The Angry Liberal Commentary Archive:
Missile Defense: Terrorists Have the Last Laugh.
1929, a post-war France, still reeling from its losses in World War I, embarked upon construction of an elaborate and costly line of fortifications on its eastern border. Known as the Maginot Line, this formidable military endeavor was designed to prevent Germany from ever mounting a successful invasion of France. When Germany invaded France in May 1940, Hitler was well aware that a frontal assault of the Maginot Line would be far too costly to attempt. Instead, he simply bypassed this defensive system by invading France through the Ardennes Forest in Belgium. By the end of June, France was in the hands of the invading Nazis and the Maginot Line was powerless to stop it.
Former Governor Bush, who apparently slept through his history classes, is now prepared to embark on America's version of the Maginot Line. Known as a missile defense shield, or "Star Wars" as it was dubbed by its critics in the 80s, this impossibly complex and expensive defensive system would be designed to stop a small number of incoming ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads from hitting targets in the United States. While critics argue over the cost and feasibility of such a system, Bush's utter lack of vision in military and terrorist strategy is apparent. The problem: A missile defense shield, even if it worked perfectly, would only be designed to stop a single means of delivering a nuclear, chemical, or biological payload. Here's the really funny part: The missile defense shield would stop, in theory, of course, the single most expensive, complex, and traceable means of this delivery.
Before we blow our grandkids' Social Security money on this pipe dream, let's think about this. The sole goal of a nuclear attack prevention program should be to make it as difficult as possible for terrorists or rogue states to attack us, right? This must start by minimizing the most likely and simplest threat: The threat of a small, homemade device delivered by hand to its target. You know, a suitcase-size nuke in the trunk of a '91 Nissan Stanza delivering Domino's Pizza to the Pentagon. Minimize this threat and we force the bad guys to make their attack plans more complex. The more complex their plans are, the easier it is for something to go wrong and for the attack to fail. Incidentally, this rule also applies to other things, like missile defense systems.
The Bush administration, in its infinite stupidity, has taken the opposite approach: It wants to spend huge piles of cash in an attempt to make an attack by a missile difficult or impossible, all the while encouraging the building of simpler, cheaper, and harder-to-trace homemade nuclear weapons.
Yep, I said "encouraging." While Bush proposes obscene amounts of money for missile defense, he also wants to make it easier for terrorists to build their own nuclear weapons by stealing or covertly purchasing the necessary materials from the states of the former Soviet Union. In Bush's fiscal year 2002 budget, the United States cut (that's right, I said CUT) spending on the cooperative nuclear security programs with Russia and the other independent states of the former Soviet Union by $100 million, or 32% over the FY '01 budget. This funding cut, first proposed by Bush, has not been restored to this day despite National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice's attempt to cover it up on Meet The Press last Sunday. That's right, last April, George W. Bush decided that it should be easier for terrorists to get their hands on weapons-grade nuclear material so he could use the money to fund his giant tax cut. Folks, this could be the dumbest guy on the planet.
In short, George W. Bush wants to force America to waste billions on a system that only encourages would-be enemies of the United States to develop the cheapest and easiest means of weapons delivery possible. Worse than that, Bush has made it easier for these people to steal or purchase weapons-grade materials from former Soviet Union states. If Bush were the leader of 1930's France, he would have built up the Maginot line while helping Belgium cut a road through the Ardennes Forest to Germany.
I am dead serious when I say that allowing a moron to ascend to the presidency has real consequences.
. . .The Angry Liberal
11/20/01
