Obama And Frank: A Farewell To Arms

In a revealing meeting with the editorial board of the Southcoast (Mass.) Standard-Times last week, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., called for a 25% cut in military spending, saying: "We don't need all these fancy new weapons."

Judging from his past comments, Obama seems to agree. Caucus for Priorities says its goal is to

"redirect 15% of the Pentagon's discretionary budget away from obsolete Cold War weapons towards education, healthcare, job training, alternative energy development, world hunger, deficit reduction."

The irony here is that this call to disarm is coming from the party of Franklin Roosevelt, who called the United States the "arsenal of democracy." Obama is a far cry from Harry Truman or the Jack Kennedy who said that only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt will we be certain beyond doubt they will never be employed.

It's "fancy new weapons" that now provide a rudimentary amount of protection against ballistic missile attack both here and abroad. What olive branch does Obama suppose will protect against Iraq's Shahab missiles, once they're armed with nuclear warheads?

Unfortunately, people in Beijing, Moscow and Tehran will be defining our needs for us. And as our enemies turn out everything from ballistic missile submarines to anti-satellite weapons, we'd do well to remember that providing for national defense is in the U.S. Constitution - and that job training is not.

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[FLASHBACK: NNBrief June 19:

“I Will Slow Development of Future Combat Systems”

Among other things, Obama promises to “cut investments in unproven missile defense systems,” which in reality have already proven remarkably effective; [snip]

Most alarmingly, however, he literally promises to “slow development of future combat systems.”

Think about the frightening implications of this pledge for a moment.

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