|
"The best national missile
defense requires a bold rhetorical offense," William
Safire exulted when George W. Bush called for the United
States to adopt a vast missile defense system. Most of the
rest of the world looks upon the prospect of our becoming
invulnerable to other countries’ missiles with some
alarm. If the U.S. can bomb Serbs, humiliate Russians, destroy
Chinese embassies and starve Iraqis today, what on Earth
is it going to do when the antimissile "shield"
is in place!
We
can never admit our imperial ambitions publicly. Therefore,
all manner of ludicrous reasons have to be put forward to
justify development of the system. The method has become
routine. America, as always, is the victim. As always, we
are threatened by other powers. Like who? It can’t
be the Russians. They’ve given up on communism and
the Warsaw Pact, and drastically reduced the number of nuclear
warheads they had in the Soviet era. It can’t be the
Chinese. We’re in the process of establishing permanent
normal trading relations with them. Besides, they only have
20 intercontinental missiles. Which leaves the "rogue
states." Why a "rogue state" would lob a
missile at a United States capable of swift, devastating
retaliation is a mystery. Even if a "rogue state"
did want to attack, it would make more sense for its agents
to leave a nuclear device in downtown Washington instead
of launching one whose provenance would immediately be known.
Plus, "rogue states" are getting a little scarce.
North Korea has just opened talks with South Korea. In a
few years, the Pyongyang regime may be no more.
To
be sure, there is still Iran. "Iran could test an ICBM
that could deliver a several-hundred kilogram payload to
many parts of the United States in the last half of the
next decade," according to a recent CIA National Intelligence
Estimate (NIE). Note the "coulds." One can conjure
up almost any threat that "could" one day arise.
These days, however, the U.S. is so anxious to get its hands
on the oil riches of the Caspian Sea that it is making nice
with the ayatollahs. Not always successfully. Recently,
the Hideous Harridan of Foggy Bottom apologized abjectly
for American involvement in the overthrow of former Iranian
Prime Minister Mohammed Mosadeq. Albright – surely
the most dimwitted member of any administration ever –
seemed unaware that Iran’s Muslim clerics loathed the
secularist Mosadeq even more intensely than either the CIA
or the Shah. That only leaves our old friend, Saddam Hussein.
"Iraq could test a North Korean-type ICBM that could
deliver a several-hundred kilogram payload to the United
States in the last half of the next decade depending on
the level of foreign assistance," in the trenchant
words of the CIA’s NIE. It seems unlikely, to say the
least, that 10 years of sanctions have done nothing to impair
Saddam’s ability to build a rocket capable of reaching
the U.S.
The
CIA is a voice of reason compared to the hysteria of the
1998 Rumsfeld Commission. "Concerted efforts by a number
of overtly or potentially hostile nations to acquire ballistic
missiles with biological or nuclear payloads pose a growing
threat to the United States..." it spluttered. "The
threat to the U.S. posed by these emerging capabilities
is broader, more mature and evolving more rapidly than has
been reported in estimates by the Intelligence Community."
Yet none of the "rogue states" is remotely close
to having intercontinental missiles. Only the five major
nuclear powers have them. Given that feebleness, it is hardly
surprising that no one in the world believes that America
would splash out $60 billion on a missile defense system
out of fear of a few puny states. ($60 billion, incidentally,
is just the cost of the less-expensive Clinton plan of 100
ground-based interceptors in Alaska and a few early warning
radars. The Bush plan would likely be much more expensive.)
No, the Missile Defense System is part and parcel of the
American empire.
Fearing
permanent subordination to the U.S., the Russians have already
said that they will respond to any U.S. antimissile system
by equipping their missiles with more warheads. If ever
there was a case of imperial overreach, this is it! Current
technology still can’t distinguish a nuclear warhead
from a decoy balloon. Interceptors are unable to handle
warheads that break up into hundreds of small bombs. After
innumerable failures, last October a missile intercept test
was successful. The interceptor supposedly distinguished
the target from the decoy. Much Pentagon high-fiving ensued.
It turned out, however, that the test was so artificial
as to be almost meaningless. As Joseph Cirincione of the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace explained: "The
target followed a pre-programmed flight path to a designated
position. The interceptor missile also flew to a pre-programmed
position. A Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) receiver
was placed on the target to send its position to ground
control, and the necessary target location information was
uploaded to a computer in the kill vehicle. The decoy released
had a significantly different thermal signature than the
target, making it easier for the sensors on the kill vehicle
to distinguish between the objects."
|
