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CURRENT UPDATES: April 26, 2007 Missile "Defense," and More Dear Friends, Even in very dark times, when bad news abounds from Baghdad to Guantanamo to Virginia, the newspaper fates provide some cracks of light. On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that U.S. Central Command has retired the phrase “the long war” as a way of describing the war on terrorism. As in: "Our own generation is in a long war against a determined enemy." President George W. Bush, State of the Union, January 31, 2006. As a spokesman for Central Command explains, “the idea that we are going to be involved in ‘Long War’ at the current level of operations, is not likely and unhelpful.” The change, he continued, is “a product of our ongoing effort to use language that describes the conflict for our Western audience while understanding the cultural implications of how the language is construed in the Middle East.” According to Central Command, additional no-nos include describing the enemies as Islamic(or Islamo)Fascists, jihadists, or part of Salafist Extremist Networks and employing the term “global war on terror.” But, as the Times reports, just because Central Command-- which is in charge of the war in Iraq and other aspects of the-military-operations-formerly-known-as-GWOT-has identified the limitations of these terms, does not mean they have come up with something better… “We continue to look for other options to characterize the scope of current operations.” So, wordsmiths and framing experts: They need you! Get your motors running! You could be responsible for a term that captures the seemingly endless bloody morass of U.S. military operations while highlighting both its challenges and its possibilities in a culturally appropriate and sensitive way. Ignorant of these semantic subtleties, President Bush has forged on ahead. Standing before teachers, students, members of the Tipp City Chamber of Commerce on April 19, he tried to speak plainly, describing ongoing military operations as an "interesting war," and later "a unique war." He also had this little number: We are all for plain speaking, but we think Senator Henry Reid said it best: "I believe ... that this war is lost.” Get that Central Command? It is not the Long War, but the Lost War. Let us know if you have any suggestions for CENTCOM. Best, Frida Berrigan and Bill Hartung
TABLE OF CONTENTS: I. ANTI-MISSILE MISSILES IN EUROPE I. ANTI-MISSILE MISSILES IN EUROPE A Weapon that Doesn’t Work for a Threat that Doesn’t Exist As Sen. Jess Trussme (a mythical political leader played by our good friend Ira Shorr) is wont to say, the beauty of missile defense is that it is “a weapon that doesn’t work for a threat that doesn’t exist.” This is doubly true for the Bush administration’s plan to put missile interceptors in Poland and anti-missile radars in the Czech Republic. By optimistic projections, the system would cost $3.5 billion and would be ready to go by 2013. U.S. officials involved with the project argue that this is early enough to deal with the highly touted Iranian threat, since they believe that Tehran will not be able to develop a nuclear weapon and mount it on a ballistic missile until at least 2015. If this is so, there is much more time available to negotiate a cap on Iran’s nuclear program than Bush administration officials have officially acknowledged. Negotiations would not only be more effective, but they wouldn’t waste billions of dollars that could be used for far better purposes. And what kind of system would exist by 2013, if - in a first for the missile defense program - it was actually developed on schedule? Most likely one that is no more effective than current missile interceptors, which have given no evidence that they can stop an incoming warhead under realistic conditions. If the proposed system only wasted money, that would be outrageous enough. But it is also provoking a three-way political crisis among Europe, Russia, and the United States. One common objection has been raised by Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn of Luxembourg: “We don’t want to be a political football between Russia and the United States. We want the United States, Russia, and Europe to play together in a common defense project.” (Kristin Roberts, “Russian Official Dismisses U.S. Shield Cooperation,” Reuters, April 24, 2007). While the Czech and Polish governments seem to be prepared to go along with the U.S. plans, nobody has asked the Czech and Polish people. A full 57% of Czechs oppose having U.S. anti-missile radars on their soil, versus 25% in favor. In Poland, the numbers are 68% against U.S. missile interceptors, versus 26% in favor. As for the Russians, they are having none of US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ arguments that they can “share” the project with Washington. From Moscow’s perspective, a system of ten missiles now could be expanded in the future in an effort to blunt their nuclear deterrent vis-à-vis the United States. Given the obscene nuclear overkill possessed by both countries, the threat of US missile defenses may not be all it is cracked up to be. But Russian leaders see it in the context of other provocative moves by the United States, from expanding NATO right up to their borders, to building military relationships with former Soviet Republics (and bordering states) from the Ukraine to Georgia to Kazakhstan, to seeking military bases in Rumania and Bulgaria. As the Washington Post put it, “it’s hard to think of a better way to revive the Cold War” than getting the U.S. and Russia into a tangle over the administration’s proposed missile deployments in Europe (“Missile Fantasies,” Washington Post, February 25, 2007). The real danger of the whole missile defense effort is that it serves as a rationale for maintaining large, ongoing nuclear arsenals. As long as the illusion of a “technical fix” to the nuclear threat is kept alive, the urgency for reducing nuclear stockpiles is diminished. Combined with the Bush administration’s “Complex 2030” plan, which calls for building a new generation of nuclear weapons, missile defense represents a threat to peace, and ultimately a threat to all human life. The truth is that the only way to be truly safe from nuclear weapons is to get rid of them - all of them. This is no easy task, but if the U.S. government expended a small portion of the energy it is throwing into its misguided missile defense program into promoting nuclear disarmament, substantial progress could be made in relatively short order.
