Doug Ross @ Journal

A Gun Only Smokes After It has been Fired

Trodwell intimates that Koizumi and the government of Japan simply "get it". A recent BBC report suggests that draft legislation will authorize the defense minister to activate Japan's anti-ballistic missile defense system. This is a major change from the current system, which relies upon a relatively complicated beauracracy to engage defenses, even though Japan lies within spitting distance of certain maniacal crackpot dictators.

Those who oppose missile defense, especially, need to read the whole thing. Or, as Trodwell says, "Go ye therefore hence, and suckle at the teat of wisdom":

...because it is assumed that North Korea has not yet contrived a nuclear warhead small enough to be delivered by ballistic missile, there is no urgency in establishing a ballistic missile defence system, and certainly no urgency in devolving launch authority below Cabinet level. The only people who would advance such an argument are those who fail to understand the Bush Doctrine; which, in a word, means NOT waiting until you are hit before taking appropriate measures. In other words, if you know that North Korea is working on a nuclear weapon (e.g. if they tell you they have one); if you know they are working on an inter-continental ballistic missile (e.g. if they fire one over your country); and if you suspect they might not like you (e.g. if they threaten to turn your country “into a sea of fire”), then waiting until the missile has actually been launched and is 7 minutes away from Tokyo (or 13 minutes from Anchorage) is not a viable policy option. This is not rocket science, and both Koizumi and Bush appear to get it. Some people, however, still do not. Many probably aren’t mentally equipped to get it. (It's not that they're dumb; it's just that they're liberals, and lack the capacity for rational thought necessary to connect cause and effect. I know, I know, redundant.... Put it this way: "Some are born stupid; some have stupidity thrust upon them.")... ...In a world where unstable dictators have ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons, anyone who waits for a “smoking gun”... could very well end up in a smoking hole.

Right Thinking People: A Gun Only Smokes After It has been Fired