Trading missile shield is bad

President Bush was rightfully criticized for many of his unconstitutional actions to keep us safe following the Sept. 11 terrorist attack. Those actions like the Patriot Act, wiretapping and suspending habeas corpus need to end now. Unfortunately, President Obama has done absolutely nothing to end these gross constitutional violations.

But there is one great thing that President Bush did to keep us safe that was constitutional. He negotiated an agreement to put a nuclear missile shield in Poland to intercept nuclear missiles that are aimed at either America or Western Europe. This ingenious plan has the potential to save many millions of lives.

Obama inherited three tyrannical, unconstitutional policies and one really great plan to protect us and our Western allies. Guess which one the president is trying to get rid of?

Obama is offering a deal to the Iranian government where the US government would end construction of the missile shield if Iran promises not to build nuclear weapons. A few months ago, rumors of this came out, but the Obama Administration denied what they called the “quid pro quo” deal. However, according to the Los Angeles Times on April 6, while Obama was speaking in Prague, he said, “If the Iranian threat is eliminated, we will have a stronger basis for security, and the driving force for missile defense construction in Europe will be removed.”

Before deciding whether this is a good idea or bad idea, let’s examine the deal. This missile shield has the potential to thwart a nuclear attack from any nation, or terrorist group, in the Middle East or Russia. So, it will protect us, and our Western allies, from a nuclear attack from Iran if they are successful in their quest for nuclear weapons. Sounds like a pretty high bargaining chip to me.

In return for us dismantling protection from a nuclear attack, Iran must promise to stop trying to build a nuclear weapon. That would be nice, but we all know that Iran is a key supporter of terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah among others. What is to stop them from funneling their resources to a terrorist group who would then potentially build a nuclear weapon and attack us or our allies?

It’s hard to believe that someone as intelligent as President Obama actually thinks that this is a fair trade.

The president came into office campaigning on the fact that he would improve our relations with Europe. Former Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joseph Lieberman believes that Obama might inadvertently be weakening our alliances. In a letter to the president, Senator Lieberman wrote, “Cooperation on missile defense is now a critical component of many of our closest security partnerships around the world. We fear that cuts to the budget for missile defense could inadvertently undermine these relationships and foster the impression that the United States is an unreliable ally.”

If the world continues to get crazier with the likes of Mahmoud Ahdmenijad, Kim Jung Il and Hugo Chavez trying to bully the world, we will need every resource and asset we have to protect us and our allies. And that missile shield in Poland is an asset we cannot afford to lose.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Apr 17 2009. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry