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THE MISSILE DEFENCE MYTH

The proposed missile defence system (MDS)--ballyhooed by the Bush League--is a space-age Trojan Horse. It has nothing to do with the mythical threat of so-called rogue nations. The real purpose is the militarization of space by the US to establish and maintain world dominance. It will re-ignite the arms race, enrich the military-industrial complex and increase the risk of nuclear war.
Tests have already shown that the idea of destroying incoming missiles with US satellite-guided missiles has about the same chance of success as stopping one bullet with another. If a so-called rogue nation wants to cause maximum damage to the US why would it rely on a costly missile when it can transport a nuclear device or a biological weapon by boat or truck to any destination in the US with a minimum risk of detection and at a fraction of the cost? Such an "in-house" attack would be far more likely to succeed than a missile attack.
But there is another consideration overriding this alleged threat from a rogue nation: no dictator would launch such a missile attack because it would trigger massive US retaliation. Clearly no one would be that stupid. The alleged "rogue nation threat" is just a ruse to divert attention away from the real reason for the MDS.
The true intent of a missile defense system has nothing to do with security, but is aimed at US hegemony. The old military slogan si vis pacem para bellum (if you want peace prepare for war) is a monstrous lie as history has shown consistently: those who prepare for war usually get what they prepare for. The end of the Cold War was supposed to result in peace dividends to pay for public projects. Instead the military budget of the US is higher now than its average annual military expenditures during the Cold War! (See: http://www.clw.org/milspend/dodbud01.html) and three times as much as the military budgets of China and Russia combined!
True security cannot be achieved without social justice. True peace cannot begin until hunger, poverty, human exploitation and environmental degradation end.
In the article below scientist and peace activist Dr. Fred Knelman cogently explains the history and motivations behind the militarization of space.

STAR WARS REVISITED
BY F.H. Knelman, Ph.D.

