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.