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Missile Defense

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?

almarstel2001 - 11:07am Mar 12, 2001 EST (#949 of 950)

Robert,

Firstly thank you for reading and responding to my posts.

Secondly, I am surelly not a Putin, nor would I wish to find myself in his shoes today. He is facing enormous problems and responcibilities hardly any American President ever faced since American Civil War.

The contradiction today, in my view at least, between status of US as a predominant economic and military power and its histerical military standing gives me a pouse to wonder. It raises in my view a picture of a city dweller, armed to the teeth and locked in his air-tight high raise appartment, fearful to wonder outside into the wast wilderness surrounding the city, influenced by the Holliwood horror movie about killer woolves. Sincerelly ready to kill ALL the wolves and destroy the wild surrounding nature despite the fact that on one killed by wolf human there are handreds of thousends of woolves killed. Eventually, he reaches his goal just to die from a Legionaries desiese by the fungus living in his air-condition system.

But funny things apart, could it be some circles in the military-industrial and secret service complex have played the role of a Holliwood (even incorporating the Holliwood) to promote their mercantile agenda? Where are the ssurances this is not the case?

The danger is, US military at some point will have to justify its existance and support by the "city dweller", leading it first to invent, then to destroy the "wolf" and even its whole habitat if that happend to be more "cost effective".

The danger is, military and intelligence services, while rightefully surrounded by secrecy, have to be scrutinised and opened up enough to prevent the above scenario.

There must be a major discussion today about the desired geopolitical place and role of US, the moral and ideological guidance and limits, it will be absolutly never cross. May be even constutionalised?

Additionally, may be it will be usefull to create a competition within military services, looking after each other and competing after the same budget? The Germans for example had two distinct and competing intelligent services. Even if not very cost-effective in a short run, this approach may ultimatly save us. There is a great importance of system of checks and ballances which served this nation so well in many other respects, which are so terribly missing in the military. I would argue the Congressional oversite failed misarably in this respect since military-industrial complex provides Jobs and influence, our politicians are so desperate to secure for their respected constituencies.

almarstel2001 - 11:36am Mar 12, 2001 EST (#950 of 950)

Rogue states of America - http://www.guardian.co.uk/bush/story/0,7369,450238,00.html

Why Bush needs the bad guys

Leader Monday March 12, 2001 The Guardian

"US presidents have always had a penchant for bogeymen. Such personifications of evil make a complex world easier to explain to American voters, and they provide moral underpinning for actions subsequently taken in pursuit of US interests. Thus in recent years Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini, Libya's Colonel Gadafy, Panama's Manuel Noriega, Haiti's Raoul Cedras and Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic have all been cast in the role of bad guy. Top of the current bogeyman charts is the ever menacing Saddam Hussein, with a lifetime's achievement award going to Cuba's Fidel Castro.

During the Clinton presidency, the bogey concept broadened to include entire countries, known as "rogue states'. Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, trying to be diplomatic, changed this to "states of concern". But the rogues are back with a vengeance. Twice in the past fortnight President George Bush has highlighted the threat to the US posed by "rogue nations", thereby further expanding the definition to embrace whole peoples and not just their governments. To qualify for such pariah status, a nation must actively support terrorism, be building nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction, or be busy exporting the same to suspicious customers. Top of Mr Bush's list are North Korea, Iran, Libya and, of course, Iraq.

Rogue nations, it is already clear, are the cornerstone of Mr Bush's otherwise still unstable foreign and security edifice. On their shifty shoulders rests the entire raison d' tre of national missile defence (NMD). Dubya may have little or no idea what to do about Ariel Sharon or Japan's economic crisis, but he is absolutely certain of one thing: those missiles are essential to deter the rogues. The distorting effect of this puerile thinking was on display in Washington last week when, to secretary of state Colin Powell's evident discomfiture, Mr Bush told South Korea's President Kim Dae-jung he was ending the policy of engagement and negotiation with the Pyongyang regime pursued by Bill Clinton.

Even though Mr Kim, a key US ally, is desperate to advance the dialogue begun at last year's historic summit with Kim Jong-il, and even though the future of the deprived, half-starved northern population depends on his success, Mr Bush said bluntly he did not trust North Korea and effectively pulled the plug on détente. Pyongyang now warns that it may be forced to resume building nukes and missiles. To which Mr Bush and his hawkish advisers smilingly reply: all the more reason to build NMD!

There is a cynical pattern to be discerned here. While the Clinton administration made tentative gestures towards Iran, Mr Bush's people demonise Tehran as recipient and purveyor of threatening weapons and policies. Iran's internal struggle between reformers and the forces of clerical reaction is ignored; the obvious need of embattled President Mohammad Khatami, facing elections this June, to be able to demonstrate the benefits of his guarded opening to the west goes unrecognised. An opportunity exists to end Iran's isolation that may soon be lost. But what does Mr Bush do? Instead of offering a hand, he cries "mad mullahs!" and demands more missiles.

There is another way, if Mr Bush would only look. Britain and many EU countries are working hard to develop links with North Korea, Iran and Libya. Most also now agree that endless, thoughtless ostracism of the Iraqi nation is no longer a viable policy. So why not stop posturing and start talking? Because Mr Bush wants his missiles. And to get his missiles, the president needs rogues."

BUT THE QUESTION REMAINS - WHY MR. BUSH WANTS HIS MISSILES?

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