NATO Backs Bush's Missile Defense System (Breaking)

AP ^ | Apr 3, 2008 | MATTHEW LEE

[CatQuilt]

The collary to your tagline is that we’re going to save your a$$ whether you like it or not!

[Red6]

I was stationed in Alaska BEFORE 911, when Bush took office and things began taking shape on missile defense already then. BEFORE 911, missile defense was already a priority and Ft Greely, slated to originally close, was not and preparations etc were made long before “officially” things began in the summer of 2002. Almost immediately missile defense was a top priority with this administration and even BEFORE 911 in Europe Bush was being ridiculed for his push in missile defense which also extended into Europe. They claimed it would “destabilize the world, cause a new arms race, break the balance of power.....” The usual European idiot talk. In fact, Schroeder himself took shots at Bush, while his government through NATO demanded they be put under the interceptor umbrella.

Many of these things like the basing of Interceptors in Poland are decisions that were made years past, not today or last month.

[Mr. Silverback]

Heh-heh!

[CatQuilt]

I should say that those who are tempted to accept an inept Commander-in-Chief, we’ll save your a$$ whether you like it or not...

[Southack]

We’ve already got more than 550 PAC-3 interceptors, plus another 114 SM-2 interceptors.

Add 35+ GBI’s to the above (most in California and Alaska) plus a classified number of SM-3’s. Add in the Airborne Laser and you’ve got yourself a defense system that *will* defeat a 465 missile nuke attack, or that *could* possibly defeat a 900 missile attack (at the extreme edge of the theory if everything performs as it’s supposed to).

That’s not pie in the sky...those are proven missile interceptors, and they are already deployed.

It’s one heck of an accomplishment.

[Atlantic Bridge]

The missle defense in eastern Europe is basically a good thing. Nevertheless it is not that important since it is not suitable to fend off nuclear warheads that are in the possession of terrorists or rouge countries. If i.e. the Iranians would try to detonate a A-Bomb in the US or elsewhere in the western world they will use probably this carrier system:

+ =

A warhead, a suitcase and a idiot. Such is cheap, effective and makes it difficult for the US or any other western nation to fight back. All evidence will vaporize.

Therefore I doubt that anyone ever needs the missle defense facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic. Just another dump for American taxpayer money. Since I am from Europe it is not my party where you Americans spent your defense budget, but I think there are better fields for your investments.

What would have been far more important for the security of this planet would have been the membership of the Ukraine and of Georgia. Both countries are in eminent danger that Russia is going to re-annex them sooner or later...

The thing is that NATO is not the monolithic bloc it was during the cold war in regard of Russia. Western Europeans have here completely different interests in the meantime than the US or the eastern Europeans. They need Russia as a trading partner and do not want them to be confronted with a offensive NATO.

[SunkenCiv]

Dang. My LaserJet only prints hard copies.

[1035rep]

It’s one heck of an accomplishment.

Darn right it is.

[baa39]

They hate us except for situations like this where it’s American tax dollars and American technology and the American military that will be the only thing between them and rogue missiles.

The Europeans have pretty much made it a standard policy not to invest in their own militaries, knowing the USA will provide 90 percent of the protection, the work, and the lost lives.

[King Lazar]

The Poles and Czechs have got some of the biggest cajones in Europe.

Why is that???

[patriciaruth]

Let’s give President George W. Bush his due.

Before 9/11 in the Spring after taking office, he did two things which particularly infuriated American liberals and liberal Europeans.

He “unilaterally” opted out of the Kyoto Treaty and he endorsed SDI (missile defense system) and talked about opting out of the ABM treaty with Russia so SDI could be properly tested.

God bless him.

[westmichman]

Bush has done a lot of good things, but his leadership of the Republican party has destroyed them.

[patriciaruth]

Bush has done a lot of good things, but his leadership of the Republican party has destroyed them.

How has President Bush destroyed our missile defense system?

