Monday, March 2, 2009

Obama wants to scrap our last chance to stop a nuclear missile attack


Barack Obama is willing to trade away our only chance to stop a nuclear missile attack by a rogue nation. A Russian newspaper reported the deal was offered in a letter sent to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. In return, Obama wanted help in dealing with Iran. We would be much better off with a nuclear missile shield than a promise from the Russians. A promise won't intercept an ICBM.

Report: Obama Offers to Scrap Missile Shield If Russia Cooperates on Iran
President Obama wrote to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to tell him Russia's aid in resolving the threat from Iran would make plans for a missile defense shield in Europe unnecessary, according to Russian news agencies.

President Obama offered to consider scrapping plans for a missile defense shield in Europe if Russia helps rein in Iran's nuclear program, the Russian newspaper Kommersant reported.

The article said Obama wrote to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to tell him Russia's aid in resolving the threat from Iran would make the missile shield plans unnecessary, according to an account from Russian news agency RIA Novosti.

A senior administration official told FOX News that Obama sent a letter to Medvedev but "we won't comment on the specifics." (excerpt) read more at foxnews.com

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

As far as I know that shield isn't to protect us, it is to protect Europe. They can afford to build their own.

There is no such thing as a defensive weapon. If we could build a force field over the country, it would just mean that we could apply all of our defensive forces to assault. Putin knows this. He sees our installation of 'defensive' missiles in all those places he has his missiles pointed as negating his mutually assured destruction, and thus as a threat to his sovereignty. We don't need to continue the arms race with Russia. We don't have anything to prove or to gain.

Carl Wicklander said...

Steel Phoenix is right on all points. No need to elaborate on those.

Besides, what aggression is Russia making toward the U.S. anyway? From Russia's point of view, they probably think we are aggressing on them.

When the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union dissolved, Russia pulled all of its troops out of Eastern Europe. President George H. W. Bush promised not to expand NATO, but every president since then has expanded NATO, even to include old Warsaw Pact nations and lobbying to get former Soviet republics Ukraine and Georgia into the alliance. Even though the Cold War was over, we acted like we still had to defend against a Russian attack, which is not coming.

Russia and Putin are by no means purely benevolent, but since our actions do not happen in a vacuum, is it not possible for Russia to have legitimate grievances? Our actions do cause reactions in other parts of the world.

And while I hate to use John F. Kennedy as a reference to defend my point, the deal he cut with Khrushchev was the right one. You have to make deals with people, even those you don't like. We took missiles out of Turkey and he took missiles out of Cuba. And Nikita Khrushchev, the Butcher of Budapest, was a far more dangerous figure with far more blood on his hands than Vladimir Putin.

So why all this fuss about Russia, a country who might be an ally for us. What is it? Do we just miss the Cold War?