Tag Archives: IronDome

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The Broadside | Trump Announces “Golden Dome” Missile Shield to Protect America. Oh, and Canada

My vote is looking more spectacular every day.

The Department of Defense has selected a design for President Donald Trump’s Golden Dome missile defense initiative, Trump announced on May 20.

“I’m pleased to announce that we have officially selected an architecture for this state-of-the-art system that will deploy next-generation technologies across the land, sea, and space, including space-based sensors and interceptors,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

In his first week in office, Trump signed an executive order directing the Department of Defense to devise a plan to implement his missile defense proposal.

When Israel got their “Iron Dome” I wondered why we didn’t do the same thing for ourselves. We helped them develop it, so why wouldn’t we apply that technology at home? This goes back to President Ronald Reagan’s SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) that critics called “Star Wars.”

The technology just wasn’t ready at the time, but now it is.

Canada may also partner with the United States to help develop the improved missile defense shield, the president said.

“Canada wants to be a part of it, which would be a fairly small expansion, but we’ll work with them on pricing,” he said.

Canada’s like the kid who pretends not to be impressed by, but also secretly wants to be like, his older brother. #MeToo

In addition to new and improved space-based sensors and interceptors, Trump’s January executive order called for the Department of Defense to consider non-kinetic missile interception technologies such as lasers.

The order also tasked the department with examining methods and technologies for intercepting missile threats before they can launch, or in their initial boost phase.

Trump vowed that the $175 billion missile defense program would allow the United States to effectively counter advanced cruise missiles and hypersonic ballistic missiles.

“Once fully constructed, the Golden Dome will be capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world, and even if they’re launched from space. And we will have the best system ever built,” the president said.

I balk slightly at the $175 billion price tag because we still have mountains of debt that we need to get rid of. We also know that initial estimates can quickly double or triple when it comes to government spending.

On balance, however, I approve this effort. Global technology and improved weapon systems are outpacing our current level of countermeasures. We need to defend against Russian and Chinese ballistic missiles, not to mention drone swarms and hypersonic missiles.

Trump placed Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein in charge of the project.

Guetlein indicated the Golden Dome is necessary to preserve the safety, security and the quality of life Americans are used to.

“We owe it to our children and our children’s children to protect them and afford them a quality of life that we have all grown up enjoying. Golden dome will afford that,” said Guetlein.

The general said “our adversaries have become very capable and very intent on holding the homeland at risk.”

“While we have been focused on keeping the peace overseas, our adversaries have been quickly modernizing their nuclear forces, building up ballistic missiles capable of hosting multiple warheads, building out hypersonic missiles capable of attacking the United States within an hour and traveling at 6,000 miles an hour, building cruise missiles that can navigate around our radar and our defenses, building submarines that can sneak up on our shores and, worse yet, building space weapons,” Guetlein said. 

“It is time that we change that equation and start doubling down on the protection of the homeland.”

Trump’s “Golden Dome” (Trump has a thing for gold, doesn’t he?) is expected to be partially operational by the end of his term. That would be amazing for a government project.

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Daily Broadside | Israel Proves It Can Handle What the Mullahs in Iran Throw At Them—But for How Long?

So … did anything happen over the weekend?

Sirens blared across Israel on Saturday night as hundreds of drones and missiles launched from Iran reached Israel. Drones and missiles were also reportedly launched from Yemen and other countries around the region.

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The IDF has updated that the full Iranian attack consisted of over 300 threats, of which 100 were ballistic missiles launched from Iran. Another 30 cruise missiles were launched from the Islamic Republic, along with drones. There were also two rounds of rockets, around 40 total, fired on Israel from Lebanon, with Israel responding with counterattacks in close to real-time.

None of the drones or cruise missiles entered Israeli airspace. IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari noted that only a small number of  ballistic missiles penetrated the Jewish state’s airspace.

