Ibbitson’S Drudgery

Ibbitson might be advised that with two wars ongoing and a third looming a little pacifism never hurt anybody. He willfully ignores that the way our American neighbors are behaving anti-Americanism is an essential virtue. He might also consider that there is a cabal of Americans in high office who themselves are being very anti-American-but that is another subject for another time. Then too, we must remind ourselves Ibbitson works for Canada’s anti-Canadian national newspaper. He might agree though that ultimately these lead balloons-I mean missiles- must rise or fall on their own merit. This is where they get into trouble. This technology can be summarized as a bullet hitting a bullet-one high speed missile taking out another high speed missile. You don’t have to be a physicist to realize the potential for error in such an undertaking. Today’s Cruise missiles and smart bombs are notorious for going astray and doing what is politely referred to as “collateral damage” –dead civilians and mountains of rubble littering the landscape. In the Gulf War the vaunted Patriot missile was used against Hussein’s obsolete-Model-T- Scuds with only 65% accuracy. If an anti-ballistic missile misses its target the consequences are horrendous. Only one missile has to make it to target. Ballistic missile- defence is only acceptable if it can claim a near 100% kill rate- and that is highly unlikely. There is also the possibility that even a successful interception might also cause detonation! There has also been the rather cynical suggestion it doesn’t matter if ballistic missile-defense actually works. As long as people think it works. US military experts state that missile-defence technology is at least ten to fifteen years away from being workable. There has already been a hundred billion dollars spent on it and to date all testing has resulted in abject failure. We can be assured to make it workable hundreds of billions more are going to be required. Where is the money going to come from? The Bush administration is running record debt and deficit. Its military budget is nearly a half-trillion dollars and it is spending a quarter of a billion dollars a day on the Iraq war alone! It is estimated that when all the bills come in the Iraq fiasco is going to cost the US treasury 2 trillion-yes trillion- dollars. It is already in the hundreds of billions and it has just been announced US troops will be in that country until at least 2010. The US treasury is just starting to pay out billions in veterans benefits. George Bush has promised to eliminate the deficit by the time he leaves office but this is a fiscal fantasy. He is already raiding other government departments to subsidize military spending. Economists are aghast that foreign governments are so willing to buy up US debt but eventually the tipping point will come and the longer it is delayed the greater and more devastating the adjustment. Realistically, the spendthrift Bush administration has rendered ballistic missile–defence unaffordable. *** When US President Dwight Eisenhower left office in 1961 he gave a farewell radio address to the nation. He surprised his listening audience by issuing a dire warning against the military industrial complex. Though he had been a five star general and was Supreme Allied Commander during WWII-very much a military man-Eisenhower felt there was a very real danger the military had the potential to go beyond serving its role in national security and becoming a self-serving monster. In other words he foresaw a new form of slavery- where the country could become captive to huge and unnecessary military expenditures (and adventurism) at the expense of other vital government activities and obligations. Eisenhower’s warning has proven prescient as this is just what has come about. With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the USSR the USA had a huge military redundancy. It was ideally positioned to harvest a peace dividend. Instead military spending went on unabated. Now it is clearly out of control as US military spending outstrips that of all other nations. The Bush administration is committed to a doctrine of continuous, serial and pre-emptive warfare. Eisenhower’s warning could have also included that there would be no shortage of courtesans, political and otherwise willing to sell themselves to the greed and specious needs of the military industrial complex as corporate welfare and crony capitalism become paramount and utterly invidious. Missile-defence is but one more grotesque addition to a corrupted military redundancy. *** Let’s just for a moment in time play the devil’s advocate and say maybe Iran and North Korea are entitled to have the bomb. There are presently nine countries in the nuclear club, the first five might be considered the original charter members: the US, France, China, Great Britain, and the Russia. To join later were India, Pakistan, Israel (suspected of having a nuclear arsenal of 200 bombs though it will neither confirm nor deny this) and now North Korea. The charter members are bound by article IV of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty: Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control. Even