![[F]](../_images/site.gif) New York Times on the Web Forums  Science
Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans
for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be
limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI
all over again?
    (861 previous messages)
rshowalter
- 06:48pm Mar 7, 2001 EST (#862
of 864) 
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu
Although people get terribly concerned about problems of
financial control everywhere else in government, the minute you mark
"secret" on a project, accounting becomes unaccountable. If you
cannot tell the auditor what you are doing, the auditor cannot check
whether the money was actually spent on the doing of "whatever it
was you were doing."
Is there a potential for corruption here? You bet there is -- and
hundreds of billions of dollars have been involved, every year, for
half a century.
How much unaccounted and unaccountable money could have been
stolen, and how organized could the control of that money be? There
aren't many limits. This is clear -- at the levels where money is
actually spent, Congress has no oversight at all, when it matters,
about honest use of funds in classified projects.
As Bob Kerry recently pointed out in an OpEd piece, no Senator or
Congressman can even get briefed on targeting maps (not to carry
away the maps, but just to see them.)
Years ago, I knew a guy who had an estate, in California, worth
maybe 30 million dollars -- and all I could find out of his source
of wealth was that he'd been a VP for Westinghouse, in nuclear
weapons research and manufacturing.
It seems ex politicians can make upwards of 100 million dollars,
giving investment advice, these days . . . .
Is there a potential for corruption? Enough to bias the judgement
of people involved, and their relatives?
It would seem so.
If CLASSIFIED research actually had valid auditing, that would be
NEWS --- a real scoop ?
How on earth would anyone ask the questions such auditing would
take.
Is there EVER a price per vehicle, or per part, that gets people
to feel something has been stolen?
I don't think American journalists ever seem to ask the question.
Perhaps someone else knows this answer.
The Clintons, in an unguarded moment, spoke of a "vast right
wing conspiracy." I don't know that any such conspiracy exists,
of course -- but sometimes things happen that don't seem to make any
sense -- and here would be a motivation for such a conspiracy, and a
source of BIG SCALE money for it.
Anywhere else in government, journalists assume that powers that
go unsupervised will eventually be corrupted. They're matter of fact
about this - as Menken was. Why the assumption hasn't been
ubiquitous in reporters looking at the defense industry, I surely
don't know. There is a LOT of money, a LOT of backscratching, and
inside information, and "clout" seem to count for a lot.
rshowalter
- 06:57pm Mar 7, 2001 EST (#863
of 864)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu
Ambiguous words can be sources of confusion, or can be the basis
for deceptions.
The word "threat" - which was a decisive word in President Bush's
statement about N. Korea today, is a very problematic word.
Lunarchick (Dawn Riley) - searched the dictionary of military
terms under threat , and got 36 entries. Each a http citation, not a
clear definiton. rshowalter
2/17/01 2:05pm
But suppose you use the word "threat" in the way people usually
understand it.
To ask nation states to stop treatening each other is a
completely unrealistic and dangerous idea. That's what military
forces largely do, and have to do.
To argue that we can't talk to North Korea because they are a
"threat" makes no sense.
We need force balances where threats, and logic sequences under
threat are STABLE, or involve SURVIVABLE COSTS. rshowalter
2/17/01 2:07pm
rshowalter
- 07:18pm Mar 7, 2001 EST (#864
of 864)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu
On January 17, 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower have his FAREWELL
ADRESS
It begins:
"Good evening, my fellow Americans: First, I
should like to express my gratitude to the radio and television
networks for the opportunity they have given me over the years to
bring reports and messages to our nation. My special thanks go to
them for the opportunity of addressing you this evening.
"Three days from now, after a half century of
service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of
office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of
the Presidency is vested in my successor.
This evening I come to you with a message of
leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with
you, my countrymen.
On this occasion, a time he cared deeply about, he warned the
nation of the grave danger of a military-industrial complex, out of
reasonable control. That was forty years ago.
The controls never seem to have occurred. Perhaps, though they
were unsupervised, the military-industrial complex has kept faith
entirely, and maintained a perfect perspective. But if so, that
would be a very special thing in American history.
In Eisenhower's Farewell Address, he says this, near the end:
" Disarmament, with mutual honor and
confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how
to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and
decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I
confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field
with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed
the horror and the lingering sadness of war--as one who knows that
another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been
so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years--I wish I
could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.
In Eisenhower's time, it is easy to understand how far away
reasonable hopes of peace were. But it seems much less clear, forty
years later. Where are our enemies? What size are they, what
capacities do they have, and what do we have? Why isn't peace in
sight now ?
And how is it possible for "investment advisors" specializing in
the defense industry to make upwards of a hundred million dollars
each?
We don't live in an open society, as far as these questions
go.
  
 
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