Ready, Aim, Fire

When Jed Babbin talks, the Pentagon listens:

The title of a July 7th Washington Examiner editorial asked, "where are [the] Star Wars critics now?" A better question is, "Where are the missile defense advocates?" They are nowhere to be seen. Republicans should be pressing for an immediate crash program to complete development and deployment of a complete, multi-layered ballistic missile defense system. And, at the same time, they should be trumpeting the history of Cozy Carl [Levin] and the disarmers. But they are, as usual, asleep at the switch. Why all the pusillanimity?

That was Monday. Before twenty-four hours had passed came this:

Responding to North Korea's missile tests, congressional Republicans urged greater efforts to build a national missile defense system and proposed new sanctions on nations doing weapons business with North Korea.

"We have to have a defense that allows us to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles," said House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-CA, at a news conference Tuesday. House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-OH, also said the North Korean test-firing last week of seven missiles including one that potentially could reach the United States underscored the need for a U.S. missile defense system.

"We and the rest of the world would feel much safer if in fact we had a missile defense system up and operating," he said....

Hunter said he planned to confer with Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-VA, about putting more money for missile defense in a defense spending bill now being negotiated between the House and Senate so the country can "move ahead with these systems as rapidly as possible."...

Hunter criticized Democrats who opposed President Bush's 2001 decision to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and who have annually sought cuts in the administration's missile defense spending proposals.

In May the House defeated a Democratic-supported amendment that would have cut $4.7 billion from the $9.1 billion allotted for missile defense in the 2007 defense bill.

"It's time for the Democrats to stop fighting the ghost of Ronald Reagan," Hunter said. Reagan was an early supporter of a missile defense system, formerly called "Star Wars."

Ask, and ye shall receive. At least when Pachyderm minds are focused, as narrowly averting the possible incineration of Honolulu is want to do.

As if to flaunt his party's inexhaustible source of rakes to step on, one Dem, in classic pavlovian fashion, couldn't resist taking the bait:

But Representative John Tierney, D-MA, author of the amendment to cut missile defense spending, said numerous government studies have come out against building a weapons defense system that has yet to be proven reliable in test runs.

That brings us to yesterday, high in the clear, blue New Mexico skies (h/t CQ):

Hundreds of miles above southern New Mexico, it was a picture-perfect impact between two missiles. ...

The pre-dawn art show was the result of the third of five tests planned at White Sands Missile Range to determine the effectiveness of THAAD — Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile. And military officials said the test went better than they could have hoped.

"This was phenomenal," said U.S. Army Colonel Charles Driessnack, the project manager for the Missile Defense Agency's THAAD program. "It performed as expected."

The test demonstrated the THAAD's ability to "completely destroy that warhead so that no chemical or nuclear residue would contaminate areas" below the explosion, Driessnack said. ...

The target — a Hera missile that closely mimics the characteristics of the more infamous SCUD missiles — was launched shortly after 5:17 a.m. Wednesday. It took to the skies from a location on the far northern reaches of the bombing range's territory, about 100 miles north of the Organ Mountains, 25 miles north of Highway 380.

It carried a canister of inert material to simulate chemical or biological elements that could be mounted on an enemy missile, Driessnack said. The target missile rose roughly 200 miles above Earth before beginning the final stage descent toward land.

Got anything to say, Congressman Tierney? I mean, besides, "Humina-humina-humina..."?

Gotta love what passes for al Donka "logic." They oppose missile defense because it's "unproven." It can't become "proven" without R&D and testing. Yet they oppose R&D and testing, making their justification for opposition a self-fulfilling prophecy. Not unlike if they were to claim that walking is "unproven" as a mode of transportation, and then promptly broke the legs of anybody who dared try to put one foot in front of the other.

If R&D and testing are allowed to go forward, missile defense might become "proven," thus debunking the Democrats' opposition to it, and bringing their true motivations into question. A question I've harbored, and asked, for years: Why does the Democrat Party want their own country defenseless against ICBM attack?

Thanks to Jeb Babbin becoming the new E.F. Hutton, the Donks might just have to start answering that question.