From CBS/AP:
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Missile Defense Test Fails
A sea-based missile defense system failed its first test since the Bush administration outlined plans to have a rudimentary program ready for use by 2005, Defense Department officials said
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"You test a little, you learn a lot and you continue to go forward. This is rocket science," Defense spokesman Chris Taylor said.....
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The ship and ground based defenses due to be rolled out first are geared to "killing" enemy missiles in mid-flight — after they have entered orbit from their launch-pads and before they have began to descend toward their target. The Patriot system hits them on their way down.
Beyond 2005, the Pentagon envisions expanding its layered missile defense so that it can attack enemy missiles at all stages in flight.
This would include a laser to knock out missiles soon after launch, as well as a Theater High Altitude Area Defense to hit missiles on their final descent.
Your tax dollars at work; new toys for old boys.
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Wednesday's test was the fourth trial of the ship-based system; the previous three drills have succeeded. In eight tests of the ground-based system, there have been four successes and four failures...
Tests of the ground-based system cost about $100 million apiece.
The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that through 2015, the entire program will cost $49 billion.
According to the Missile Defense Agency, there are plans to spend about $3 billion over the next ten years on the ground-based system. Aegis development will cost $2.5 billion, and high-altitude defenses about $3 billion.
No mention of the questions raised about those successful tests having been rigged. No discussion of the approximately 4O billion discrepancy between the CBO estimate and the administration's.
It wouldn't be fair to say that the mainstream press has totally ignored the Bush administration’s full speed ahead radical change in American nuclear policy. Bits and pieces are reported here and there, but as a topic of discussion, the question of why we the people ought to accept the notion that Bush & co know better than all previous post WW 2 administrations, Democrat and Republican, on this issue has produced barely a single note on the Great Wurlitzer, barely a squeak in the great echo chamber that passes for public discussion these days.
MoveOn.org has tried to right the balance in one of their Bulletins, "THE NEW U.S. NUCLEAR POSTURE," a "don't miss," (full disclosure, I'm on the research team).
These Bush changes in nuclear strategy were on various neo-con drawing boards before Bush took office. Post 9/11, every justification for the adminstration's radical disconnect from past nuclear policy is tortured until it can fit into the "everything is different now" paradigm.
If nukes in the hands of terrorists is the bogeyman, and it is, then the Bush administration's nuclear policies are demonstratively backasswards; Kurt Gottfrund Of the Union of Concerned Scientists laid it out perfectly in January of this year. I'm betting none of you have heard any sort of discussion of this on the Sunday morning gasbag fests in the ensuing six months.
Even Bush's one bow in the direction of non-proliferation, his treaty with Putin, turns out to be other than advertised. At least this was noted in the Chicago Tribune.
Then there's the case of those mini-nukes, and/or bunker busters. The "or" alternative is how the administration plans on selling this. Even low-yield nuclear anything sounds too threatening to most Americans.
And of course this more "muscular," "bolder" change in the direction of our nuclear posture will require a resumption of nuclear testing, including underground.
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The Pentagon has begun to consider the previously unthinkable: developing specially designed nuclear weapons for attacking buried caves and tunnels.... Such a move would represent the most significant rewriting of U.S. nuclear strategy in decades, because its intended purpose violates the two cornerstones of current policy: to use nuclear weapons only as a last resort and never to use them against non-nuclear nations."
You'd know all about this if you happen to read Popular Science.
In the past, lovers of all things nuclear tried to characterize anyone who worried about unintended nuclear consequences, like a nuclear war, or a nuclear accident, or fallout from nuclear testing, or damage to those who worked with fissionable material, as nit-picking worrywarts. Time has proved the worrywarts were right to be worried. But don't doubt that if liberals and Democrats, especially those running for office, dare to make this the huge issue it deserves to be, they will be taunted with the specter of the nuclear freeze movement.
We've got a twofold problem here: First, getting the facts out to mainstream Americans most of whom will reject the Bush nuclear policy program, once they understand it. The Moveon Bulletin is a start, so think about sending the link to any and everyone you know: Secondly, preparing successful rhetorical strategies to deal with the certainty of a rightwing counter-attack.
When President Kennedy began his efforts to secure a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the Russians, he was subject to similar attacks, most of which have been forgotten. Almost no one today would think of calling Jack Kennedy a "nuclear alarmist," or a "traitor," or lacking in the "muscular" foreign policy department.
So let's take a look at Kennedy's rhetoric in his famous June 1963 American University commencement speech, in which he announced why a test treaty was such an important goal.
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"There are few earthly things more beautiful than a university," wrote John Masefield…He admired the splendid beauty of the university, he said, because it was "a place where those who hate ignorance may strive to know, where those who perceive truth may strive to make others see."
I have, therefore, chosen this time and this place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth is too rarely perceived--yet it is the most important topic on earth: world peace.
What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children--not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women--not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.
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First: Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief… No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man's reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable--and we believe they can do it again.
I am not referring to the absolute, infinite concept of peace and good will of which some fantasies and fanatics dream…..
Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace-- based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions--on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned.
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Second: Let us reexamine our attitude toward….(fill in the blank). It is discouraging to think that their leaders may actually believe what their propagandists write.....…But it is also a warning--a warning to the American people not to fall into the same trap…, not to see only a distorted and desperate view of the other side, not to see conflict as inevitable, accommodation as impossible, and communication as nothing more than an exchange of threats.
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Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war…..
To secure these ends, America's weapons are nonprovocative, carefully controlled, designed to deter, and capable of selective use. Our military forces are committed to peace and disciplined in self- restraint. Our diplomats are instructed to avoid unnecessary irritants and purely rhetorical hostility.
For we can seek a relaxation of tension without relaxing our guard. And, for our part, we do not need to use threats to prove that we are resolute. ..
Meanwhile, we seek to strengthen the United Nations….
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"When a man's ways please the Lord," the Scriptures tell us, "he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him." And is not peace, in the last analysis, basically a matter of human rights--the right to live out our lives without fear of devastation--the right to breathe air as nature provided it--the right of future generations to a healthy existence?
No treaty, however much it may be to the advantage of all, however tightly it may be worded, can provide absolute security against the risks of deception and evasion. But it can--if it is sufficiently effective in its enforcement and if it is sufficiently in the interests of its signers--offer far more security and far fewer risks than an unabated, uncontrolled, unpredictable arms race.
The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war.We do not want a war. We do not now expect a war. This generation of Americans has already had enough--more than enough--of war and hate and oppression. We shall be prepared if others wish it. We shall be alert to try to stop it. But we shall also do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just. We are not helpless before that task or hopeless of its success. Confident and unafraid, we labor on--not toward a strategy of annihilation but toward a strategy of peace. (italics mine)
President Dwight D. Eisenhower remarked more than once, that his greatest disappointment as President was his failure to secure a Nuclear Test Ban treaty.
Do Kennedy and Eisenhower fit Senator Lieberman's definition of "unelectable?"
Heedless of every nuclear tenant of every previous administration, including Bush 42, this Bush administration is well on its way to giving new meaning to the phrase "nuclear nightmare."
I have a hunch that it's potentially a much bigger political liability than Karl Rove, obvlious to all other history than the narrowly defined political, even begins to imagine.