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RedditHere's another nominee for the Best Bush Folly--the Administration's latest plan to expand its "missile defense shield" by locating a radar base and 10 missile interceptors in the Czech Republic and Poland, respectively.
While too few among our pundit and political class are willing to expose the insanity of this plan, Czech and Polish citizens appear to have more sense --and guts.
According to the Financial Times, 70 percent of Czechs oppose the shield and Poles are evenly split – the latter is especially "surprising in a country that sees itself as the most pro-American in Europe."
Jan Neoral, the mayor of the Czech village of Trokavec where the radar site would be positioned, "…feels the US and Czech governments are lying about the dangers posed by the radars and the possible economic benefits that will accrue to villages in the area." In a village referendum on the radar 71 of 72 votes were against!
"Trokavec will get nothing but this harmful radar," Neoral told the Financial Times.
Many Poles would agree with Neoral's assessment. Even Radek Sikorski, Poland's Secretary of Defense until February of this year (and also a former fellow at a neocon think tank in DC who maintains many close contacts and friends in the US government), thinks this plan is a terrible idea. Writing in a Washington Post op-ed Sikorski put it bluntly: "… the war in Iraq has dented Central European trust. The spectacle of the US secretary of state at the UN Security Council solemnly presenting intelligence that proved unreliable shook our faith. Our old-fashioned expectation that the United States would show gratitude for our participation in Iraq also proved misplaced. Public perceptions of America are plummeting, while opposition to U.S.-led military operations, and above all to the proposed missile site, grows." Sikorski is particularly strong in laying out the potential for this proposal to "provoke a spiral of misunderstanding, weaken NATO, deepen Russian paranoia and cost the United States some of its last friends on the continent."
Indeed, the Bush proposal is further evidence of what Russia scholar Stephen Cohen (full disclosure: my husband) described last year in a Nation cover story as the current state of affairs between the US and Russia: "The cold war ended in Moscow, but not in Washington." Cohen notes that the US unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in an attempt to build this missile defense shield which would also give the US first strike capability. It has abandoned real and meaningful reductions of nuclear stockpiles while developing new weapons. These actions "have all but abolished long-established US-Soviet agreements that have kept the nuclear peace for nearly fifty years," and a "dangerously provocative military encirclement of Russia and growing Russian suspicions of US intentions" will now only increase.
And for what?
"Their whole reason for what it is supposed to defend – the continental United States, The United States and western Europe, Europe only? – keeps shifting, depending on the political winds," says Victoria Samson, Research Analyst at the Center for Defense Information. "Now they're talking about creating a whole new interceptor - the two-stage version, which would presumably require a whole new testing regimen. But you don't hear about that last part. And what is this threat anyways? I think that the Administration is trying to create institutional momentum for missile defense so that whatever happens in the 2008 election, it will continue to steam ahead. The more money that gets spent on this program, the more voices are raised when discussions are made of future cuts. If you can get other countries involved in lobbying for this to continue, all the better from the perspective of the missile defense regime."
Samson notes that missile defense already receives more annually than any other Pentagon weapons system – $10.85 billion in FY 08 – despite the fact that it has "demonstrated [no] capability to defend the United States against enemy attack under realistic operational conditions."
Last year, Joseph Cirincione, senior vice president at the Center for American Progress, wrote in an op-ed that the Bush administration "broke the bars that had caged the nuclear beast." The latest missile defense follies only serve to make the beast more difficult to recapture. It's time for some sanity – call on Congress--and the Presidential candidates-- to end this missile defense fraud.
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Katrina vanden Heuvel
Thoughts on politics, current affairs, riffs and reflections on what’s in the news and what’s not--but should be.
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Uh, wouldn't a missile defense system ALSO defend against missiles coming from...oh....I don't know....the Middle East? Not just Russia.
Posted by Mask at 04/03/2007 @ 3:38pm
Wait!! We must have missles to instill fear among the American populace. If we don't have fear then the fascist regime running and ruining our country can't rape us of all that we have.
Posted by douginslc at 04/03/2007 @ 3:43pm
When is the media going to call the Bush/Cheney regime what it is- fascist? When are the people going to take back their government? All that I fear is OUR government.
