In the challenging times ahead, our nation faces multiple threats from around the world. We face the continued threat of terrorist attack in many forms, both home and abroad. We face the threat of a nuclear Iran and North Korea, both with intermediate-range missiles at their disposal. We face the threats of a reborn Russia and an emerging China. To face these challenges, we need to ensure that both our military and the tools they use are the best available to anyone worldwide.

And in response to these needs, Barack Obama suggests… disarmament?

Let’s go through his proposal point by point:

1. End the war in Iraq. 
   Obama said, “My first day in office, I will bring the Joint Chiefs of Staff in, and I will give them a new mission. That is to end this war, responsibly, deliberately but decisively.” Someone wanting to be the Commander in Chief should know the job: the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act reorganized the military, and one of the end results was that the Joint Chiefs are not part of the chain of command, and have no operational authority over military operations. Responsibility goes from the President to the Secretary of Defense, then to the Unified Combatant Commander responsible for the area of operations.
2. End “wasteful spending” on things like the “unproven” missile defense system.
   Actually, the missile defense system has had a string of successes. And unless the foreign production of ballistic missiles capable of delivering a lethal payload to the United States can be prevented with 100% certainty, it is in our best interest to pursue the missile defense system.
3. Will not weaponize space.
   But even he cannot prevent others from doing so. 
4. Slow our development of future combat systems.
   This is perhaps the most telling of all his claims in this video. The current front-line equipment was outdated years ago, and the new generation is just now starting to trickle in. Still on the front lines are helicopters that rolled off the production line in 1971 and saw service in Vietnam; amphibious troop carriers that haven’t been updated in 26 years; fighters that first took to the skies when Richard Nixon was still in his first term as president; and a standard-issue infantry rifle that’s older than he is. As these various systems age, they a) become more prone to failure, b) are more expensive to maintain, and c) not meeting the needs of today’s military to fight today’s battles. Slowing the development of future combat systems will only cost taxpayers more money (on maintenance costs,) and cost American servicemen their lives in combat. Neither scenario is acceptable.
5. Set a goal of “a world without nuclear weapons”.
6. Stop production of our nuclear weapons.
7. Seek a global ban on fissile material.
8. Negotiate with Russia to take our ICBMs off hair-trigger alert
9. Achieve deep cuts in our nuclear arsenals
   I’m going to cover all of these together. The nuclear genie is out of the bottle, and it has been for over five decades. History has shown that the IAEA has proved woefully inept at tracking and managing the nuclear weapons programs of just abut every country. We can’t put the genie back in the bottle, and it is naïve to believe that we can. It is necessary for the safety and security of this nation that we continue to maintain our current nuclear stockpile, and replace aging nuclear weapons as necessary.
10. “As President, my sole priority for defense spending will be protecting American people.”
    So Barack Obama is going to protect the American people by disarming us?

Barack Obama apparently is unaware that there are only two modes of diplomacy: bribes and threats. 

Time and again, history has shown that bribes are ineffective; they only work for a short period of time until the terms of the bribe aren’t enough anymore. Then you have to make the decision all over again if you’re going to up the bribe, or switch to threats, which history has proven time and again do work.

Currently, we as a nation are so fiscally bankrupt that we cannot bribe people any more, so to ensure our safety, our security, our prosperity, our sovereignty, and our liberties, it is essential that we maintain the ability to make threats, and make good on those threats if necessary.

Between Barack Obama’s poor plan for taxes — which will serve only to cripple our economy — and his antipathy towards the U.S. military as showcased in this video, our ability to bribe or threaten our enemies will vanish, along with our sovereignty and our liberties.

For these reasons, Barack Obama is a danger to our safety and security. He is unfit for the role of Commander in Chief, and therefore he is unfit for the Presidency of the United States.

UPDATE [07/12/2008 13:27]:
Obama was quoted on Wednesday as saying “We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set.”