Korean Missile Threat is real and eminent.
(An excerpt)… In the First Punic War, during the late 240s BC, the Carthaginians grew weary of the long war with Rome and made the decision to decommission much of their fleet and to release from their employ many of their mercenary sailors. This proved to be an extraordinarily ill-fated decision. They voluntarily ceded to Rome, their mortal enemy, naval superiority and mastery of the seas. Although it would be another one hundred years before the ultimate fall of Carthage, this set in motion the events which led to a huge military advantage for Rome and its ultimate destruction of Carthage…
The ominous items which have led the news over the past two weeks have been the rape of Cypriot bank depositors, the fall of Stockton California, the largest city to declare bankruptcy in US history, and the threats of nuclear war coming from the punk dictator of North Korea. All three events are interrelated in that they are the inevitable outcomes of European and American insolvency and the impending collapse of Western hegemony.
Like the US, in the third century BC, Carthage was an extremely wealthy and powerful seafaring city state with trading partners from the black sea to Scandinavia. Yet when it was drawn into war with the Romans over the island of Sicily, the decisions it made set in motion the events that led to catastrophe. So complete was the destruction of Carthage that…In 146 BC the walls were breached and the Romans stormed the city to find nearly all the military-age men had been killed. They executed the surviving soldiers and shipped the women and children off to slave markets…
In Cyprus and in Stockton California no one can deny that the decisions made by collectivist progressive government officials have been disastrous. They have led to the wanton confiscation of their own citizens’ capital. In Cyprus, the insolvency of their banks caused the Cypriot politicians to close the banks for two weeks. When the banks opened, depositors were only allowed to withdraw a maximum of $384 per person. Some Cypriots are scheduled to see their own government to confiscate 80% of their money. Similarly, in Stockton, the bankruptcy judge is allowing the bond holders to be stripped of much of their principle while the government-employee pensions are kept in tact. And here is the problem for the survival of the West. Men will not fight valiantly to defend a kleptocracy. They will not freely risk their lives for a government they loath. It violates the principle governing the fall of great civilizations:
Immutable # 2
In battle, free men almost always defeat slaves (Herodotus’ Law)
North Korea, Missile Defense, and Democrat Intransigence
Due to the threats issued by North Korea, the news today is that the US is deploying to Guam the THAAD (Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense) battery to protect our most important military base in Asia. Kudos to my friend, Jay Nordlinger who reports in National Review on the progress America has made on our missile defense since President Reagan proposed it 30 years ago. In his article, SDI at 30 – Reagan’s vision is not national priority, but should be, he writes, “We have accomplished a fair amount, but not as much as we could have, and not as much as we should have.” (April 8, nationalreview.com)
Jay goes on to compile a brief history of why we are not yet ready to neutralize a full scale nuclear attack but can only hope to prevent a very limited rogue attack. The short synopsis of why SDI is not ready is Democrat intransigence. When Reagan formally announced SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) Ted Kennedy and assorted Democrats mocked it as “Star Wars.” Clinton slashed the funding for the program by 50%. When George Bush cancelled the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty which prevented us from actually fielding the systems, Joe Biden, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called it a “tragic mistake.” When campaigning in 2007, Obama repeatedly stated that during his campaign that he “would not weaponize space” and that he would not deploy a “costly unproven” missile defense system.
President Obama made good on his threats and immediately cancelled two major missile defense installations scheduled to go on line in Poland and Czechoslovakia, leaving Europe and the Eastern Seaboard vulnerable to an Iranian attack. Nordlinger also points out that in April ’09, three months after Obama took office, the North Koreans staged a missile test. The very next day, in a shocking display of cowardice and appeasement, Obama cancelled the interceptors scheduled for Fort Greely, Alaska.
Now, four years later, the North Koreans threaten war and Obama reverses himself and orders the interceptors for Alaska. But here’s the kicker. They won’t be ready until 2017. We’ve lost four years! Nordlinger posses a fascinating question regarding Democrats, “Did they oppose SDI because it would work or because it would not work? In the end, it doesn’t matter why because the result is the same. We are not ready. Like the Carthaginians’ decision to disband their fleet Democrat opposition to SDI is a gross violation of one of the immutable laws I describe as governing the fall of great civilizations. It violates:
Immutable Law # 10:
Declining civilizations will always face superior firepower from ascending civilizations because sovereignty is only temporarily uncontested.
Note to the reader: I will write more about SDI in future columns
