-range missiles.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I’m just curious why we’d be spending money we don’t have to defend the Czechs and the Poles? No offense to them, just wondering how that can be a priority? Shouldn’t we have a shield here in the US first? I don’t get it.
Uh, that would be the type of intelligence this bunch decried as "lying about wmd's"--
Pansy-Of-The-United-States is keeping his pre-election promise of unilateral disarmament.
To please his communist buddies in Russia.
Criminal.
Treasonous.
Conspirator.
Key words to describe his treacherous global behavior.
Failure to protect and provide for the American people and her allies. Then they want to spread the wealth to the have not nations? Poor priorities. Ill understanding of how the real world operates and a relentless drive to destroy the US and the west!
Destroyer of the American way. The man needs to be impeached.
OBAMA’S FOREIGN POLICY=SURRENDER.
CAPITULATES TO NORTH KOREA ON TALKS
CAPITULATES TO RUSSIA ON MISSILE DEFENSE
CAPITULATES TO HAMAS ON FUNDING & ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS
WEAK.
America has been the world policeman since the beginning of time at the taxpayers expense. It has provided many with safety and freedom over the last 233 years.
Obama wants to destroy that too.
Domestic-Enemy-in-Chief speaking now...
A predictable development. He is a Democrat, after all, and one from the extreme lftist fringe of the party.
“Domestic-Enemy-in-Chief speaking now...”
Obama is as dangerous as Al Queda and the Taliban.
One Polish take on it, with mixed comments:
http://www.polskieradio.pl/thenews/international/?id=116074
“Shouldn’t we have a shield here in the US first?”
It’s not like a force-field. You can prevent missiles from hitting the US by intercepting them anywhere along the trajectory. Advanced deployment makes sense to me as a building block of integrated missile defense.
That system worked pretty well at Crecy and Agincourt.
No questions... he couldn’t leave the briefing faster if he was strapped on an Iranian missile.
Precisely. Today marks exactly, to the day, seventy years since the Soviet Union invaded Poland. How much more blatant could you be?
Well, the article states the defense system will be placed closer to Iran, so that seems to be in line with your thinking on the matter.
APPEASEMENT ... (definition)
i) Putting today’s worries off until some uncertain future time, when someone else will have to take a stand (because you didn’t).
ii) The immoral practice of sending a much larger number of future Americans into harms way in the future in order to temporarily look good in the present
iii) Progressive strategy, which has no historical validity, for winning wars, defeating enemies and preserving freedom & democracy
Disgusting but true.
Right now I am watching SecDef Gates defend this atrocious decision.
Sickening.
I know, silly question. There's no such THING as treason any more.
Yes we should have one here, and there is technology avaialable. Since Reagan, congress has never had the will to do it.
It isnt defending Czechs and Poles. Get out a globe, look at Iran,,,trace your way to New York and DC by the direct route. A missile in its early boost phase passes over Czech republic, where the radar plots it. Then missiles are fired from poland for the intercept.
This never had anything to do with Russia. It was a mere handful of missiles, like 10 or so. Russia could easily overwhelm that. Also any russian launch tracks wouldnt pass over europe, they would fly over the polar region.
Russia knew the missiles had nothing to do with them, and had an ulterior diplomatic motive. Obama the amateur got owned by them. This was a minor thing he could easily have won.
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague”.”
~~Marcus Tullius Cicero
And his friends in Iran. Meanwhile, he is aking a hard line in Honduras, and will not meet the Dalai Lama.
What a punk, what a tool.
Of course no questions: he DOESN'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT IT EXCEPT THAT HE WANTS TO SURRENDER TO RUSSIA'S DEMANDS.
So he sloughs off to golf some more and has his SecDef do the heavy lifting.
He is nothing more than a script reading ignoramus.
WHY Gates has continued to stay on and defend this dolt is amazing.
Yeah, apparantly it’s all about IRAN. And so they are moving the system closer to IRAN. Doesn’t really sound like caving in to me. If it’s a better way to defend against Iran, I’m for it. If it makes Russia happy too, so what?
bttt. good quote.
Well that's just great, we'll be well prepared for the next horde of French knights.
Three more years of this bullshit and we’ll be reduced to throwing strongly worded letters of protest at our enemies.
Oh, wait - we’re doing that now.
Moving it where? Aren’t our Eastern European allies worth defending?
You wouldn't think you'd have to explain this kind of thing to a sentient being.
I really have mixed emotions on this. I appreciate your comments however we have navsats around the globe and intercept aircraft and missile’s for any long ride here.
I think europe should pay for its own defense - they have not and want the american taxpayer to pay for them.
There is nothing stoping either country from buying and implementing their own defense.
Are that many people in the leadership of America really so much in favor of bald-faced treason? One of the few legitimate functions of government is to protect its people; here we have an administration that is usurping all kinds of roles government is NOT supposed to have, while doing what it can to undermine its legitimate roles. We need regime change, urgently.
Obamalamadingdong chose the 70th anniversary, to the day, of the Soviet Union's invasion of Poland to make this announcement. Accident? Chance? This plan has been in the works for months. He could have chosen any day this week, but he chooses September 17th to make this announcement. If Russia never had anything to do with it isn't the timing kind of odd?
If America’s word is only good until the next election, maybe monarchy wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
“intercepting them anywhere along the trajectory”
Good point. And from what ive read, the boost phase is best, slowest, and brightest, so to speak. Space phase it’s lots tougher, then re-entry is a little easier again.
Boost is always best if you can. Obozo gave that away, pleased the Russians and Iranians, betrayed the Poles and Czechs, all in one move. What a guy.
I think Putin liked Bush. Of course, they were never buddies but at least Putin respected Bush and realized he couldn’t be bullied.
He understands Obama also. Thus the contempt.
Mr. Wright...you are preaching to the choir.
Jesse Jackson let slip one time that he wanted cut Obama’s ‘boys’ off. He would have been sadly disappointed to find out someone beat him to it.
Maybe. It seems to me we can't defend everybody. There must be priorities. Why shouldn't Europe defend itself? What have they done for us lately?
it may be your last chance!
70 Years ago, today, Russia/Communists invaded Poland.
Soviet invasion of Poland - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Prelude|Military campaign|Allied reaction|Aftermath
The 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland was a military operation that started without a formal declaration of war on 17 September 1939, during the early stages of World War II, sixteen days after the beginning of the Nazi German...
wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland
Well, the new configuration is designed to defend Europe, so you should be ok with it. I personally don’t see why Europe can’t defend itself. Why should we spend money we don’t have to defend them? Let em build their own shield.
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