Saturday, April 04, 2009
The Window Opens (Again)
North Korea's latest "window" for a TD-2 launch is now open. In our latest report for Examiner.com, we examine the reasons behind the earlier delay; what President Obama means by "appropriate" response measures, and why an absence of radar emissions from the test site may not mean a longer wait for the launch.
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6 comments:
It launched, it didn't fall apart, and no one shot it down.
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE53058220090405
Betrayed by our feckless President, Secretary of State, and the rest of the fools in the B.O. Amateur Show. This is not one of America's prouder moments. Our inaction showed not just to North Korea weakness and a total lack of resolve, it showed the entire world. This does not bode well for the near future...at least as long as this administration is in power. This was th kind of message you do not want to send to any of your potential adversaries. I am ashamed to have to call Barrack Obama my President.
Our "inaction" was precisely the right move. Unless we developed boost-phase interceptors while I was asleep last night, we can only intercept a target when it's done boosting. That's also after the person launching it has all the telemetry they need to validate their design (including the burnout state vector that tells them where it would have gone).
So shooting it down would have done nothing to set back their progress, while accomplishing nothing for our cause. Shooting at it and missing would have embarrassed us and emboldened them to continue research. An air strike on their launch pad - which has only ever been used for failed satellite launches - gives them an excuse to go to war.
Anything that doesn't directly prevent them from launching goes in the diplomacy bin, and that's the route our President took.
I'm curious: which of those actions would have convinced you that Barack Obama made the right move? Do you have some ultimate checkmate move that the rest of the diplomatic world is foolishly overlooking?
Call me crazy but I think your mind was made up about President Obama before he ever took office.
I am bitterly disappointed that the Japanese didn't go for it and attempt to shoot it out of the sky using their Aegis-equipped destroyers.
Did we pressure them to not do something that would embarrass a man who is bound and determined to kill our own missile defense systems?
To J.R. - A successful interception (even AFTER they have obtained all of their telemetry) would STILL have demonstrated that we had more options with the real thing than to just sit back and watch it destroy its' target.
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JR, You are crazy. You asked for it, you got it. This man is an amateur along with Hillary, Geitner, and the rest of his clown posse. I did not want a weak on defense, inexperienced, socialist, community organizer in the White House. He has been measured and found lacking. He's hip. He's glib. He's photogenic. But he has no leadership qualities beyond his oratory skills when armed with a teleprompter. If that is what you want and long for, that is what you got.
As Paul stated, we could have shot it down before it splashed just to show our resolve. That would have been cheaper than what we are going to have to go through now. Sometimes you have to put on a show for your adversaries just to keep them off balance. Weakness and lack of resolve is all that we showed. All blow and no show.
Looks like their booster failed to put an object in orbit. The NORAD press release is here, which basically says that NORAD and USNORTHCOM assessed it as a non-threatening rocket. Shortly thereafter, the second and third stages splashed into the Pacific, having failed to reach orbit. So we did track their launch, we did prepare to intercept it, but at the end of the day we didn't dignify their launch with a response because it didn't deserve one.
Now, instead of having a credible deterrent, North Korea has a joke of an ICBM. Conversely, our ability to shoot it down must still be taken into account - we haven't proven that we can, but we also haven't tried and failed. Do you really think we should mark that down in the "LOSS" column?
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