Posted by douginslc at 04/03/2007 @ 3:45pm
thank god they are building this, I was just thinking, it's about time we built a damn radar missile shield in poland. I mean, what's taking so long? do these pesky Poles and Czechs think that they can vote to not let us defend them? Craziness. That's like asking Iraqis if they want us stop helping them become democratic. Preposterous.
Posted by rzs at 04/03/2007 @ 4:15pm
Posted by LVLIBERTY1 04/03/2007 @ 4:15pm
If NATO is worried, let NATO build one.
If we don't start a war over Taiwan, we have nothing to worry about with China.
Your 1998 citation is rather dated isn't it? Almost ten years old. Time has borne out those worries to be baseless. None of the "axis of evil" countries has the capability to shoot missiles at the continential U.S. Our money would be better spent on beefing up our intel and diplomacy.
Problem solved. Billions of $$ saved.
Posted by BlueTexan at 04/03/2007 @ 4:21pm
Posted by DOUGINSLC 04/03/2007 @ 3:45pm
Always curious about this etymological lunacy ...
Can you name the last "fascist regime"...that was term limited out of power?
Posted by Mask at 04/03/2007 @ 4:23pm
How effective will a missile shield be against one of their operatives carrying around a nuclear warhead in a backpack LVLIBERTY1? All those cameras snooping on every corner of London were no help.
Diplomacy will be more effective instead of wasting trillions on something that only works in theory.
Posted by smaggi at 04/03/2007 @ 4:39pm
Posted by LVLIBERTY1 04/03/2007 @ 4:34pm
First off, this is a first...Luvy now claims NATO is legit and we should be a part of it. Secondly, the threat cited by NATO was for Europe, you do realize we are not a part of Europe. Let Europe build missiles under NATO for Europe.
Your ten year old cite states: "However, they would be able to inflict major destruction on the U.S. within about five years of a decision to acquire such a capability (10 years in the case of Iraq)." If I'm doing the math right, N. Korea and Iran have had twice as much time to build since that report came out. It sure is taking those folks a while, why are they so slow? Off course, we "solved" the Iraq problem, that was cheap, huh?
This is nothing but a last ditch effort by Bushie to build his version of Star Wars. Why don't we put this time and $$ into all those unsearched cargo containers that come into our major ports everyday. If there is any threat, I bet its a bigger one there.
Posted by BlueTexan at 04/03/2007 @ 4:42pm
This corporate welfare system will do nothing more than push Russia away from us. Russia has suffered a long history of savage invasions from the west. All the fools in support of this lunacy have only to stop and ask yourself what the US would do if a superpower set up such weapon systems near our borders? (Any of you dumbasses remember the Cuban Missle Crisis?) This is provocative, reckless--foolish.
Posted by mtspence05 at 04/03/2007 @ 4:53pm
This corporate welfare system will do nothing more than push Russia away from us. Russia has suffered a long history of savage invasions from the west. All the fools in support of this lunacy have only to stop and ask yourself what the US would do if a superpower set up such weapon systems near our borders? (Any of you dumbasses remember the Cuban Missle Crisis?) This is provocative, reckless--foolish.
Posted by MTSPENCE05 04/03/2007 @ 4:53pm
Just two questions....
1. What does the "corporate welfare system" have to do with a missile site? Oh, wait a minute...."Military-Industrial Complex" and Raytheon owning the Defense Department...right?
anyway 2. If they're interceptor missiles for ballistic missile defense....how does that compare to offensive ballistic missiles placed in Cuba... exactly?
No...wait...got that one too. They're the same thing and if I don't understand that I'm stupid and maybe should look it up on www.dictionary.com and "Besides you already told me"...uh, right?
Posted by Mask at 04/03/2007 @ 4:58pm
Posted by MTSPENCE05 04/03/2007 @ 4:53pm
Good point. Once Hugo sells enough oil, for kicks he just might stick some missiles back in Cuba. Just to make Bush mad.
Posted by BlueTexan at 04/03/2007 @ 5:02pm
Just two questions....
1. What does the "corporate welfare system" have to do with a missile site? Oh, wait a minute...."Military-Industrial Complex" and Raytheon owning the Defense Department...right?
anyway 2. If they're interceptor missiles for ballistic missile defense....how does that compare to offensive ballistic missiles placed in Cuba... exactly?
