Carpetbagger regular David S. wrote in with a really good point, following up on this morning’s item about Bush and missile defense. David noticed another part of Bush’s statement that’s just as disturbing as the parts I emphasized earlier.
Specifically, just to refresh your memory, Bush boasted, “We want to continue to perfect this system, so we say to those tyrants who believe they can blackmail America and the free world: you fire, we’re going to shoot it down.”
This gives new meaning to the phrase “empty threat.”
Bush has lost touch with reality if he believes it appropriate to tell our armed enemies that we are “going to shoot” down their missiles if they fire them at us. It can’t be done; we don’t have any way to shoot down much of anything.
Maybe Bush meant to say that someday we might be able to effectively taunt our nuclear rivals like this, but that’s clearly not the challenge he laid out yesterday. David S. says this is “recklessness on an unprecedented level.”
Considering that our so-called missile defense system doesn’t work and may never be an effective shield, it’s hard to argue with that conclusion. As it is, the existing system produces successful results only half the time, and only then when the military rigs the tests and puts homing devices on the targets (which our enemies may not be inclined to do.)
Unfortunately for our troops, their commander-in-chief has a habit of inviting attacks for which the United States is unprepared.
President Bush said [in July 2003] that American troops under fire in Iraq aren’t about to pull out, and he challenged those tempted to attack U.S. forces, “Bring them on.”
Bush sure is brave, as long as someone else is doing the fighting.