| http://www.dangerous.com/12-13-01.htm
Bush’s Faith-Based "Star Wars" Initiative In what may be the single most ill-advised move of his presidency, so far, George W. Bush will announce, in the next few days, that the United States will withdraw from the 1972 ABM treaty, so he can "move ahead" with Star Wars. The decision makes absolutely no sense, and it’s incredibly ill-timed. Bush’s proposed "missile defense system" doesn’t work; it likely will never work; and even if, by some yet unforeseen miracle of science, it could work, it still wouldn’t work, because it doesn’t begin to address the real threats America faces in the coming decades. Not only will Bush’s announcement signal to the rest of the world that America can’t be trusted, even to act in it’s own best interest, it signals that the president and his handlers are dupes of the corporate elite that paid for the president’s campaign, and are now standing in line for the big payoff - billions in government contracts. Foreign policy and defense experts have warned that abandoning the treaty will strain relations with Russia, damage U.S. associations with even our allies, taint a number of other international pacts, and will likely lead to an arms buildup by China and other nations. Bush is willing to risk all this for a far-fetched scheme that would address only an infinitesimally small portion of the possible threats to America’s security and has been repeatedly shown to be unworkable, besides. But the backers of Bush’s move claim the newest vision of Star Wars is theoretically possible, because it is a drastically scaled-back version of Reagan’s missile defense "shield." The new goal is to intercept only a small number of warheads. But that’s a specious argument. Upon inspection, the Bush plan fails to overcome the very same set of problems that caused Reagan’s scheme to flounder, after wasting billions of tax dollars. The Bush Administration claims that a July 14th test over the Pacific was a success. It wasn’t. They initially said that a "kill vehicle" had intercepted a "dummy warhead." Actually it did no such thing. When newspapers discovered that what was reported as a "hit," was really a "miss," the Administration made the excuse that, "the prototype radar used to measure the collision between the interceptor and a mock warhead had malfunctioned." So in what way, exactly, was it a success? What’s even more telling is that, in the latest test, the "mock warhead" was launched carrying a device that emitted a signal to guide the "kill vehicle" right to it. It is unlikely that "rogue states" will be so accommodating. When asked about future tests supposedly scheduled for 2005 or 2006 - to deploy a laser from a satellite that would target a missile in the earth’s atmosphere - the director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization said: ""It's not clear we know how we're going to do that." He’s overstating his case. The technology to make the system work simply does not exist. The Union of Concerned Scientists and the MIT Security Studies Program have unequivocally stated that Bush’s proposed testing program "is not capable of assessing the system’s effectiveness against a realistic attack." Bush’s Star Wars is not based on science, but on science fiction. Senator Richard Durbin announced in May of this year: "I have come to the conclusion that missile defense is becoming more like faith, than science or reason. If only we believe, it will work." But will it? The best scientists in America, who’s business it is to know, have tried, again and again, to explain that, even if a system could be deployed, it could quickly and easily be defeated. The fundamental problem of countermeasures remains unsolved. Deployment would inevitably result in a never-ending game of obsolescence and "catch-up" that would require more, and more, and more, ... and even in a best-case scenario, it would result in a whole new arms race. And that’s without taking into account the fact that the system would provide no protection whatsoever from gas, or germs, or "nuclear brown bombs," or even hijacked domestic airliners, which are all far more likely threats. Incredibly, Bush is using September 11th to argue for the need to abandon the ABM treaty. Such a position is indefensible - it’s utter nonsense. The Administration has yet to explain how a missile defense system would have thwarted box-cutter wielding hijackers. Vladimir Putin recently explained in an address to the Russian Parliament that if Bush withdraws, "... we can, and will withdraw ... from the whole system of treaty relations having to do with the limitation and control of strategic and conventional arms." When Bush announces the U.S. withdrawal from the treaty next week, so he can spend billions on a faith-based, science fiction fantasy, you will not be safer. You certainly won’t be any more protected from terrorists, who have countless weapons at their disposal that are far more easily obtained than intercontinental ballistic missiles; and ironically, you will actually be less protected from nuclear weapons, the very weapons that the system is supposed to target. Bush’s Star Wars notion is a colossally bad idea, but then Bush is a colossally bad president. The real tragedy here is that we will have to live with his mistakes for a long time - and that’s if we’re lucky. - Zak Mann |