[tlb]

As per my post 1 I give the main credit to Ronald Reagan for SDI, but it was GW Bush who against overwhelming disapproval made the decision to fund and deploy the actual system. Then stuck with that decision in the face of Russian and European and democrat hysteria.

Now Bush has won over the Europeans and against the Russians, both in defiance of the wisdom of the press in the last few days saying this was not going to happen. That being the case I won’t get overwrought if the press calls it Bush’s system. He certainly has after Reagan the best claim.

As for the funding argument that ate up so many posts, so what? The test isn’t whether a govt agency gets all it WANTS, but does it get what it NEEDS. My view from the outside is they got enough funding to perform their mandate.

Interceptors are active at missile bases, on ships, and soon in the air. The world got a demonstration just weeks ago what US interceptors can do. I doubt Reagan would be critical.

[westmichman]

Are you serious?
I was referring to his leadership of the Republican Party and the subsequent downfall of it.

[westmichman]

I was referring to his leadership of the Republican Party and the subsequent downfall of it. There; fixed that statement.

[neutronsgalore]

“He “unilaterally” opted out of the Kyoto Treaty and he endorsed SDI (missile defense system) and talked about opting out of the ABM treaty with Russia so SDI could be properly tested.”

But there isn’t any need to spend the money on SDI defense of Europe. It should be spent all on SDI defense for the USA. A group of nations capable of developing and producing the A380 is fully capable of making it’s own missile defense. They just want the US to pay for it. It’s like having kids that never move out of the house and turn into free-loading adults. NATO is obsolete and has turned into a welfare project for Europe. Far better to return to unilateral defense treaties with only strategically valuable nations.

[meandog]

Quoting the NYT Times as an article of fact is laughable. Half of what they write is falsified and the other half has their liberal spin, half truths and omissions. Considering this is your validation, just proves to me I can not take you seriously and a blind man could see your hatred BDS.

Riiiiiight (heavy sarcasm)...I see that you completely ignore the facts presented to try to justify your argument that Bush was just as faithful as Reagan in the dream of a worldwide SDI program. And the fact is that both "Read My Lips" and "Mission Accomplished" Bushclowns were incompetent overseers of the best nation on earth ever created by God. It is really difficult for me to suffer fools gladly, but, in trying to strike some accord with FReepers who cannot see light through the darkness of misplaced loyalty, I will say that #41 and #43 were at least better than either Clinton or Carter as both asshats were not only incompetent but unfaithful stewarts of their Constitutional duties.

[meandog]

The point is (and the thrust of my posts) that both of the Bush's did something less than what Reagan invisioned ... Yes, the Aegis BMD system is splendid but do you realize that it could have been done many years prior to the event that took place recently? "Read My Lips" Bush (41) hacked at the SDI program for the "Brilliant Pebbles" defense in the wake of the old Soviet Union meltdown, reasoning that its blanket use would not be as necessary when there was no longer a monolithic communist empire threatening us with ICBMs. "Mission Accomplished" Bush mostly followed in the footsteps that his dad had made, despite (before 9-11) having the luxury of a GOP controlled Congress that his dad did not have. Yet, at the same time he was pulling the funding rug out from under Reagan's vision, the North Koreans, Indians, Pakistanis, Chicoms, Iranians, and Sadaam were all developing future threats. Thus, IMO, we are still behind the curve...

I also would invite your attention to read the history of defense spending when Reagan was at the controls; IMO he would not have allowed SDI to have been gutted one cent. In fact, he was the president to enact the first Base Realignment and Closure Act (BRAC) to close down old, obsolete, formerly congressionally-protected unneeded military bases to put more funding into the program.

[DrDeb]

“I was referring to his leadership of the Republican Party and the subsequent downfall of it.”
-

. . . oh please, hysterics said the same thing about Ronald Reagan after the election debacle of 1986 . . . it wasn’t true then and it isn’t true now!