Almost all interceptions have been by aircraft, David’s Sling, or the Arrow missile systems. The Iron Dome, which defends well against Hamas and Hezbollah’s simple rockets, is less relevant for drones and fancier long-range missiles.

Fortunately Israel, along with her partners including the U.S., Great Britain, France, and other unnamed parties, were able to defend against “99%” of the hostile projectiles launched against the Middle East’s only democracy.

Israel managed to shoot down 99% of the 300 deadly suicide drones and missiles that Iran launched at the Jewish state on Saturday night using an advanced air defense system known as David’s Sling — in addition to an array of other anti-missile capabilities.

Israel also had help from the US, the UK and an unlikely Arab ally.

Not a single drone or cruise missile fired by Iran and its proxies made it through, according to Israeli media. And only a few of Iran’s more advanced ballistic missiles struck Israel.

Despite facing a direct attack from Iran for the first time in modern history, Israel appears to have suffered very little damage, and only one casualty is known so far — a 7-year-old Bedouin girl.

What we’re looking at is one of the most advanced defensive arrays in world history. Israel, because of its existential imperative to survive in the lion’s den of the Middle East, has developed one of the most impressive defensive military systems in the world; even better, perhaps, than what the U.S. can field.

The attack is a response to the killing of top Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Mohammad Reza Zahedi, the death of whom Iran blames Israel.

More importantly, the attack is a direct result of the Biden junta’s jumbled messaging about Israel’s right to self defense and their idiotic pacification of Iran. Of course, they don’t see it that way. They blame—wait for it—Donald J. Trump.

Bream pressed Kirby about the Biden administration’s policies to permit waivers on sanctions and unfreezing assets vis-à-vis Iran. Last month, the Biden administration re-approved a sanctions waiver to permit Iraq to purchase energy from Iran, effectively allowing the state-sponsor of terrorism to access $10 billion. Kirby had said at the time the money would not go to its “mullahs.”

“Could this administration have been tougher on Iran? Did it sense an opening?” Bream asked. 

“It’s hard to take a look at what President Biden has done and say that we have somehow gone soft on Iran,” Kirby responded. “It was the previous administration that decided to get us out of the Iran deal. And now Iran is so much dramatically closer to a potential nuclear weapon capability than they were before Mr. Trump was elected.”

That Donald Trump, guys. Out of office for almost four years, and the impact he’s had on this administration. I mean, he’s made it so hard for them to govern.

It’s not hard to believe that this gang of incompetent wokesters hastens to blame the prior administration which has been out of power since January 2020. Blame-shifting is their go-to tactic, especially since all Brandon can do is wag his finger and cough up “don’t” as though Iran has any respect for him at all. He’s all pose and no substance, one of the weakest “leaders” we’ve ever had at the helm of this nation.

Bream pressed Kirby again on whether the White House was soft on Iran, and he again blamed Trump’s foreign policy. 

“Is it not fair to say, though, that there have been moves by this administration that have opened up cash and other opportunities for them, which we know are fungible in ways that are not helping the Iranian people but are benefiting the elites and people there who chant ‘Death to America?,'” Bream asked. 

Kirby responded by saying, “The additional funds that have been made available to Iran due to the sanctions relief program that the Trump administration put in place, can only be used for humanitarian goods. It doesn’t go to the regime. And the idea that the regime was somehow felt like they were freed up to support these proxies because of that. It just doesn’t comport with the fact that they have been supporting these proxies for years.” 

For now Israel has withheld a retaliatory response, influenced in part by a call that Biden had with Netanyahu. But there are calls for Israel to attack Iran directly. One publicationn called for Israel to go on the offensive.

The IDF spokesperson said rightly when referring to those who use ballistic missiles as not planning a “moderate attack,” but intending to hit hard. Ballistic missiles, after all, are like a declaration of war.

This could be the run up to World War III. It’s clear that power centers are shifting and the mullahs are growing bolder. They know what is true about any attack, even against an enemy as well prepared defensively as is Israel: the target has to be lucky all the time. Terrorists only have to be lucky once.