Star Wars

Back in 1983 President Reagan announce his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) ... an intended ground-based and satellite-based protective shield against hostile ICBMs ... which was often credited with ending the Cold War with the Soviet Union ... since it knew that it couldn't make an equivalent investment. Democrats in the United States, along with their media acolytes, dubbed Reagan's effort with the derisive term "Star Wars". That was 34 years ago! ... more than three times the span of our efforts to land on the moon. And, since then, this snide attitude toward Star Wars has kept this now-critical technology underfunded and under-researched.

Now, faced with an ICBM threat from North Korea, the U.S. does have an anemic SDI ... but relatively untested and under deployed. Four presidents have come and gone since Reagan, two Democrats and two Republicans, none of which have showed a gut-level commitment to this anti-ballistic missile system ... resulting in our current weak posture. Shame on us! We should have had an impenetrable system by now against such threats ... one which would keep North Korea, China, Russia, Iran and other potential bad actors from threatening America's resolve.

The fact that we are so relatively unprepared for North Korea's bluster is a shame that both political parties share ... having spent trillions of dollars on everything but our most critical investment ... our defense against despots.

The Ship of State

Old Ironsides

The United States must really have some special resilience going for it to have survived the last five years ... maybe even longer ... of domestic and international screw-ups.  Whether this mismanagement is purposeful or as a result of incompetence is almost beside the point.  Our country has been buffeted by a series of fiscal, operational, and diplomatic tidal waves that would have sunk even the sturdiest of ships … yet we sail on … a little slower and shakier than would be nice … but we are thankfully still afloat.

I hope I need not detail these tsunamis … which should be quite obvious to those seamen even traveling in steerage.  Can I just tweak a few reminders …  the IRS, huge deficit spending, Benghazi, Iran, NSA, Obamacare, the Muslim Brotherhood, Fast and Furious, North Korea, the stimulus, amnesty, Solendra, illegal immigrants, Assad, the fiscal cliff, EBT cards, unemployment, Afghanistan, global warming, Edward Snowden, SDI, increased tax rates, the debt ceiling, Excel pipeline, etc.?  We have placed a tyro at the helm of our ship of state who appears somehow oblivious to these buffetings … just as long as he can play some golf, have his White House soirees, and pick his March Madness brackets.

Our man-o-war surely must be rock-ribbed.

Echoes

Echo Rocket

Most adults of a certain age remember John Kerry’s treasonous utterances in front of Congress after he had returned from his “heroic” six-month mission to Vietnam.  But what has also recently turned up are the ironically idiotic comments he made as a relatively new Senator when President Reagan proposed an anti-missile Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI … also derided as “Star Wars”) in 1986.  Here is the reference: CNS News Story.  But I would like to extract therefrom a few of his choicer words in light of how North Korea is now rattling its nuclear-armed-missile sword … and how we are in the process of deploying our (what is still an underdeveloped) anti-missile defense system:

“What we must do is deny this program [SDI] the funds that would enable this cancer on our nation's defense to grow any further,’”

“[SDI is] a dream based on an illusion.”

 “We must also recognize that we could never test a Star Wars system under realistic conditions until the moment of an all-out nuclear attack,”

“If Star Wars didn't work perfectly the very first time [the result] would be the destruction of our society.”

 “This is the time we must say 'no' to the president's [SDI] dream, a dream based on illusion, but one which could have real and terrible consequences,”

To bad these echoes of Kerry’s true character did not come up when he was being questioned prior to his recent confirmation as Secretary of State in that august chums’club called the Senate.  One would hope that, had this happened, Kerry would have at least blushed.