By Tribune-Review

Published: Monday, March 18, 2013, 9:00 p.m.
Updated: Monday, March 18, 2013

Buried near the end of an Associated Press dispatch about the United States deciding to beef up its continental missile defense system to protect against the nut now running North Korea was this salient fact:

President Obama killed the necessary expansion in 2009, part of his dedicated program of foreign policy deferentialism. Now, America is forced to play catch-up.

Thirty long-range missile interceptors are operational in Alaska and California. Last week, citing the new and bellicose threats of Kim Jong-un, the administration said it now will proceed with 14 new ground-based interceptors. They'll be operational in four years, by 2017.

But had Mr. Obama not been singing “I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing in Non-nuclear Har-moe-nee,” those missiles already would have been standing at the ready and likely would have served as a deterrent.

As Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner reminds, “pre-emptive disarmament” — think of Pyongyang's increased provocations, think of New START's Russia-coddling that allows it to move the goal posts — usually gets you one thing: the enemy ratcheting up its armaments.

And we've not even addressed the European missile defense mess.

We remind the Obama administration of the words of one Grover Cleveland:

The nation that cannot resist aggression is constantly exposed to it. Its foreign policy is of necessity weak and its negotiations are conducted with disadvantage because it is not in condition to enforce the terms dictated by its sense of right and justice.

1. The IRS hearing: And the nation gasped
2. The Box
3. Alle-Kiski Laurels & Lances
4. Primary 2013: Elect Sue Means
5. Saturday essay: Banana bike curls
6. Go with the flow
7. The primary: Time for some pruning
8. The Benghazi scandal: Obama’s buck
9. An inconvenient truth: The CO2 scare
10. Greensburg Laurels & Lances

There are currently no comments for this story.
Subscribe today! Click here for our subscription offers.