though this treaty was originally signed in 1970 little progress has been made on complete disarmament. There is still enough magatonage kicking around to blow this precious earth off its axis. The US is undertaking to build a whole new generation of nuclear weapons and Britain’s Tony Blair wants to renew his country’s submarine based nuclear arsenal. Given that the charter members have been rather slovenly in dismantling their arsenals and now two want to start renewing their nuclear capability sends an ominous message to all non-members. The charter members have reneged on a critical commitment and given up their moral authority on the issue. Much is being made of states like Iran and North Korea possessing a nuclear capability. But to possess it and actually use it are two very different issues. It can easily be argued that a major power like China or the US is much more likely to actually use the bomb as they can do so with considerable impunity, where as if a country like North Korea actually used the bomb its landscape would quickly become a lacework of bomb craters. Despots enjoy their exercise of power and they can’t do this in a radioactive vaporized state. We should also be reminded that the only country to actually use nuclear weaponry, and on a civilian population, is the US in bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of WWII. This came at a time when Japan was suing for peace. The hawkers for missile-defence would have us believe that some day there is going to be a shower of missiles rain down on North America (which probably comes from reading too many Buck Rogers comic books.) This is highly unlikely. One big reason is the same reason it did not happen during the Cold War- retaliation. The US and the USSR blunted each others military capability as each recognized any nuclear exchange could too easily result in mutually assured destruction-MAD. There is only one country having any where near the capability of such an attack now and that is China, and it is unlikely to do so for the same reason the USSR did not. Nor does China appear to have imperial ambitions. Even though a tin-pot dictatorship like North Korea has the bomb it is most certainly a primitive device by today’s standards. It is questionable whether it is in a usable format and it has to be deliverable. North Korea is an impoverished country and it is going to be difficult if not impossible to build enough bombs and the necessary infrastructure to become a real threat. Iran for its part does not even have the bomb and appears several years away from having it. In this instance the overwhelmingly American concern that it might acquire it is most certainly being used as an excuse for a possible war against that country. The US wants to displace Iran as a regional power in the Middle East. It also wants to hijack Iran’s oil- one of the largest and last reserves of a rapidly diminishing resource. In the case of Iran, non-proliferation, quite hypocritically, is being used as a pretext for war and exercising ulterior motives. It is little wonder Iran wants a nuclear capability as it is surrounded by nuclear club members. If it was a member the US would be thinking twice before making further war plans. Ironically, as the US cries foul over Iran’s nuclear ambitions there is a fierce debate going on in the Pentagon as to whether an attack on Iran should be nuclear or non-nuclear. The problem of nuclear proliferation and the bogus need for missile- defence are hugely interconnected. If the charter members of the nuclear club assumed their responsibility and obligations under the treaty and vigorously and sincerely pursued nuclear disarmament, nuclear proliferation ceases to be a problem and the need for missile-defence is further discredited. As long as the hypocritical double standard of the nuclear club exists proliferation will persist. There is an argument to be made for countries wanting nuclear capability, not to use it, but to serve as a deterrent against bullying charter members. While it is claimed that missile-defence shield is required as a defensive measure there is the lingering suspicion it also comes to serve as an offensive weapon. To sustain and rationalize the ravenous military industrial complex there must be an abundant supply of enemies-where they do not exist they must be fomented, where they do exist their supposed threat is amplified to suit the agenda. The propaganda of excessive vilification runs amok. Ibbitson would have us believe shunning missile-defence is a “grave error.” But the error is his and it is profound with devastating consequences. Missile-defence shield is a make work project for the military industrial complex. Like the Iraq war, the Afghanistan war, and the overstated war on terrorism it is another chapter of the big lie. These vast expenditures on missile-defense must be diverted to much more critical issues in an era where militarism must be minimized rather than maximized. By taking a more objective and enlightened view on the issue Ibbitson could ease the drudgery of trying to sell lead balloons. Tethered with a few facts and a bit of down home common sense these balloons are thoroughly grounded.