Posted by
"Happy" Jake Greene on Thursday, November 06, 2008 9:07:08 AM
The one thing that worries me most about President Barack Obama (just typing that makes me ill. I hope I’ll develop an immunity to it eventually) is his expressed attitude toward the military.
During his campaign for the Democrat nomination, even before the mess about his association with Jeremiah Wright became widely known, I was already strongly opposed to a Barack Obama presidency. The main reason was a speech he made during that campaign. No, it wasn’t his “bitter and clingy” speech. It wasn’t his lies about never having heard Rev. Wright’s racist, anti-America rants (as I said, this was before those were publicly known). It wasn’t the “above my pay grade” response to Rick Warren. President Elect Obama has gone on record as saying that he would oppose funding for the research and development of “unproven” military technology.
Let me say that again, just in case it got lost in the previous paragraph. Barack Obama, the man who was elected President, strongly opposes funding the R&D of “unproven” (his word) weapons systems.
Perhaps, Mr. Obama can explain what he believes to be the purpose of “Research and Development.” Is not R&D by definition work on an unproven system? Does Mr. Obama believe that all weapons systems work just fine right out of the box? Does he even know that while the B-2 Stealth Bomber didn’t work all that well when it was made public in 1987, it became an essential asset in the War on Terror both in Iraq and Afghanistan? Does he realize that the same can be said of the B-17 and WWII? Does he know why we had to test several components of the atomic bomb, including exploding one near Alamogordo, NM? Nothing, not weapons systems or wheels, is proven before it is researched and developed. Many things even appear to be failures either in the R&D phase or soon after introduction – The B-17, the B-1, the B-2, the Osprey Helicoptor, the DeHavilland Comet (the first jet powered commercial airliner), the Olympic class ocean liner (to which belonged RMS Titanic), and the Hubble Space Telescope are examples – but end up being reasonably successful concepts once some overlooked item is fixed.
Because of their role in (a) protecting national security, (b) protecting the men and women who use them, and (c) defeating the enemies of our way of life, weapons systems must be tested, evaluated, modified, retested, etc. And no test has yet been developed that mimics real-world usage, particularly weapons systems. Things cannot be proven except in battle, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be researched, developed and tested.
I honestly fear for our national security and sovereignty over the next four years. I can only hope that the damage will be minimal before we can throw the bum out of office.