No...wait...got that one too. They're the same thing and if I don't understand that I'm stupid and maybe should look it up on www.dictionary.com and "Besides you already told me"...uh, right?
Posted by MASK 04/03/2007 @ 4:58pm
I think you may actually be strawmanning Spence's point here. His argument isn't that the missile shield is itself a threat to Russia. Rather, the missile shield could be construed as threatening because it removes Russian second-strike capability. The way you maintain stable relations between two nuclear powers that may be hostile towards one another, many argue, is ensuring that both powers have second-strike capability, such that if one were to attack the other, the other would still have enough nukes to strike the aggressor back. That's important because it means that neither power has any incentive to launch a first strike, and thus neither feels the need to preempt a first strike. This may be somewhat questionable, since the Soviet Union didn't nuke us even when they believed we were developing a potentially-effective missile defense shield, but I think it's the concern that Spence is reasonably arguing for.
Posted by Thrawn at 04/03/2007 @ 7:51pm
BUSH IS JUST GETTING EVEN...
With Putin for the latter's sarcastic put-downs of, shall we say, Bush's general capabilities as a world leader.
Posted by w_m_bear at 04/03/2007 @ 8:09pm
Posted by THRAWN 04/03/2007 @ 7:51pm
Why will the Russians nuke Poland or Czechoslovakia? They wouldn't...might like to be able to keep the THREAT alive though as a means of secondarily keeping the old Warsaw Pact guys in line for economic and trade matters and we're countering it for the same reasons, and it's "plans within plans within plans" foreign policy or more commonly "a game of high stakes chicken".
But the old liberal idea of "we're provoking the Russians" is b.s.
The Russians aren't going to hit Warsaw or Prague...they know it, we know it. The surface reason is, this system could protect against a threat from a MUCH more important player....Iran.
The threat of an Islamic nuke IRBM used against Europe and being CREDIBLE...gives them leverage against the Europeans for their agenda...mostly on economic development and a wee bit on Israel (though the Euros would sell out Israel for a bag of cotton candy and a smile from Ahmadinejad).
Backing down from the missile system won't "make nice-nice" with the Russians (a couple of oil and gas deals would "make up" for it)...but it would throw a bone to the Iranians.
Posted by Mask at 04/03/2007 @ 9:41pm
This so-called "missile shield" is just a cover for putting into outer space an offensive weapons platform. By capturing the ultimate High Ground, the US would be in a position to dominate the world even more than it does today. And it is also another taking of American tax payer money that is spent on figuring out ways to blow people to hell and gone. All that money spent on offensive weapons will not be spent on infrastructure or good schools. After all, who needs schools when all that is needed are more kids to turn into cannon fodder for the latest military mis-adventure?
greg bacon ava, mo
Posted by Greg Bacon at 04/04/2007 @ 08:47am
Posted by GREG BACON 04/04/2007 @ 08:47am |
Then....why did we let them OTHER countries join in on "our" space station....or why didn't we build a moon base?!?!?
Posted by Mask at 04/04/2007 @ 09:34am
Posted by MASK
You're a shill for the right. Just be a man and admit it.
Thrawn made the case. It's not about the Russians hitting Prague or Warsaw; the issue is an anti-ballistic missile system that could (if it actually works [which is why I referred to it as "corporate welfare"]) render Russia's ability to defend itself (if you possess the ability do destroy your opponent, then your opponent will not seek to threaten you) ineffective. Combine that with the manner in which the US has chosen to wield its lone superpower power and anybody (in my opinion) short of an ignoramus (or a provocateur) can easily recognize the validity of this argument, especially when Russia's unfortunate past of invasion from the West is considered. If you wanna play stupid, Mask, go right ahead (you're very good at it).
This argument that Iran will launch missles into Europe is nothing but idiotic. The Iranians may talk a lot of tough garbage, but I would worry much more about a fundamentalist Christian like this moron Prez of ours pushing the button than the Muslims in Iran.
Posted by mtspence05 at 04/04/2007 @ 11:30am
Backing down from the missile system won't "make nice-nice" with the Russians (a couple of oil and gas deals would "make up" for it)...but it would throw a bone to the Iranians.
