It has been accepted wisdom, since the fireworks display of Kim Jong IL this past 4th of July, that the missiles were not shot down but failed due to malfunction. Perhaps this is so. But if this “wisdom” is correct and our military was not at least preparing to shoot the missiles down then we need to fire someone. After all the money we spent on Anti Missile Defense, money that I am happy to spend btw, if they weren’t at least attempting to shoot down missiles headed towards Hawaii then we have deeper problems than mere systems failing. We have a failure of will.Furthermore I don’t happen to see any reason why the Bush administration would trumpet any successes with Missile Defense relating to those launches. He knows he can win the legislative battles without exposing our programs to publicity which might compromise their effectiveness. We can see how serious a threat we face from rogue nations given the target for the missiles. That fact by itself is enough to sell the system to everyone but the left and nothing short of a missile landing on top of the NYT building will sell it to them. So the fact that the military is denying they shot the missiles down does not mean what some think it does.
Instapundit believes that they would trumpet the success. Perhaps Glenn believes that Bush needs the success to sell the system. I disagree I believe that Kim Jong Il is selling the need for the system. Maybe Kim Jong iL is a Rove plant?
I believe that the missiles were indeed shot down. I further believe that the people who need to know we succeeded already have gotten the message loud and clear. They don’t know exactly how we managed to do it but they probably know we did it. Though hell if they want to believe the missile failed all the better to have them chase their asses around for a bit. Further that the system succeeded in one of the most difficult scenarios, multiple launches.
The only decision left is what we do about a rogue leader who casually aims missiles towards the US. Aiming missiles at Hawaii would seem to constitute an act of war. But hey I am just a simple country boy who isn’t well versed in the complicated diplomatic shenanigans.
N. Korea missile aimed at area off Hawaii – report: “N. Korea missile aimed at area off Hawaii – report
TOKYO (Reuters) – A North Korean missile launched on Wednesday was aimed at an area of the ocean close to Hawaii, a Japanese newspaper reported on Friday. Experts estimated the Taepodong-2 ballistic missile to have a range of up to 6,000 km, putting Alaska within its reach. Wednesday’s launch apparently failed shortly after take-off and the missile landed in the sea between the Korean peninsula and Japan, a few hundred kilometres from the launch pad.
But data from U.S. and Japanese Aegis radar-equipped destroyers and surveillance aircraft on the missile’s angle of take-off and altitude indicated that it was heading for waters near Hawaii, the Sankei Shimbun reported, citing multiple sources in the United States and Japan.”
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