Transcript:

This is DEFCON 3 by KT, and I’m KT McFarland

Recently, a CIA-operated drone aircraft targeted and killed Pakistan’s public enemy number one, Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud. A few weeks before, they killed Osama bin-Ladin’s son.

Mehsud was one of the nastiest characters on the planet. He was behind Benazir Bhutto’s assassination in 2007….  mastermind of the wave of suicide bombings in Pakistani cities….. godfather to a new type of suicide bomber — young children strapped with explosives and sent out to die.

Mehsud’s number one goal? to seize Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and destroy the White House, New York and London. It’s good that he’s gone.

But the way he was killed is important too.  He was targeted for months, by American Predator drones flying high and out of site,  like a modern, mechanical bird of prey, watching and waiting for a clear shot. And Mehsud knew it. By the time he was killed he was moving every hour and never out of a house or a car or a cave for more than a few minutes.

When Mehsud did venture out of doors, onto the rooftop of his father-in-law’s house, he was immediately killed by what must have seemed like a lightening bolt from the heavens.

What Mehsud’s death, and the recent death of Usama bin-Laden’s son, tells every other terrorist leader is: you can run, but you can’t hide. We have finally found a way to turn the tables: you are the ones who now have something to fear, you are the ones who can be attacked without notice.

The War on Terrorism is by no means over. We remain the number one target of a lethal band of Islamic jihadists bent on our destruction.  But we now have a way to hunt them down and, one by one, to destroy them.

This is DEFCON 3 by KT and I’m KT MCFArland

Does this open the door to serious negotiations over North Korea’s nuclear program? Or is this merely North Korea’s attempt to buy some goodwill from President Obama?

Transcript:

Remember Star Wars? Not the movie, but Reagan’s dream to build a missile shield to protect us from Soviet nuclear weapons?  In the end we put missile defense on the back burner, because the Soviet Union collapsed.

But we need to bring it back now – not only to protect against Russian missiles – but to shield us from the what could be a new generation of nuclear powers – North Korea, Iran, and possibly even Pakistan if the Islamic radicals seize power.

North Korea’s recent missile tests show it will soon have the ability to strike Alaska and Hawaii.  It’s nuclear tests show it has can make the bomb. Iran’s missile long-range missiles can reach Israel and parts of Europe. Iran’s nuclear weapons program is progressing and they already have enough enriched uranium to build one bomb.

Most experts believe both countries will have nuclear weapons and long-range missiles capable of carrying them before the end of president Obama’s first term.

That’s why we need to start a US missile shield program now, so we have the time to research, build and deploy it before rouge states go nuclear.

But what has the president Obama done? He’s CUT spending on missile defense by 1.6 billion dollars! He’s reducing the program when he should be increasing it.  He hopes to rely on diplomacy to convince the north Koreans and Iranians to stop their nuclear programs. What if diplomacy fails, as all his efforts have so far?

The reality is, within a few years, North Korea could launch a nuclear attack that would reach American cities in thirty minutes.   We currently have NO adequate defense against it.

Billions more for Detroit, billions for wall street bankers, billions for bad mortgages. But cutbacks to defend us against nuclear attack? That’s just crazy.

This is DEFCON 3 by KT and I’m KT McFarland

Why? Because incumbents figure they can buy votes by bragging to their constituents that they brought home the bacon with defense spending in the district. That’s why the Raptor’s subcontracts were sprinkled across 44 states — to insure Congress would add it back in the the budget even if the Pentagon cut it out. They’ve figured out a simple but fundamental truth — they can bribe the public with the public’s money. The incumbents get to keep their jobs but to the nation’s detriment.

If we had an infinite amount of money to spend on defense, of course, the F-22 would be great. But we don’t. We need to increase the size of the Army and Marines. We need to increase resources devoted to intelligence. So let’s do the same job the Raptor would do but with cheaper weapons systems — pilotless combat drones like the Predator and its successor the Reaper ($8 million each) — which have proven effective and lethal in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

I was in the Pentagon in the early 1980’s when we first ordered the Raptor — at $60 million apiece. But so far the Raptor has taken almost thirty years to produce and come in at $350 million per plane, with future orders at $167 million a piece.

The original plan for the Raptor was to deal with anything the Soviets could put in the air. But the Soviet Union is no more and its successor, the Russian Air Force, can be bested with something far less costly and more reliable than the Raptor.

And while no one disputes that the Raptor has lots of bells and whistles, only half of the current fleet are flight-ready, and none of them have been used in combat missions Iraq or Afghanistan.
We should scrap plans for more Raptors in favor of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft — which is cheaper, more flexible and represents the next generation of technology. It is a better investment in national security. But it’s not as good for pork barrel spending, so Congress CUT $530 million from the Joint Strike Fighter’s budget!

The only thing we should do with the F-22 Raptor is rename it — The White Elephant.

Nothing has worked so far. Not bilateral negotiations. Not UN sanctions. Not six party talks. Should the world stand helplessly by and watch North Korea develop a nuclear arsenal which it can use to terrorize the region or export to rogue states around the world?

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