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CRITICISM FOR THE SAKE OF CRITICISM! Rachel Maddow's Interview Of Joe Cirincione Re Republicans, Such As Mitt Romney (Missionary In France?) Opposing Pres. Obama On Whatever He Does For Political Gain
CRITICISM FOR
THE SAKE OF
CRITICISM!
Rachel Maddow’s
Interview Of Joe
Cirincione Re
Republicans, Such
As Mitt Romney
(Missionary In
France?) Opposing
President Obama
On Whatever He
Does For Political
Gains
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32913728/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: That was the best pretend president in TV history, explaining that, as neat as it sounds, missile defense doesn‘t actually work. It sounds like a magical force field that missiles bounce off of. But it‘s actually more like trying to shoot down a bullet from the other guy‘s gun using a bullet of your own.
Report out this week from the Government Accountability Office is highly critical of the entire missile defense program over the last eight years. President Obama today said he is canceling the Bush-era plan to put 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a big radar station in the Czech Republic that was widely opposed by the Czech people.
The Bush plan is being dropped in favor of different system that‘s thought more likely to work and which happens to target the kind of missiles that Iran actually has, not the ones the old fantasy system targeted.
Nixing the plan was a bold move, but it wasn‘t a surprise. Sen. Obama campaigned on the fact that he was going to do this. Now, you can guess what the Republican response was to it!
You got it! They all basically said what former Massachusetts governor and ‘08 Republican also-ran Mitt Romney said, which was, quote, “President Obama has made a dangerous and alarming decision to shelve our missile defense system in Europe. The Pentagon‘s missile defense agency has worked long and hard to secure a site for the system to thwart a potential Iranian strike against our European allies. His decision is wrong in every way.”
Tabacco: Romney’s foreign policy credentials are still far superior to Sarah Palin’s. Palin could only see Russia from her Alaska backyard whereas Romney actually functioned in a foreign country – “missionary” ain’t much, but it’s something!
Perhaps Palin could head up NASA! I’m sure she gets an unobstructed view of the moon and stars in Alaska, unencumbered by bright city lights, and both moonlight and starlight reflect well off all that snow.
Romney might be put in charge of prayer books, pan sauces and pastries!
Joining us now is Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund and author of “Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons”. Joe, it‘s nice to see you! Thanks for being here!
JOE CIRINCIONE, PRESIDENT, PLOUGHSHARES FUND: My pleasure, Rachel.
MADDOW: First of all, I‘m sure that Mitt Romney is a very nice man. To the extent you have any interactions with him, I want everybody to know that you had nothing to do with me making that crack against him. Fair?
CIRINCIONE: That‘s absolutely right.
MADDOW: All right. Fair. Let me ask you why it is the joint-chiefs-of-staff and the Secretary of Defense made a unanimous recommendation to President Obama to drop the Bush missile defense plan?
CIRINCIONE: Because the military has always been skeptical of missile defense. It‘s a huge money sink. We spent about $240 billion over the last 50 years trying to create a missile defense that works. And we‘re very, very short of that goal.
And now, they‘ve recommended to the president that we scrap this plan to spend $5 billion to place 10 interceptors in Poland in favor of a plan that, for half that amount, can put hundreds of interceptors right up against the Iranian coast to counter the actual threat that Iran represents with its short-range missiles.
MADDOW: The idea of the Bush plan was that they would target long-range missiles that Iran - long-range nuclear missiles that Iran doesn‘t actually have. And the Obama plan is to target the types of missiles that Iran, not only already has, but has successfully tested.
CIRINCIONE: Exactly! President Bush was promoting a technology that doesn‘t work against a threat that doesn‘t exist. Obama is replacing nothing with something. Instead of building indefinitely for a system that might defend against a system that the Iranians, might field 10 or 15 years from now, he‘s actually going to be putting more hardware on target quicker in the next two years against the Iranian missile threat that exists, defending more countries in Europe than the Bush plan would have.
MADDOW: Joe, in addition to Mitt Romney coming out about this, calling it dangerous and alarming today, and then later, in his statement calling it alarming and dangerous, which I thought was a big escalation.
A lot of Neoconservatives, what’s left of them, came out and criticized this today, people like John Bolton, people like Joe Lieberman, John McCain, even, not necessarily thought of a neoconservative but certainly taking the Neocon line on this. Why have neoconservatives been so wedded to the idea of the Bush system?
