By
Jessica Lee
No, this is not some twisted connection to the Academy Awards.
This is a dire plea for the American people to rethink our national defense criteria. Although it is the motto of our defense department to protect the people of the United States, Bush's new national defense agenda will actually decrease our national security.
While most students were still celebrating the basketball victory or rooting for Gladiator Sunday night, a small audience was in the Modern Languages building listening to Lt. Col. Robert M. Bowman, Ph.D., speak about the Star Wars program. Bowman directed every Department of Defense "Star Wars" - formally named the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization - program under Presidents Ford and Carter, back when the program was still top-secret.
In 1944, the world was horrified by Germany's annihilation of the allied forces with V-1 and V-2 missiles during World War II. The United States was further unnerved when they discovered an extensive Nazi plan to develop the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program. Learning this after the war, the United States began researching and developing interceptors that could destroy attacking ballistic missiles. The result was the formation of the Star Wars program.
After Reagan twisted Star Wars into a program that produced new offensive weapons disguised as defense mechanisms, the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff asked Bowman to speak out.
Now, President Bush continues the resurrection of this aggressive program by increasing government support and putting $4 billion toward what has been named "Star Wars II."
There are many serious problems with supporting Star Wars II.
The CIA has come out and reported that out of all the threats that face the United States, they worry the least about ballistic missiles. International terrorism is the greatest threat to the United States. As Bowman pointed out, "A terrorist is not going to use a high-tech, complex, costly, visible and traceable means of delivery. No, he is just going to float his nuke up the Potomac River or deliver it in a Ryder truck."
Yet, there is nothing in our Pentagon's arsenal that protects our country from a terrorist attack.
The USS Cole. The World Trade Towers. Atlanta 1996.
In designing a program that would give the U.S. the greatest protection, we first have to consider whom our enemy is. If the threat is defending against ICBMs, the who has them?
Russia, of course, has tons of nuclear potential, but amid their political and economical turmoil, it seems unlikely they would begin a nuclear war with the United States. The People's Republic of China has a limited amount of weapons in their nuclear arsenal. Bush's boosting of Star Wars II is only going to create another uncontrollable arms race, but this time with China. Yet, our economies are so dependent upon each other that a nuclear war would not make sense. The French have an ICBM, but there is no way they would fire it.
It is not merely the ICBMs fired from an established nation that will harm the United States. The chances are much greater that it will be the lone individual with a small, tactical terrorist device.
Many say that aggression is the best defense. So, how about we put that $4 billion dollars into programs that help shield our country from possible terrorist attack? Instead, let's pump that money into agencies such as the FBI, CIA and U.S. Border Control. How about using that money to buy nuclear weapons and knowledge from Russia so they do not get into unknown radical hands?
Americans need to write to Congress and urge them not to support Star Wars II, but rather a more effective means of national defense. An appropriations bill needs to be passed in order to transfer the flow of money from the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization to agencies that will aid in true national security.
As President Eisenhower once remarked, "The people will want peace so much that, eventually, the government will have to give it to them."