Posted by MASK
You lack an appreciation of Russia's history vis a vis western invasions. In the last one over 20 million perished. 20 million! That's something Americans cannot relate to.
If the US was interested in acting fairly, maybe Russia's fears could be allayed to a certain extent, but unchecked power is always abused. In addition, much of Eastern Europe is being incorporated into NATO; the West is seeking to gain complete influence in the Ukraine--how are the Russians supposed to react to this? They are being isolated, boxed in. In this situation a credible Iranian missile is a benefit to Russia.
Posted by mtspence05 at 04/04/2007 @ 11:41am
I'm not fully informed on many specifics of the missle defense system being discussed, a couple are significant to me. When missles are shot down with other missles, where does this occur, inside or outside of our atmosphere, and when a missle is being shot down by a defense missle is the defense missle armed with a nuke and using the nuke to shoot down the offensive missle? Mutual annilation has always been the defense against nuclear first strikes. If any nation intends to launch a nuclear first strike, it won't be one or two missles, what would be the point, the only way to gain an advantage in nuclear war is to launch a pre-emptive first strike calculated to be overwhelming and dicisive all by itself. Now, if we set off enough megatons of nuclear blast in the atmosphere, we will cause nuclear winter as a result (I forget the exact number, but it isn't terribly huge, and given the size of bombs these days it amounts to far fewer than 100 nukes being exploded). First off, ABM systems are woefully ineffective (yes, one ABM can occasionally shoot down an incoming missle when the manners of the ABM know when and where the ABM is coming from, but in a mass, first strike attack, the ABMs would be doing well to knock down 20% of the first strike missles. The other 80% would likely be enough to cause nuclear winter still and end the Age of Mammals. At the same time, even if the ABM nukes were 100% effective, all the nuclear explosions in the atmosphere would still lead ot nuclear winter, and if exploded outside the atmosphere, would do irreparable harm to our atmosphere from outside, allowing more of the sun's UV rays to enter and ultimately, perhaps, reduce our atmosphere to one like that on Mars. The missle defenses are a huge waste of money. It is madness to thank that one can protect against MAD (mutual annilation and destruction). This proposal will not make us any safer from nuclear attack. However, it will guarantee another arms race (which is exactly what the military industrial complex wants in order to increase future profits by building this defense system. Simultaneously, this will stymie the availability of funds for education, health, and every other national need in the US, Russia, and all NATO nations.
Posted by Lennonist at 04/04/2007 @ 12:14pm
" the issue is an anti-ballistic missile system that could... render Russia's ability to defend itself (if you possess the ability do destroy your opponent, then your opponent will not seek to threaten you) ineffective."
Posted by MTSPENCE05 04/04/2007 @ 11:30am
So the Russians won't be able to "defend themselves"...if they can't launch missiles into Europe because we've set up an anti-missile defense system there?!?!?
And you're thinking on that is due to....your contention that WE would attack them (the old Cold War leftist view of nuclear policy)...same view that collapsed with the Berlin Wall.
The Russians know we aren't going to attack them and they sure as hell aren't "worried" about a few anti-missile systems in Poland and Czechoslovakia which MIGHT hit one or two missiles...they have THOUSANDS of nuclear missiles they could launch.
So try to move up from 1988 and "die ins" and school kids hugging Gorbachev and watching "Testament" and "The Day After"....
and get upto speed. The Russians are way past World War-II AND the Cold War...so should you be.
And to FURTHER add to your inane and primarily ILL-informed view of things....the Iranians are full of bluster? ABC News just upped the timeline for a "nuclear Iran" from "six to eight years" to....2009.
Posted by Mask at 04/04/2007 @ 1:38pm
Posted by MASK
Alright, Mr. Debate class, that was one weak retort.
Like I said, you lack an appreciation for Russia's history. If the US has the ability to thwart a Russian attack (whether it is a first strike or retaliation), then her defenses are rendered obsolete, impotent (much like Maasch). It's comparable to putting a boxer in the ring with his arms tied behind his back. What do you think they're gonna do, just trust the US to do the right thing? As I said, unchecked power is inevitably abused. Savage invasions, loss of live unfathomable to Americans, is not something that is forgotten.
