While Michael McFaul’s confirmation to be U.S. ambassador to Russia has now passed the Senate, the reason for the holdup remains: The Obama administration appears intent to provide Russia with missile defense secrets. As the Washington Times’ Bill Gertz notes:
In the president’s signing statement issued Saturday in passing into law the fiscal 2012 defense authorization bill, Mr. Obama said restrictions aimed at protecting top-secret technical data on U.S. Standard Missile-3 velocity burnout parameters might impinge on his constitutional foreign policy authority. As first disclosed in this space several weeks ago, U.S. officials are planning to provide Moscow with the SM-3 data, despite reservations from security officials who say that doing so could compromise the effectiveness of the system by allowing Russian weapons technicians to counter the missile. The weapons are considered some of the most effective high-speed interceptors in the U.S. missile defense arsenal.
The impetus for the SM-3 information deal appears to be from Ellen Tauscher, a former left-of-center congresswoman who, as Obama’s undersecretary of state for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, has proven adept at self-promotion, but when it has come to the substance of her job, she distinguished herself as a poor negotiator, repeatedly getting bowled over by American adversaries.
President Obama may believe defense cuts are necessary. Cutting defense capabilities is dangerous. The president’s plan reverses a bipartisan consensus about the reach of the U.S. military which dates back to the Roosevelt administration. Providing U.S. adversaries with defense secrets they can exploit—and export to other enemies—is simply foolhardy. It is a formula not for parity but for defeat.
Why is it "simply" foolhardy? Perhaps he actually would like to see the US and its armed forces taken down a notch or two? Why you give him the benefit of the doubt of good motives is puzzling.
I've seen this reported similarly in a few venues but a basic historical precedent is constantly overlooked. Why does no one remember that one of the core precepts of Reagan's SDI was to transfer critical information to the Soviets? The idea was to make ICBMs obsolete across the board. This was part of Reagan's offer to Gorbachev at Reyckjavik that Gorb STILL could not accept, claiming after the fact that he believed the Commies could not match the West's anti-missile shield. Now, I don't know if this was a smart move and in the instance it never was realized but those who presumably hold Reagan in high esteem should not be reflexively contemptuous of Obama on this issue. That's a good way to get blindsided.
Yes, but he was only going to share secrets while aggressively pursuing Star Wars. Obama is sharing secrets while aggressively abandoning it.
Is anyone in the news media going to ask the President to justify (or even explain his thinking in) both his proposal to cut defense spending and give away missile defense secrets? Or is this just something else that will fade away and no one will know any more about it than they do about Fast and Furious or Solyndra or any of the administration's irregular (and often illegal) activities? How can the media continue to stand by Obama and the Democrats?
Answers: nNo. nYes. nHis is like a God to them.