There are no Iranian missiles.

Conservatives have a problem in that they have evidently never met a missile defense system they didn‘t like. Part of the new Conservative “Pledge to America” is to build a system to defend us from ICBMs launched by Iran or North Korea. So the Republican conservatives are going to cut taxes, cut spending by a billion dollars and balance the budget while spending billions to build a missile defense system to protect us from a country that doesn’t have nuclear weapons or missiles. This means increasing the deficit as they have already done to wage two wars (conservatives have also never met a war they didn’t like) and causing increased inflation.

Economically this makes no sense whatsoever. And a new missile defense system makes no more sense than their previous missile defense system which President Obama pulled the funding from. It was meant to protect us and Eastern Europe from Russian ICBMs at a time when the US was trading with Russia and while Putin was using his government authority to line his pockets. The last thing the Russians would do is attack us or anybody else. They would lose money if they did. All that arms building and invading countries bankrupted Russia and led to the downfall of Communism. Yet conservatives can’t let go of the “red menace” even though you never hear about protecting us from Red Chinese ICBMs anymore. You don’t even hear the words red and China together anymore since China now owns so much of the US debt racked up by conservatives. So why do conservatives fear Russia and not China? Is it because big business likes the cheap labor in China? Or because they need a bogeyman and we can’t afford to get China mad at us?

The Republicans also claimed that the defense system would have worked against Iranian missiles which it wouldn’t have. A missile defense installation in Poland would protect us from Iranian missiles? No it wouldn’t have because the whole system was aimed at Russia and not anywhere else.

Instead of that system President Obama went with a naval based system of Aegis missiles along with the Patriot missile system which will work on Iranian missiles if there ever are any. Putin liked that so much he let us put some Aegis missile equipped ships in the Black Sea. So we have protection from Iran, North Korea and just about any other rogue state. And all for a fraction of the cost thereby making us all safer and saving us money.

The idea that Iran would build missiles to attack the US is even stupider. If they fired even one missile at America we would obliterate their country. And then take all their oil and gas. No, the Iranians want missiles that can reach Israel and Israel already has the Arrow missile defense system. In addition Israel won’t even let Iran build nuclear weapons or missiles to launch them. Israel has already said it would destroy such facilities. So we are doubly safe already.

So the question is: why spend billions of dollars on such a missile defense system? In all of the cost cutting conservatives have promised they have made it clear that they won’t cut defense spending and said: “When asked to provide our troops with the resources they need, we will do so without delay.” Meaning no debate and no questions asked. Who benefits from uncontrolled defense spending? Those in the military-industrial complex who will line their pockets with taxpayer dollars and build things we don’t need.

One of the last great Republican presidents, Dwight Eisenhower warned us about all this just before leaving office: “Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defense; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research -- these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.

“But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs -- balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage -- balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future.”

He also warned citizens about the dangers of the influence of the military-industrial complex which conservatives are planning on throwing money at without question.

“This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”