As for Iran: So what if they get a nuclear weapon? They have every right to develop nuclear weapons, just like the US, Israel and Pakistan. And that capability--in view of the incooth use of American power in Iraq and else where--is a benefit to Russia. The resources that will be deployed to counter Iranian power will take away from resources that could be pointed at Russia.
Posted by mtspence05 at 04/04/2007 @ 2:10pm
And you're thinking on that is due to....your contention that WE would attack them (the old Cold War leftist view of nuclear policy)...same view that collapsed with the Berlin Wall. Posted by MASK
It is not the job of generals to wonder what "will" happen; they are concerned with questions like "when" and "if". That is the nature of contingency plans. Depending on the good behavior of others in no way guarantees your safety.
Uncooth.
Posted by mtspence05 at 04/04/2007 @ 2:15pm
Iran has defeated George Bush, thank goodness they let those sailors go. It couldnt be worse for George Bush, Iran has deflated much of the momentum Bush tried to build. Who is going to go for an attack on Iran now. They also showed they wont let trespassors in there to get their Gulf of Tonkin set up. I think the lies that came out in the last 2 days about Iran really really being about to have a nuclear bomb was meant to blunt Irans triumph. Whatever Bush had cooking is obviously back to the drawing board, and he might have a very short amount of time left to pull off his justification for attacking Iran.
HURRAY!!!! FUCCK YOU PRO-ARMGAGEDDON REPUGLICAN CONSERVATIVES!!!!
Posted by conshame at 04/04/2007 @ 2:59pm
I LOVE this.....
"Like I said, you lack an appreciation for Russia's history. If the US has the ability to thwart a Russian attack (whether it is a first strike or retaliation), then her defenses are rendered obsolete, impotent"
Posted by MTSPENCE05 04/04/2007 @ 2:10pm
You ALMOST had it, but you left in "first strike"....so a first strike is DEFENSIVE, MTSP?
Why...you mean the Russians should be allowed to engage in....pre-emptive war?!?!!?!? Putin as Bush?
Posted by Mask at 04/04/2007 @ 4:20pm
Posted by MASK
More twisting of words. Play let class debater all you want. You get the what I'm saying. You get it all too clearly, otherwise you could have proved me wrong. Instead this is all you can come up with.
In addition, having the capability to deliver a "successful" first strike is a defensive measure in the sense that it is a valid threat and can be used to deter the actions of another. I think in '67 something to that effect was threatened if the US did not stop the Israelis. (And before you run with that and start your little bitch games: The Soviets made some sort of threat; maybe it was to intervene directly on behalf of Syria--I'm not sure, but such an action would have eventually led to a confrontation with the US, which would have eventually led to a nuclear exchange once a conflict progressed.)
Posted by mtspence05 at 04/04/2007 @ 4:52pm
"If you wanna play stupid, Mask, go right ahead (you're very good at it)."
Spence has got you there, Mask, you do enjoy playing dumb WAY too often.
Both The Nation and The American Conservative have recently run excellent, detailed articles on the cold war that has essentially been waged against Russia by the United States since the break-up of the Soviet Union. Russians are quite aware of this situation, both on the street and in the corridors of power, and you can bet the bureaucrats who run China and Cuba are, too, and much of the public, too.
While the missle shield program has had an unbroken record of failure and has served primarily as (1) SWEET corporate welfare and (2) ideological red meat for some, though not all, conservatives, the fact is that placing it in former Warsaw Pact nations is a further link in the chain of bases and weapons systems with which we have been encircling Russia for the last 15 years. And if the damn thing can be made to work, it becomes a real threat to Russia. The U.S. and U.S.S.R. had a treaty outlawing missle defense, except to protect their respective capitals, because a working large-scale system could make its owner feel comfortable launching a first strike, setting off nuclear armageddon for the rest of us.
As for Iran and North Korea, whatever one may think of the leadership of either state, and contrary to any mythmaking, they show no indication of being mad, at least not to the degree of attempting a first strike nuclear attack against a clearly superior foe! Every indication has been that the whole point of their nuclear arsenals, actual or planned, are defensive, primarily against an agressive nuclear state that has proved it will attack non-nuclear states but will pause in attacking those with nuclear arms, or patrons willing to use them. That would be the U.S.A.