CIRINCIONE: Well, two reasons. They have a deep distrust of arms control agreements. They think these are paper agreements that sacrifice U.S. security. They don‘t want to give up any American military system even if the other side‘s giving up theirs.
Two, therefore, they think the only way to protect against a missile threat is not to eliminate the missiles, eliminate the weapons, but to build up a technological shield. And 50, 60 years of experience in failing to do that hasn‘t dissuaded them at all.
They want to portray him as weak, as an appeaser, as unconcerned about American natural security, maybe not even an American. So any defense issue that comes up now, whether it‘s missile defense or Iran or nuclear policy or North Korea or relations with Russia, it will also be used to try to portray Obama as an appeaser, as weak.
And missile defense is that - in order to make that, they have to make up facts. They make up, as you say, this myth, this fantasy system that missile defense can work. They exaggerate the Iranian threat. They use words like “dangerous” and “ominous” and “appeasement” all the time.
You would think having these people be so wrong about so many international security issues, they would have little credibility. But they still find TV stations and newspapers that will give them time.
Tabacco: Because the Media Bias is CONSERVATIVE, NOT LIBERAL! Who owns the MSM – Rich Republicans or Poor Democrats? Fox News & now CNN are in the pockets of corporate America.
Ever since Obama won the nomination, Lou Dobbs has disgorged all that “Independent” or “unbiased” self-promotion and shown himself to be the Republican we knew him to be, somewhat right of the Pope! Only Jack Cafferty gives CNN any semblance of fairness – and Jack doesn’t even have his own show. Jack is like Seinfeld’s Kramer character on “CSI” – a loose cannon. He speaks, but nobody acts upon his assertions! Jack is a CNN throwaway, who obfuscates CNN’s CONSERVATIVE BIAS! Even Fox has one, but I don’t watch enough to name him.
MADDOW: What about the allegation, Joe, that this is somehow going to appease Russia, that this is something Russia didn‘t want, that Russia will be happy this isn‘t there and that this somehow, is going to embolden them at a time when Russia has been very aggressive internationally.
CIRINCIONE: Well, one, the Russians are basically pleased with this. They do see this as a return to rationality in the part of Americans. They never thought this system made much sense and they were right about that. They did see it as a threat to Russia.
And this system did have some capability against Russia. So they are pleased - there‘s no question about it. And there will be some politicians in Russia that will crow about it.
There are also some that are concerned about the Obama plan. My friend and colleague, Gen. DeVorkin(ph), is complaining - is warning about this plan in an article in “The Washington Post” Web site tonight saying that this system, if it proceeds the way Obama wants, could be a bigger threat to Russia than the Bush plan.
And the reason is simple. Bush - as long as it‘s a few interceptor missiles on Aegis cruisers and destroyers off the coast of Iran, not much of a threat.
But if it multiplies the way Sec. Gates and Gen. Cartwright laid out today, over 10 or 15 years, you could have hundreds of interceptors on dozens of ships with extremely capable systems that could threaten U.S. strategic systems. So the Russians are not just going to just give Obama a free pass on this.
MADDOW: But of course, if that happens, then the conservatives will attack Obama as needlessly provoking Russia, our great ally, right?
CIRINCIONE: That‘s right. That‘s exactly right. Any issue will be used to portray Obama as weak, as overreaching, as vacillating. The facts don‘t matter here. Just like in the healthcare debate, the conservatives and the neoconservatives do not care about the facts.
And in this vitriolic attack, they‘re doing more harm to national security than anything they could hope to gain. This, as you pointed out in the beginning of the show, is the great curse we now have in Washington
altar of hate and vitriol.
MADDOW: Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, author of the book, “Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons”, thanks very much for joining us and helping us work this out tonight, Joe. It‘s good to see you.
CIRINCIONE: My pleasure. Thank you, Rachel.
Tabacco: I consider myself both a funnel and a filter. I funnel information, not readily available on the Mass Media, which is ignored and/or suppressed. I filter out the irrelevancies and trivialities to save both the time and effort of my Readers and bring consternation to the enemies of Truth & Fairness! When you read Tabacco, if you don’t learn something NEW, I’ve wasted your time.
Tabacco is not a blogger, who thinks; I am a Thinker, who blogs.
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