The flowers and funerals, the tears and tributes continue in Virginia for the students, professors, administrators and employees who suffered and died at the hands of a mentally-ill student. But hard political debates run a parallel course to the sympathy and support-from reexamining emergency evacuation and crisis management policies to gun control to treatment of mental illness to examination of violence- hundreds of constituencies are asking a hundred different Whys-Why here? Why them? Why him? Why now? It was striking-- more like a body check, really-- to hear President George W. Bush’s spokeswoman defend gun ownership in the same breath that she offered the White House’s condolences to the families of victims of gun violence. And those few words, uttered just hours after Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people with guns he bought legally just weeks before (and filled with ammo purchased on Ebay), declared open season on gun control. In an April 17th column for TomPaine.Com, Michael Winship, a former writer with Bill Moyers, discusses the National Rifle Association’s annual convention, which ended in St. Louis the day before the Virginia Tech massacre. At the conference, NRA speakers characterized the power of the gun control lobby as near absolute and warned “Today, there is not one firearm owner whose freedom is secure." Winship goes on to note that “We have some 200 million, privately owned firearms in America, 65 million of which are handguns, the primary purpose of which is to threaten, hurt and kill people. Every year, there are 30,000 gun deaths and 300,000 gun-related assaults in this country. All of this violence costs America an estimated $100 billion a year. Toys are regulated with greater care and safety concerns.” (A link to the article is at the end of the section). While the United States focuses on Blacksburg, the link between this tragic aberration and the daily grind of violence in Iraq is unavoidable. Students at the Baghdad Technology University made the connection and hung a banner from their main building which reads in part: “We denounce the attack at Virginia Tech. We extend our condolences to the families of the victims who faced a situation as bad as Iraq's universities do. The sanctity of campuses must be protected around the world.'' Agence French Presse reports that in March 2007 an average of 67 people died across the country every day… It is truly sad to “do the math." One Iraqi student explained why their message of empathy was so important: “We have lost many friends and professors. But in spite of our wounds, we want to show our solidarity with the students of Virginia Tech who are our brothers in humanity and in pursuing knowledge.'' The Associated Press reports that more than 200 university professors have been killed in Iraq in the past few years, and thousands have fled the country to teach at universities abroad.
III. CHINESE ANTI-SATELLITE TEST: U.S. Shocked, Surprised And Outraged…Oops, Make That Outraged, Anyway “China Joins the Battle for Space,” Frida Berrigan wrote in the April issue of The Progressive, with their January 11 anti-satellite test. “On January 11, 537 miles above our heads, a rocket collided with an aged weather satellite, demolishing it completely. As shards of debris floated through space, the world learned that China possessed anti-satellite technology. “Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the National Security Council, had the first official word from Washington on the Chinese test, saying it was “inconsistent with the spirit of cooperation that both countries aspire to in the civil space area.” “How lame is that?” asks Michael Krepon, author of Space Assurance or Space Domination and the co-founder of the Henry L. Stimson Center. The United States is in no position to “put China in the dog house,” he explains, because of Washington’s own doctrine of military superiority that extends into space” (the full article is not on the Progressive website, but we’d be happy to send it to you…. ). We are in no position to put China in the dog house. That is extra correct, especially in light of the New York Times article on Monday, April 23rd which reveals that the military and intelligence community in the United States knew We are in no position to put China in the dog house. That is exactly so, especially in light of the New York Times article on Monday, April 23rd which reveals that the military and intelligence community in the United States knew that China was planning on testing this technology long before it actually launched the interceptor. The article, “U.S. Knew of China’s Missile Test, but Kept Silent,” asserts that “In high-level discussions, senior Bush administration officials debated how to respond and even began to draft a protest, but ultimately decided to say nothing to Beijing until after the test.” What? We knew this destabilizing, dangerous and irresponsible thing was going to happen? Yes. And we could have stopped it? It is likely. Did the United States “properly handled the episode or miss an opportunity to discourage the Chinese from crossing a new military threshold?” ask Times reporters Michael R. Gordon and David S. Cloud. As with most issues having to do with China, there are lots of different answers to that question … But we are pretty much in line with what Jeffrey Lewis, an arms control expert with the New American Foundation, thinks. He told the Times, “Had the United States been willing to discuss the military use of space with the Chinese in Geneva, that might have been enough to dissuade them from going through with it.” Now that they have “gone through with it,” the problems are more tangled and more touchy: The China rhetoric has reached a heat wave sizzle, and the calls for U.S. weapons in space are loud. There is more debris littering space and endangering civilian and military satellites and other space assets. And hopes for a set of agreements around sharing and cooperating in space are more distant and more dim. Nice job, guys! Read more online at:
