How Leftover Obama Appointees Are Threatening Alabama’s Jobs and Our National Security

As we reported on May 31, Alabama is the proud home of Ground-Based Midcourse Defense program (GMD), which is the only system that can protect our homes from the threat of ICBM-delivered nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, unelected Obama-era appointees who direct our nation’s missile defense programs are trying to undo that, months after President Trump’s election and only three weeks after the first-ever successful intercept test of an ICBM, the same kind of missiles North Korea would use if it launched a real attack on the United States.

Thanks to the innovative Ground-Based Midcourse Defense program (GMD), conceptualized and developed by proud Alabamians living and working in the great city of Huntsville, the U. S. is protected from nuclear attacks via long-range missiles if North Korea and Iran develop the capabilities to reach our shores.

While North Korea has not yet successfully launched a test ICBM, they have conducted more than 50 tests in the last year. They learn more with each test, and will eventually have a missile capable of reaching America. Last month North Korea launched a missile that reportedly went 1,200 miles into space, which is almost 1,000 miles above the International Space Station.

One of the first acts of the Obama Administration was to slash GMD funding, which protects America. Instead, he shifted to programs to defend Europe and NATO allies instead of our own country. Obama deployed Aegis Ashore and Standard Missile 3s in Romania and Poland to defend the Europeans, who aren’t paying a dime for their missile defenses. While the strategic defense of those countries is geopolitically compelling, our first and highest duty is to defend the United States of America.

This trend of looking after foreign countries first was started and administered by Vice Admiral James Syring who was appointed by Obama as the director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA). Syring faithfully supported and executed the politics of defending Europe over the United States, even turning down additional funding to do the political bidding of the Obama White House. Dissatisfied with just prioritizing European defense over protecting the U.S., Syring also wants the government to take over and run the GMD by “insourcing” the program. Doing so is a continuation of the Obama missile defense policy.

Certain to get a promotion had Hillary Clinton become president, Syring worked to secure his job in the new administration soon after President Trump was elected, but his efforts ultimately failed. June 17th is his last day on the job at the Pentagon, and today he made a move to carry out the ultimate Obama policy. This move stands to weaken our national security, take jobs from Alabama, and it flies in the face of President Trump’s directives to shrink the federal government.

Yellowhammer has learned that Syring signed the paperwork this evening that will set a plan in motion for the U.S. Government to take functional control of the GMD program—the only system that stands between the U.S. and a North-Korean nuclear attack.

It is essential for every person in Alabama to understand the implications of Syring’s move to break-up the structure of the GMD program, based in Huntsville. This move will:

• Weaken America’s ability to defend against a North Korean-type ICBMs
• Increase cost of the GMD program and delay critical schedules
• Make taxpayers responsible for more government jobs and pensions
• Take Alabama’s high-wage jobs associated with the GMD program and turn them into federal government jobs out of state—at least 1,200 jobs

In other words, this move will dearly cost Alabama’s economy and America’s security, while placing a greater burden on taxpayers to foot the bill for more government bureaucracy.

Economic Impact Studies by the University of Alabama-Huntsville have shown that for every GMD employee in Huntsville, four additional jobs are created in the local Alabama economy. Many of the hard-working Alabama small businesses who built this system will be blocked from working on it in the future because of new rules being implemented by the government. These small companies will eventually have to shut their doors, putting many of our friends and neighbors out of work.

In summary, six months after President Trump’s election and three weeks after a successful GMD intercept test, Obama’s lackeys are hard at work implementing his plans to take high-tech jobs the GMD program generates for Alabamians and turn them into government jobs in states like Virginia and California. This move comes at a critical time in our nation’s history when we desperately need a stable missile defense system protecting us from North Korea. Therefore, anyone who cares about our national defense, Alabama’s economy, and America’s tax burden, must not allow an unelected, Obama-appointed bureaucrat to destabilize the GMD by changing direction midstream.