SOME PERSPECTIVE
In the 1970's, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger began a series of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, and enacted several SALT agreements with the Soviet Union.
The first, SALT I, limited defensive systems (ABMs) to small areas around capital cities and missile launching sites.
Later agreements brought actual arms reductions and supervised dismantling of nuclear missiles. Great, huh?
Unfortunately for us, the SALT I treaty included a provision that the President could unilaterally suspend it if he thought that would be in the national interest. And that is exactly what George W. Bush did, in December 2001.
Why?
Well, the deployment of a Star Wars system would be in violation of the SALT I treaty, and Star Wars was really, really important to the defense moguls pulling the strings of the Bush administration. They wanted Star Wars because it meant truckloads of money, and because it wouldn't work.
Even the hawkiest hawks had to admit we had enough nuclear weapons to wipe out the world several times over. They just couldn't sell Minuteman III, where we put nuclear missiles on trucks and trains and kept them circling around our prairies to keep them from being targeted. They just couldn't sell the N-bomb, which killed people by enhanced neutron radiation but would be detonated high enough to leave buildings standing. Our European allies wouldn't allow it. Sure, it would kill invading Russians in their tanks, with minimized collateral damage. But that collateral damage included our own allies in their own houses, and they just didn't like the idea.
But defensive systems can still be sold. And defensive systems that don''t work are even better. Once you get a few billions invested, you can go back to Congress year after year, exposing vulnerabilities, scaring people, asking for a few billions more. You'll get it.
That's why.
Star Wars has no chance of working. It's a 21st century Maginot Line. It's pork barrel politics combined with the utter insanity of Dr. Strangelove (a character rumored to be based on dear Dr. Kissinger himself).
So why are we doing this? Because it means billions and billions of dollars of federal spending, and it won''t work. It's a scam, and what's worse, it's a deadly threat to our national security.
If you''re a defense contractor, these are the good times. If you're a loyal American, or even a decent human being, you have to ask Why are we doing this to ourselves?, Why have we sabotaged the SALT treaties?, Why are we reigniting the Cold War and stimulating nuclear proliferation around the world?
Why?
The conflict in Georgia is only the first bloody mess we face unless we stop the Star Wars madness.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
THE WAR ON TERROR
America can not afford to lose the War on Terrorism.
Our problem right now is that the Bush administration has always treated the War on Terrorism as a political program, like the War on Poverty or the War on Drugs. They have used it shamelessly as a political tool to advance their own agenda, and especially as a source of nearly limitless money to pour into the pockets of their cronies.
We have MORE private contractors in Iraq than troops, getting paid princely sums that far exceed what a poor reservist gets. We spend $BILLIONS in contracts to build bases, to operate oil facilities, to protect civilian personnel. Why is the administration negotiating with the government of Iraq for permission to STAY LONGER? Because it''s worth $BILLIONS to them for us to stay there!!!
A REAL War on Terror would be over by now, if we had used the worldwide sympathy and good will that followed 9/11 to build alliances and intelligence networks and international police agencies to combat terrorism. All legitimate governments fear terrorism, and would cooperate to allow terrorism no safe haven.
But, sickeningly, this corrupt administration has been willing to terrorize its own population in order to advance its right wing dreams: a vast expansion of executive powers, huge sums of money showered on their cronies in the name of national security, occupation of the second largest oil reserves in the world.
We need to win the War on Terror. And to do that we need to get these neocon war criminals out of our government.
America can not afford to lose the War on Terrorism.
Our problem right now is that the Bush administration has always treated the War on Terrorism as a political program, like the War on Poverty or the War on Drugs. They have used it shamelessly as a political tool to advance their own agenda, and especially as a source of nearly limitless money to pour into the pockets of their cronies.
We have MORE private contractors in Iraq than troops, getting paid princely sums that far exceed what a poor reservist gets. We spend $BILLIONS in contracts to build bases, to operate oil facilities, to protect civilian personnel. Why is the administration negotiating with the government of Iraq for permission to STAY LONGER? Because it''s worth $BILLIONS to them for us to stay there!!!
A REAL War on Terror would be over by now, if we had used the worldwide sympathy and good will that followed 9/11 to build alliances and intelligence networks and international police agencies to combat terrorism. All legitimate governments fear terrorism, and would cooperate to allow terrorism no safe haven.
But, sickeningly, this corrupt administration has been willing to terrorize its own population in order to advance its right wing dreams: a vast expansion of executive powers, huge sums of money showered on their cronies in the name of national security, occupation of the second largest oil reserves in the world.
We need to win the War on Terror. And to do that we need to get these neocon war criminals out of our government.
GOODBYE SANTA
There's not really an argument about one fact: in the absence of other factors, increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere will raise the surface temperature of the earth. And we have been increasing the concentration of one greenhouse gas - carbon dioxide - since the Industrial Revolution caused humankind to switch from firewood to fossil fuels like coal and oil.
(If you disagree with this, please try your own little greenhouse experiment. Park your car in the summer sunshine, roll up all your windows, and sit there for a while. Your car windows absorb infrared energy even more effectively than carbon dioxide gas does, and you've just put yourself inside a little greenhouse. Wait there for a while. See what happens. Please don't bring any pets or small children with you.)
However, since a planetary climate system IS complicated by so many other factors, and since the future is ALWAYS uncertain, it becomes possible for vested interests to confuse any reasonable discussion of the issue. That doesn't change the facts, or the future we face. It only protects those vested interests by delaying the pressure they would face from an informed public.
What vested interests?
Why the Blood for Oil people of course. The ones controlling the present Republican administration and right wing media machine. They've sold out their country and our children''s future - for record profits, though!
It won't be this summer. It might be next summer. But it won't be long now.
The North Polar Ice Cap is going to melt away completely during some summertime in the next few decades. There will be open seas at the North Pole.
Goodbye, Santa.
There's not really an argument about one fact: in the absence of other factors, increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere will raise the surface temperature of the earth. And we have been increasing the concentration of one greenhouse gas - carbon dioxide - since the Industrial Revolution caused humankind to switch from firewood to fossil fuels like coal and oil.
(If you disagree with this, please try your own little greenhouse experiment. Park your car in the summer sunshine, roll up all your windows, and sit there for a while. Your car windows absorb infrared energy even more effectively than carbon dioxide gas does, and you've just put yourself inside a little greenhouse. Wait there for a while. See what happens. Please don't bring any pets or small children with you.)
However, since a planetary climate system IS complicated by so many other factors, and since the future is ALWAYS uncertain, it becomes possible for vested interests to confuse any reasonable discussion of the issue. That doesn't change the facts, or the future we face. It only protects those vested interests by delaying the pressure they would face from an informed public.
What vested interests?
Why the Blood for Oil people of course. The ones controlling the present Republican administration and right wing media machine. They've sold out their country and our children''s future - for record profits, though!
It won't be this summer. It might be next summer. But it won't be long now.
The North Polar Ice Cap is going to melt away completely during some summertime in the next few decades. There will be open seas at the North Pole.
Goodbye, Santa.
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