Thank Reagan and Bush, not Obama, for SDI

Thank Regan and both Bushes for it.

The Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI, was established under President Ronald Reagan in 1984 when the threat of nuclear war from the Soviet Union was still a very real possibility.  The television movie, The Day After, had come out in 1983 and reminded us all of the threat nuclear war posed to humanity.  Though the USSR is dead, regimes like North Korea threaten us and a system which Barack Obama opposed has now been deployed to Hawaii to protect it.  How sweet the irony and how fortunate Democrats have not been able to kill SDI for good though they certainly tried.

During Ronald Reagan’s second and George H.W. Bush’s only term in the White House, SDI was a high priority.  Democratic detractors labeled SDI “Star Wars” and said it would never work.  Indeed, when Bill Clinton became president he promptly ended the program in 1993, renaming it the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, or BMDO which basically took missile defense and made it into a small scale system like the Patriot which is designed only to protect troops or a small area of land not the entire U.S. as with SDI.

When George W. Bush became president he again funded SDI and many amazing tests were successfully carried out using a variety of tracking systems on both the land, sea, and in space.  Thanks to three Republican presidents funding for SDI has been active for 16 of the previous 24 years.  When Reagan proposed SDI the technology just wasn’t there.  Computers of that day ran at a whopping 4.77 MHz and if you had a 10 megabyte hard drive you had more space that you could ever use.

When Barack Obama was running for President of the United States he made the following promise to his supporters (Click here to watch the video):

“I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems.”

Floating radar array for missile defense.

So lo and behold Obama becomes president and the world is not quite as friendly as he thought.  North Korea sets off a nuke and then announces that on July 4, 2009, they are going to test fire their missile with a range of 4,000 miles at Hawaii (if everything goes right for them they will fall just short of the island).  What does President Obama do?

The U.S. is also deploying missile-defense weapons to Hawaii that would theoretically be capable of shooting down a North Korean missile, should such an order be given, he said.

So a program which Obama opposed while senator, a system which he called “unproven” when a candidate for president, he now calls upon to protect the 50th state of the Union.  How ironic.

You would think with so many threats (Iran is trying to acquire nukes and long range missile technology from North Korea) that Obama would have changed his tune on SDI.  Were he a reasonable person, he probably would have.  Instead, what does his 2010 budget propose?

Missile defense took a $1.4 billion, or 15%, hit in the Gates-Obama proposed 2010 budget. Several promising programs such as the airborne laser were put on the shelf. The number of those ground-based interceptors at Fort Greely in Alaska and at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California that Gates touted was capped at 30, down from an intended 44.

Check out this interesting video… Obama promises with great sincerity that he will cut missile defense then promises he will keep it but, once elected, cuts the program by 15% as shown above:

It’s not like the missile defense system, pushed heavily by Republicians (and opposed by Democrats) doesn’t have an excellent track record and a strong endorsement from U.S. millitary commanders:

Since 2005, all six tests of the ground-based missile system have intercepted their targets, excluding tests when the targets malfunctioned, Missile Defense Agency spokeswoman Pam Rogers said.

It is one of two missile defense systems the military tests at the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai. The other is the sea-based Aegis system, which has recorded 18 successful firings in 22 attempts.

“We’re in a good position should it become necessary to protect American territory,” Pacific Fleet Lt. Cmdr. Chuck Bell said.

I guess it’s all about priorities.  Obama signs a $787 billion pork-riddled “stimulus” bill into law and gives billions more to GM and Chrysler but cuts SDI right at the time when this country needs it most.  How is that looking out for the best interests of America?

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