The concept of Star Wars was born under the presidency of Ronald Reagan, who was under the control of Christian fundamentalists inside and outside his cabinet, imbued with the biblical prophecy of Armageddon. The second influential power brokers were the so-called defense intellectuals, members of right-wing think tanks and rabid anti-Communists. They contributed the technical backing to this program(see my book America, God and the Bomb: The Legacy of Ronald Reagan New Star Books 1987). The latter group developed a nuclear-war-winning strategy based on preemptive defense, i.e. a devastating first strike against all the offensive strategic weapons of the Soviet Union known as counter force targeting. In all their war scenarios some Soviet missiles got through and the calculation was that 20 million Americans and 100 million Russians would die. The concept of supplementing the nuclear sword with a nuclear shield, i.e. Star Wars, emerged.
Two decades after Reagan, George W. Bush, under the control of essentially the same groups, is proceeding rapidly to develop a National Missile Defense (NMD) system incorporating the Star Wars concept. In fact, his National Security Adviser is Condoleezza Rice, the Cold War Warrior Princess, formerly with the right-wing Hoover Institute, while other members of his cabinet such as John Ashford, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney are fellow power brokers in the military wing of the US government. George W. Bush, Mr. Mediocrity, is the ultimate figurehead. William Arkin worries that the President is the slave to the guards, not the master (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March/April, 2001, p.30).
The publicly alleged rationale for NMD is that it is to protect the US from a missile attack by a so-called rogue state. This is a transparent scam in which Russia is still regarded as the principal military adversary of the US and as such an obstacle to the fulfillment of a unipolar world.
US Space Command Chief, General Joseph Ashby, has put it bluntly: "It's politically sensitive, but it's going to happen. We're going to fight in space. Were going to fight from space...that's why the US has development programs in directed energy and hit-to-kill mechanisms...We will engage terrestrial targets some day - ships, airplanes, land targets - from space. We will engage targets in space, from space." Note: the motto of the Air Force's 50th Space Wing is Master of Space.
A Pentagon panel, headed by Retired Air Force General James McCarthy, has issued a report on the purpose of NMD. Rear-Admiral Craig Quigley confirmed that this report, sent to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, stressed the need to rapidly develop an ability to destroy attacking long-range missiles at all stages of flight from liftoff through midcourse to final approach to target (CNN.com, 21 April, 2001). A special committee supported by National Security Adviser, hawkish Condoleezza Rice, Rumsfeld and others is proposing a very large system including sea, air, land and space-based anti-missiles, both laser and projectile. This comprehensive system dwarfs President Clinton's more modest system designed against a limited attack. In particular, emphasis will be placed on The Airborne Laser program, able to burn up a missile in flight.
Spurgeon M. Keeny, of the conservative US Arms Control Association, has stated the case clearly: Russia is the only country which threatens the existence of the US (Time, 8 May, 2000, p. 19). This is the politically sensitive essence of General Ashby's statement.
Still another aspect of NMD is its link to Bush's program of corporate welfare. Seventy-five major corporations, many of them multinationals, are listed in the Long-range Plan for implementation of this ambitious program. Eighty percent of all existing satellites are American and the arming of these satellites with advanced laser zappers is an essential part of NMD.
Vice-President Dick Cheney is a former member of TRW, a major corporate participant in the program. His ultra-right-wing wife, Lynn Cheney, is a member of the board of Lockheed Martin, one of the key contractors. Surely this is a clear case of quid pro quo when the first stage budget for NMD is between $20 billion and $30 billion.
In large part Star Wars II is the product of unwarranted technological optimism. In fact, the NMD high technology system can be overcome by relatively low technology countermeasures. A new book describes these measures in detail (Countermeasures, Andrew M. Sessler et al, editor, Cambridge, Mass., Union of Concerned Scientists, April 2000). Already Russia and China have developed some of these countermeasures. Predictably, however, the US will attempt to develop measures to counter these countermeasures and so on. A new offensive-defensive arms race is evolving rapidly which may culminate in the major military powers developing Launch on Warning strategies, which could overwhelm NMD. Moreover, not only Russia and China, but many of the NATO allies oppose NMD. The two major elements of NMD are multiple satellites armed with laser weapons and an early warning system. The US is deploying two new advanced missile-sensing radar centers - Globus II in Norway and a second on Shemya Island in the Aleutians. Both are clearly directed against Russia and give the lie to the rogue nation danger. The Russians were quick to see through yet another Bush scam, i.e. to have both countries reduce their strategic arsenals. This, of course, would make an NMD system more effective.
Beyond the above problems, an NMD system would violate two very important existing treaties: the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which provides that space be reserved for purely peaceful purposes and the 1972 Antiballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, which greatly limits missile defense. On November 1, 1989 the UN General Assembly voted on a resolution urging the sixty-six-nation Geneva Conference on Disarmament to create a committee on the Prevention of an Arms Race in Space. The vote was 138-0 with two abstentions - the US and Israel--a consistent voting pair.