Joe Cirincione, author of the new book “Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons,” spoke at the New School’s Economics of Security in the Post-9/11 World Study Group on Friday, April 20, 2007. In an engaging presentation tinged with hope, Cirincione described three intertwined factors that contribute to new possibilities for nuclear disarmament. Leadership is Changing: We are approaching a period of profound global political transition, said Cirincione, the Center for American Progress’ senior vice president for national security and international affairs. Four of the five permanent members of the Security Council will have new Presidents or Prime Ministers in the next year and a half. After run-off elections on May 6th, France will have a new President; the British choose a new Prime Minister in May; Russian President Vladimir Putin is unlikely to run for a third term. And, of course the United States is already deep into a very long election season… Only China’s leadership will remain unchanged by 2009. In addition to these key states, the leadership of the International Atomic Energy Administration, Iran will have elections in 2009, and there is a new UN Secretary General. These political and personality changes spell opportunities to break through logjams, construct new dialogues and accelerate work on pressing nuclear issues. Existing Policy had Failed: Alongside these political changes, there is a growing and stark awareness that the existing policies have failed colossally. Cirincione recounted that every proliferation problem that existed in year 2000-- when the Bush administration came into power-- has grown markedly worse. Progressives are Learning: The neoconservatives used their time in “exile” during the Clinton administration to formulate ideas, develop strategies, build constituencies and consensuses. Once in power, they were able to pull policies off the shelf and implement them to devastating effect. Progressives have learned from that are now formulating new nuclear policies that can be implemented by a new administration. Cirincione described at least six projects to formulate the next nuclear policy-he said he is involved in three of those. While Cirincione was no nuclear Pollyanna intent on convincing us it will all be okay, he is clearly confident that given these three intertwined dynamics the urgent task of nuclear arms control and disarmament is in process, do-able and absolutely necessary. The New York Review of Books said of Cirincione’s BOMB SCARE that it “ought to be read by everyone as a matter of life and death” as a “tightly reasoned attempt to avert an avoidable apocalypse.” www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/publicity/cirincione_excerpt.html
Bill Hartung and Frida Berrigan’s essay “Arms and Terrorism: Tracing the Links,” has just been published in TERRORNOMICS. The book was edited by Sean Costigan and David Gold, co-conveners (along with Bill Hartung) of the Economics of Security in the Post 9/11 World Study Group. With essays by a number of presenters on issues of economics and terrorism, the Ashgate published book is available at a discount from the Center for Security Studies. You’ll need the discount because the book is “academically” priced: www.isn.ethz.ch/about/css/css_publicationform_ashgate.cfm Or you can just read the outline and forward, which are posted online at www.isn.ethz.ch/about/css/_doc/Terrornomics.pdf Alternatively, we’d be happy to send you a paper copy of our chapter. If you are interested, email berrigaf@newschool.edu
The sun was strong and so was the rhetoric, as President George W. Bush headed to Yuma, Arizona on April 9 to tackle the problem of illegal immigration. Flanked by uniformed border agents, national guardsmen and members of local law enforcement whose stiff formality emphasized his bare-armed enthusiasm, the president asserted that “securing the border is a critical part of a strategy for comprehensive immigration reform… Congress is going to take up the legislation on immigration. It is a matter of national interest and it's a matter of deep conviction for me.” The president rolled up his shirt sleeves and blamed a host of problems on illegal immigration: it “puts pressure on the public schools and the hospitals… drains the state and local budgets… brings crime to our communities.” He also urged Congress to get behind a tangle of proposals ranging from more border patrols and a guest worker program to stiffer penalties for illegal immigrants and the people who employ them. But the heart of President Bush’s effort against illegal immigration is the multi-billion dollar Secure Border Initiative (SBI)...... You can read the rest online at www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4146 A version of the article (they took out some of the fun stuff) was printed in the Albuquerque Tribune on April 25, 2007. www.abqtrib.com/news/2007/apr/25/commentary-securing-immigration-reform/
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