Of far better benefit to humanity than the nuclear proliferation led and fed by the U.S. would be deep and widespread nuclear disarmament. If, after the break-up of the Cold War, America had cut our arsenal to the bone and assisted Russia and the former Soviet states in doing so, China, North Korea, Iran, Brazil, Japan, Germany and a host of other countries would not have fealt threatened by all of the loose nukes floating around the world, the U.S. declaring a Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (sorry, Axis of Evil) out of thin air, and the new arms race among second-rank powers playing catch up.
I'm not trying to be soft-headed about this. I believe in a country's right to develop nuclear arms for self-defence, and there might have been legitimate threats that would have generated this in the 90's. But so much of the recent arms race has been driven by smoke and mirrors (Iran will give it'smost advanced technology to terrorists! Right.), corporate pork (see most weapons development programs, but "Stars Wars" leads the way) and U.S. imperial arrogance (Where to begin?).
Posted by cka2nd at 04/04/2007 @ 5:41pm
Posted by LVLIBERTY1 04/03/2007 @ 4:15pm
Hey luvvy - if you are so afraid of the chicomms, you should tell bush to get Neil off the payroll of the son of the commander of the Peoples Army.
After all, he has NO SKILLS to warrant the 2 million they paid him, so what the fuck were they paying him FOR?
The brother of the pResident on the payroll of the chicomms.
Sort of curious, no?
Posted by Dr Decibels at 04/04/2007 @ 5:52pm
In 2002, for instance, Bush signed a consulting contract with Grace Semiconductor -- a Shanghai-based company managed in part by the son of former Chinese president Jiang Zemin.
Bush's contractual duties consist solely of attending board meetings and discussing "business strategies."
For this, he is to be paid $2 million in company stock over five years, plus $10,000 for every board meeting he attends.
"Now, you have absolutely no educational background in semiconductors, do you Mr. Bush?" Brown asked.
"That's correct," Bush responded.
Posted by Dr Decibels at 04/04/2007 @ 6:15pm
With Silverado and JNB both belly up, Bush started Apex Energy, a methane gas exploration company. He invested $3,000 of his own money and got $2.3 million from two companies run by his father's friend Louis Marx, heir to the Marx toy fortune.
Neil used Marx's money to pay himself a salary of $160,000, and he sold a Wyoming gas lease that he owned to Apex for $150,000. The lease proved worthless -- no methane there. In fact, Apex, like JNB, never found anything worth pumping.
After two years, Apex went broke. Bush had received more than $300,000 in salary but Marx got zip, and the Small Business Administration, which had backed Marx's investments, was left holding the empty bag.
Posted by Dr Decibels at 04/04/2007 @ 6:18pm
During his travels, he met with several Arab princes and enjoyed a private dinner with Jiang Zemin, then China's president, who serenaded Bush with a military song.
"I probably have access to people who wouldn't meet with a development-stage company," Bush told an Associated Press reporter in 2002, "but I feel I'm held to a higher standard."
Posted by Dr Decibels at 04/04/2007 @ 6:19pm
The bushes are all rotten to the core.
Their family values amount to - milk the taxpayer for all he's worth then run before the shit hits the fan.
Posted by Dr Decibels at 04/04/2007 @ 6:21pm
"Also I have yet to see any assessment from the White House or Congress that states that the 1998 threats have been diminished."
Well, can't help you actually looking there, as you always stop with the information that supports rather than decreases your point. However, since 1998 there has been a steady ramping down of European stockpiles of nuclear arms in vague recognition that the Whitehouse would wholly prefer the western European theatre to still exist as a buffer. Western Europeans, however, are reticent to take on the big 'bullsye' for the US when the president makes up stuff about who the enemy actually are.
No, this is a fairly silly bit of pork-producing flim-flammery connected to ballistic missile defenses that don't work in a meaningful fashion; indeed, the patriot batteries usually end up downing allied planes rather than actually disrupting ballistic weaponry. Go take a look at the relevant reporting on the ABM weaponry and you'll find that it's as much science fiction as working technology.
