No hand wringing by these Dems. See a threat, then take it out. I just can't seem to recall them being quite so aggressive while in office. The Clinton defense team was no nonsense, wasn't it? I know this wouldn't be a popular course of action, but the Dems were never worried about approval ratings before devising policy, were they? Or is this a way to cover your bases, have some say attack, some say negotiate, then whatever happens, you made the right decision. It sure is easier to spin your position, especially during an election cycle, when you don't have to be the one making the real decisions. http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/06/22/nkorea.missile/index.html An op-ed piece in Thursday's Washington Post by William Perry, secretary of defense under former President Bill Clinton, and Ashton Carter, Clinton's assistant secretary of defense, advocates a pre-emptive strike to destroy the missile.
Oh, I thought you meant a preemptive strike against George Bush since they hate him so. I think a preemptive strike would be stupid. Star Wars program, missile defense program should be able to take care of North Korea's missile, that is if its power enough to reach us. That Star Wars program is the one the Democrats made fun of.
A preemptive strike would surely screw up the Koreans and they couldn't do much about it except invading South Korea over it. But it would annoy China who, for once, is actually trying to back down the North Koreans politically. The Koreans are trying to use this missile test to force the US into one-on-one negotiations instead of returning to the stalled 6-nation talks. It might be better to call their bluff on this one and make them back down. If they launch it anyway, it will only bring more international support to our side of the issue. Few would blame us for responding to such a military provocation. I wouldn't be surprised if we shot the missile down in such a scenario and possibly followed up by destroying the launch site. Anywhere they test it in the north Pacific threatens US bases and territory and they would have to overfly Japan as well, which is doubly provocative. The 9 anti-missile interceptors that we have in place in Alaska and California are designed to deal with just such a missile, but they are not fully operational yet and are point defense missiles that would require the Koreans to shoot dangerously close to the US, which ain't likely. But everybody is being very quiet about other anti-misile technologies that we are known to be developing. Technologies that attack a missile in its slow, sitting duck boost phase instead of its hypersonic, hard-to-hit rentry phase. One is a high-energy laser aboard a big cargo jet and the other, probably already deployed, is an advanced naval SAM. These weapons must be stationed relatively close to the launch sites and we have continually deployed two Aegis cruisers to the Sea of Japan for a year now. We also have plenty of big air bases in Japan and on Guam. Yesterday the Navy also demonstrated a point-defense kill capability against a ballistic missile near Hawaii. LINK--U.S. Navy test intercepts warhead If the Koreans actually launch the missile, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the Navy shot it down over the Sea of Japan within 4 minutes.