Canada usually votes with the US and will almost certainly be involved in NMD, given its historic role of accommodation often under threat of the US, from the testing of Bomarc to cruise missiles. As the US Ambassador to Canada, Gordon Griffin warned the lack of Canada's support "...could affect the fabric of the whole relationship." (Andrew Phillips, Macleans, March 15, 2000, p.16). Also, Canada's first space-borne satellite, Radarsat, will undoubtedly be used by the NMD system. NASA already gets fifteen percent of the satellite's time. Finally, Mac Evans, head of Canada's Space Agency, stated: From the Canadian space program's point of view, we are fostering the use of space for peaceful purposes. This does not exclude military use (Regina Peace Council, U. of Regina Millennium Conference, Aug. 24-26, 2000). Shades of George Orwell: peace is war after all. We can be certain that NORAD will be invoked and involved.
In conclusion, NMD is designed to complete the force of Pax Americana in the interest of dominating the planetary agenda of globalized capitalism with the US as its CEO. It subverts the fragile arms control regime and invites a resumption of an arms race and a new cold war. Above all, in its goal of nuclear war-fighting, it is the ultimate crime against humanity. To paraphrase George W. Bush on the Santana High School shooting: The US must learn the difference between right and wrong. Then we'll all be better off.
The naïveté of Canada in all of this is exacerbated when one realizes that the US will prefer missile destruction in boost phase or midcourse. Russian missiles in midcourse would be above Canadian territory. The fallout would cause great damage to civilians. The US casually refers to this as collateral damage. Such damage continued for decades to take a toll of civilians not killed instantly in Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the US atomic bombs. In fact, it has been estimated that the preferred strategy of the US in a war with Russia, i.e. a counter force disarming strike prior to launch of their missiles, would lead to some 100 million civilian casualties. George W. Bush is both captive to and committed by ideology to continue with this dangerous policy, even though it is opposed by the majority of NATO allies. Canada, as usual, is ambivalent in posture, but will inevitably succumb.
What we can conclude from President George W. Bush's speech on NMD on May 1st, 2001, before the National Defense University, is that he is either a liar or a dupe. Given his limited intellectual capacity, the latter is more likely than the former. However, it is most likely he is also a party to the hoax that NMD was designed to counter a small number of missiles in the hands of rogue states for whom terror and blackmail are a way of life (CNN, 1 May, 2001
As reported in the Victoria Times Colonist, Wednesday, May 2, 2001, p. A3, Canada is aware of the hazards of the NMD system. Using the Access to Information Act, a Canadian Forces briefing paper stated, "While NMD does not require Canadian involvement, intercepts would occur over Canadian territory." A US defense analyst, Chris Sands, stated, Canada might want to request extra funding for hard hats, but there's not much more that can be done about it. That statement is not only arrogant, but deliberately deceptive. The real danger from shooting down missiles over Canadian territory is the plutonium-239 fallout. Plutonium-239 is one of the most toxic substances on earth.
Today China has 20 ICBMs with single warheads. In the future we could see China with 200, all with multiple warheads. Then India will respond, followed by Pakistan, i.e. multiple escalations. Then, given the negative outcome, both strategic and political, why is the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld group pushing NMD? The answer is simple - a potential budget as high as $800 billion (Progressive Magazine, May 2, 2001), an incredible bonanza for the nuclear weapons labs and the armament and space corporations.
In typical Yankee style, Bush having failed to convince his allies (except Canada) as well as Russia and China on the alleged rationale of a NMD, is now offering to purchase acquiescence. As reported on CNN on May 28, 2001, Bush is offering both military aid and military purchases from Russia while asserting that his system will also protect the European NATO allies from attacks by so-called rogue states. This transparent deception is truly pathetic in the case of Russia, where Bush is offering to purchase their S-300 surface-to-air missile, and to assist them in shooting down attacking missiles which could play a role in the missile defense system. The Russians are not fooled by this latest deception. An Associated Press report on the response of Russia's Defense Minister, Sergei Ivanov, was negative, If such proposals come - we have not yet received them - I am sure they will not solve the ABM issue.
Nevertheless this is a new twist in the business of war, i.e. to bribe your enemy by giving him a piece of the pie. For the major US players there is no competition since the profit margins are based on cost-plus arrangements. There's no business like war business!

Dr. Fred H. Knelman received his Ph.D. in chemical engineering at the University of London (UK) in 1953. He is an internationally acclaimed author and teacher as well as a peace and environmental advocate. He has written six books and hundreds of learned papers and articles and is the recipient of numerous awards, including the World Wildlife Fund Prize, 1967, the Ben Gurion University Medal of Merit, 1983 and the World Federalists World Peace Prize, 1994. His most recent book is Every Life Is A Story: The Social Relations of Science, Peace and Ecology published by Black Rose Books, 1999. Toll-free order number: 1-800-565-9523.

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