I think an interesting question is that supplied if you take the number and range of the Middle-Eastern ICBM stocks and the US/UK ICBM and sub-launched first strike weapons in the middle-eastern and western european theatres. As an aside, it's worth considering the Cuban missile crisis for how jumpy yanks get about having anything threatening nearby. As the OP reports, the main use of ABM is to preserve first strike capability with a terror weapon.
Posted by Draconis at 04/05/2007 @ 08:38am
Mask,
"ABC News just upped the timeline for a "nuclear Iran" from "six to eight years" to....2009."
When they refer to a 'Nuclear Iran', do they mean powered or armed? In the latter case that's a specious argument that roughly extends the centrifuge aquisition and a best case to provide a wholly shocking figure to people who haven't been watching the nuclear arena since growing up in the Western European Theatre. Powered....so what?
With regards to being 'powered', there is nothing stopping Iran getting nuclear power apart from a couple of very loud nations who keep saying that it's illegal while breaking the NPT themselves in testing new nuclear weapons. Not power, weapons.
Please let me know who those weapons will be used against? The Tora Bora mountains? Tehran? Are we _really_ talking about maintaining the bully position of the eight permanant members of the security council? In addition to those questions, why is the possibility of a nuclear Iran a bother to the administration which is definately on it's way out. What is the motive?
I think a lot of this points back to the moral relativism that Lvliberty and some of the more rabid non-thinkers seem to have bought into. _They_ cannot be trusted, because _they_ aren't us. Not only is this pure racism, but it's a blinkered view that tends to mean utter acceptance that 'us' are purer than the driven snow in word, though and deed, when experience around the world provides a different perspective.
Anyway, ABC aren't nearly as good at this as the IAEA, and they've refused to speculate as to a timeline.
Posted by Draconis at 04/05/2007 @ 08:54am
"I'm not fully informed on many specifics of the missle defense system being discussed, a couple are significant to me. When missles are shot down with other missles, where does this occur, inside or outside of our atmosphere, and when a missle is being shot down by a defense missle is the defense missle armed with a nuke and using the nuke to shoot down the offensive missle?"
Modern ABM systems tend to target the ICBM during the terminal phase of approach, which is just after the highest point and before MIRV separation. There are the shootdowns, which use kinetic disruptors (ballbearings or rods), and interceptors that use a missile to throw a net or sphere of debris against the ICBM.
The main problem is that intercepts have to happen at high speed, not only to improve the kill (momentum counts), but also because ICBMs are fairly quick. ABMs are never nuclear, but the problem of scattering disrupted warhead parts has been totally glossed over by most analysts as being light compared with a nuclear strike.
Bear in mind that the Al Sahmoud IV ICBM is largely a fictional item that has been seriously overhyped by Rumsfeld as it needs a supersonic turbo-pump to actually work, and they're difficult items to source. Intelligence services tend to concentrate on small items.
"Mutual annilation has always been the defense against nuclear first strikes."
Mutually Assured Destruction is still a valid doctrine and is one reason why the majority of in process nuclear missiles are currently sitting between 500' and 1200' below the ocean surface with command authority should the sub lose contact with command.
"Now, if we set off enough megatons of nuclear blast in the atmosphere, we will cause nuclear winter as a result"
No, this isn't the process. Nuclear winter is an inevitable side-effect of a large amount of dust in the atmosphere. The standard delivery for systems was to detonate on the ground, but this produced a blast wave that would be heavily compromised by ground structures, and found that an airburst detonated between 200-600' above the ground would produce a double blast wave similar to fuel-air explosives and spread radioactive dust from ground level to the upper atmosphere by creating a vacuum effect. Nuclear winter would happen after a fairly small exchange, but is a modelled effect.
Admittedly I don't recall the stats for localised vortices after >200KT devices go off, as they have a blast radius that exceeds the thickness of the atmosphere. Suffice to say that it wouldn't be back to normal immediately.
But you know Republicans need the supreme court and the concensus of the rest of the world before they'll accept such data.
"First off, ABM systems are woefully ineffective"
Entirely so....
"but in a mass, first strike attack,"
...and mainly for that reason.
