K
Kickin' Ass and Takin' Names
Guest
Twenty-five years ago tomorrow, before a television audience,
President Ronnie Raygun initiated one of the grandest defense
boondoggles of all time, the Strategic Defense Initiative. Like many
boondoggles, it was couched in sweet talk and lies:
-- quote from Ronnie Raygun --
The defense policy of the United States is based on a simple premise:
The United States does not start fights. We will never be an
aggressor. We maintain our strength in order to deter and defend
against aggression -- to preserve freedom and peace. ...
What if free people could live secure in the knowledge that their
security did not rest upon the threat of instant U.S. retaliation to
deter a Soviet attack, that we could intercept and destroy strategic
ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our
allies?
I know this is a formidable, technical task, one that may not be
accomplished before the end of the century. Yet, current technology
has attained a level of sophistication where it's reasonable for us to
begin this effort. It will take years, probably decades of efforts on
many fronts. There will be failures and setbacks, just as there will
be successes and breakthroughs. And as we proceed, we must remain
constant in preserving the nuclear deterrent and maintaining a solid
capability for flexible response. But isn't it worth every investment
necessary to free the world from the threat of nuclear war? We know it
is.
-- end quote --
Those lines and the rest of the speech sure sounded good to many. As
had been the case almost since the arrival of Werner von Braun and the
other V-2 rocket engineers at the end of World War II, when it came to
space, America talked peace and prepared for war. After sputnik went
beeping around the planet every 96 minutes in 1957, the effort was
greatly intensified, always with the threat of Soviet attack as the
rationale. This was true whether it was JFK campaigning about a bogus
"missile gap" or a 1980s Pentagon inflating Moscow's military power at
the urging of the Committee on the Present Danger's nascent neo-
conservatives. Reagan's speech was nothing new on that score.
In fact, U.S. talk about putting weapons onto the ultimate high ground
of outer space started well before President Raygun gave his Star Wars
speech. In 1947, German Major General Walter Dornberger, who had
headed the Nazi rocket program, began officially advising the U.S. Air
Force. Like any good Nazi, he recommended putting nuclear bombs into
orbit to attack Soviet cities and military installations. He also
proposed a space-based defense against missiles, an orbiting ring of
hundreds of satellites, sentries armed with small rockets capable of
destroying enemy ICBMs.
Today, the Bush junta is using the fiction of a missile threat from
Iran to put a "missile defense system" in Eastern Europe. As anyone
with half a brain can tell, this system has nothing to do with
missiles from Iran and everything to do with missiles from Russia.
The Bush junta does not recognize that the Cold War is over, the "Evil
Empire" is long gone and our REAL ENEMY is energy dependence, greedy
mortgage bankers, industrialists who ship our jobs overseas, and HMO's
who deny health care to working people. Of course, if they
constructed a "missile defense system" to defend us against these
threats, they'd be shooting down their own campaign donors.
President Ronnie Raygun initiated one of the grandest defense
boondoggles of all time, the Strategic Defense Initiative. Like many
boondoggles, it was couched in sweet talk and lies:
-- quote from Ronnie Raygun --
The defense policy of the United States is based on a simple premise:
The United States does not start fights. We will never be an
aggressor. We maintain our strength in order to deter and defend
against aggression -- to preserve freedom and peace. ...
What if free people could live secure in the knowledge that their
security did not rest upon the threat of instant U.S. retaliation to
deter a Soviet attack, that we could intercept and destroy strategic
ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our
allies?
I know this is a formidable, technical task, one that may not be
accomplished before the end of the century. Yet, current technology
has attained a level of sophistication where it's reasonable for us to
begin this effort. It will take years, probably decades of efforts on
many fronts. There will be failures and setbacks, just as there will
be successes and breakthroughs. And as we proceed, we must remain
constant in preserving the nuclear deterrent and maintaining a solid
capability for flexible response. But isn't it worth every investment
necessary to free the world from the threat of nuclear war? We know it
is.
-- end quote --
Those lines and the rest of the speech sure sounded good to many. As
had been the case almost since the arrival of Werner von Braun and the
other V-2 rocket engineers at the end of World War II, when it came to
space, America talked peace and prepared for war. After sputnik went
beeping around the planet every 96 minutes in 1957, the effort was
greatly intensified, always with the threat of Soviet attack as the
rationale. This was true whether it was JFK campaigning about a bogus
"missile gap" or a 1980s Pentagon inflating Moscow's military power at
the urging of the Committee on the Present Danger's nascent neo-
conservatives. Reagan's speech was nothing new on that score.
In fact, U.S. talk about putting weapons onto the ultimate high ground
of outer space started well before President Raygun gave his Star Wars
speech. In 1947, German Major General Walter Dornberger, who had
headed the Nazi rocket program, began officially advising the U.S. Air
Force. Like any good Nazi, he recommended putting nuclear bombs into
orbit to attack Soviet cities and military installations. He also
proposed a space-based defense against missiles, an orbiting ring of
hundreds of satellites, sentries armed with small rockets capable of
destroying enemy ICBMs.
Today, the Bush junta is using the fiction of a missile threat from
Iran to put a "missile defense system" in Eastern Europe. As anyone
with half a brain can tell, this system has nothing to do with
missiles from Iran and everything to do with missiles from Russia.
The Bush junta does not recognize that the Cold War is over, the "Evil
Empire" is long gone and our REAL ENEMY is energy dependence, greedy
mortgage bankers, industrialists who ship our jobs overseas, and HMO's
who deny health care to working people. Of course, if they
constructed a "missile defense system" to defend us against these
threats, they'd be shooting down their own campaign donors.