"However, it will guarantee another arms race"
Yeah, there is a nuclear holy grail there for the MIC that needs to be decoupled. Nuclear weapons make the world _less_, not more safe, and it doesn't matter who has them. The first nutball to use one, whether with the blessing of a nation state or as an individual actor will go down in infamy with the rest of the human race. There is another aside in that I don't believe anyone can make a balanced decision to use a weapon that is so damaging in both the short and long terms. There is NO justification for using a nuclear weapon. Not even as 'defence'.
Posted by Draconis at 04/05/2007 @ 09:17am
"Then....why did we let them OTHER countries join in on "our" space station....or why didn't we build a moon base?!?!?"
Firstly, it's not 'your' space station, as well you know. Power systems were build by the Russians, with significant contributions from the ESA after congress spent 25 years downgrading and cutting back.
Secondly, there was a bloody announcement of the Bush plan to militarise space, Mask. This is why the hoohaw about the Chinese satellite shootdown was funny; not only did American companies assist China, but there was already a budget recommendation to spend $1.2 billion on American space-based interceptors between 2002-2007.
"THE US has issued a new national space policy that reflects a more aggressive and unilateral stance than the previous version set out a decade ago by former president Bill Clinton.
The earlier statement said US operations should be "consistent with treaty obligations". In contrast, the most recent one, issued on 6 October, rejects international agreements that would limit US testing or use of military equipment in space.
The new version also uses stronger language to assert that the US can defend its spacecraft, echoing an air force push for "space superiority" made in 2004. It states the US has the right to "protect its space capabilities, respond to interference and deny, if necessary, adversaries the use of space capabilities hostile to US national interests". http://space.newscientist.com/article/mg19225733.500-us-takes-unilateral -stance-in-new-space-policy.html
Posted by Draconis at 04/05/2007 @ 09:31am
I commend you for your excellent leadership of 'The Nation' and your splendid editorials, particularly 'Bush Defense Follies (continued).'
I write to say that when the current United States administration succeeds in beginning WW III, as it is rapidly proceeding to do, it needs the support of central European countries and also, of course, of Israel, whose formidable firepower will assist it in its mad rush toward world conquest, or world extinction.
Cordially,
Dr. MaryAnn Wimsatt Professor of American Literature and of Modern War
Posted by Desdichado at 04/05/2007 @ 10:52am
Let's just look at the LOGIC of this debate....
The Russians have THOUSANDS of nuclear weapons....yet a missile defense system in Poland and Czechoslovakia that AT MOST could hit one or two missiles..."threatens" the Russians.
GREG BACON says America is going to "dominate space" to control the world...yet has NO problem with the Chinese developing a massive space program (in fact, like our Russo-philes, would probably blame that...though it started YEARS before Bush...on Bush).
Reports from ABC News (that bastion of right-wing thought) has reported that Iran will get their nuclear weapons YEARS earlier than previously thought. And the Iranians, with their seizure of the British sailors, that they will flaunt international law, including the Geneva Convention (seems nobody cares, if anybody but Bush, does that)....and WOULD use their 1-2 missiles (see above) to threaten Europe, very subtlely of course, if not for a system designed to protect the Europeans (much as we have for 60 years).
So....the Russians are "threatened" by the fact that they could only launch 4998 missiles.
The US is provoking the Chinese into a "arms race in space", by somehow going BACK in time to the early 90s and implementing Bush's space policy.
And the Iranians with the possibility of a nuclear IRBM that could hit Poland and Czechoslovakia...will suddenly decide to be "nice guys" since...oh....yesterday and we should dismantle a defense system that might work against their machinations.
You know, for the life of me, I can't figure out how, until recently and Bush's idiocy in Iraq....how the Left got tarred with this "weak and/or stupid on defense" stereotype?!?!?
Posted by Mask at 04/05/2007 @ 11:07am
The Russians have THOUSANDS of nuclear weapons....yet a missile defense system in Poland and Czechoslovakia that AT MOST could hit one or two missiles..."threatens" the Russians. Posted by MASK
That's today, you myopic fool! What about tomorrow? What about a few years from now? And it's more than just a missile system. As already stated, the US is not being benevolent with its lone superpower power.
Posted by mtspence05 at 04/06/2007 @ 5:42pm