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Politics : The Donkey's Inn -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TigerPaw who wrote (3553)	4/11/2002 3:07:23 PM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15516

Bush uses his unilateral's approach when it is convenient: his failure to sign the Kyoto Protocol, his abandonment of ABM treaty, his decision to build nukes and maybe test nuclear weapons above ground. On the other hand, he expects the world to join him in his commitment to destroy the Al Qaeda and most world leaders obliged, although he finds himself alone in his endorsement of Israel's slaughter of Palestinians with weapons that OUR TAX MONEY paid for and in his squabble with Iraq. "We are a lot less secure and a lot less free than when he was selected." You are right. Bush's domestic policy is repressive because he restricts access to information and pursues foreign policy without the support of congress. In fact, he rarely tells congress what he is up to. For instance, he put Cheney in charge of a shadow government without informing Daschle or other Congressional members. We are not as safe because we have no support from other world leaders for backing Sharon or attacking Iraq. Demonstrators abroad have lumped the US and Israel together in their hatred for our policies. If Powell is unable to bring about a cease fire between Israel and Palestine, we may face an uprising of the entire Muslim world, including the Islam extremists, and many of these extremists were initially trained and supported by The United States, Britain and Pakistan to fight the Russians in Afghanistan b4 the Soviet Union was defeated in Afghanistan back in 1979 or 1980. Osama Bin Laden was one of those fighters trained by money from America, Britain and Pakistan. When these fighters returned home, they were filled with pride that they defeated the Russians AND they passed the militant views they learned from the US, Britain and Pakistan to others. They joined arms with those at home in the hope of overturning their oppressors SO that was one way militant Islam flourished. What goes around comes around A few weeks ago while waiting for the bus, I heard a high-school student say to a friend, "what goes around comes around." I thought then that the training we provided to the Islamic extremists has come around to haunt us with the 9/11 attack, and now our support of Sharon's invasion into Palestinian territory has been condemned around the world. While we we will never know when we may be attacked again, we may also discover that the prosperity that we experienced in the 90s is under attack because Bush focuses on a war machine and tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans which will build deficits. Deficits encourage inflation and with a build up of a war machine, there will not be money available to focus on the needs of ordinary Americans. Yes, you are right when you say Bush curtails personal freedom in the US. And, you are also right when you say we are "less secure." Bush's foreign policy exposes us to future terrorist attacks. It is also likely that our standard of living will decline because Bush builds a bigger war machine. Here at home institutions already suffer because there isn't money. Community Centers must cut hours, universities must raise tuition and roads cannot be repaired because the state doesn't have any money. It could be worse. Recently, I heard that there isn't enough food in Oregon to go around. One in five or six people has no idea when they will eat their next meal. And, when we most need help, we will not receive money from the Bush administration. JMOP

To: TigerPaw who wrote (3553)	4/12/2002 2:05:46 AM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 15516

US revives cold war nuclear strategy Julian Borger in Washington Friday April 12, 2002 The Guardian The Bush administration is contemplating the use of nuclear warheads on the intercepters it hopes will protect the US from attack as part of its planned missile defence system. William Schneider, the Pentagon's top scientific adviser, told the Washington Post that he had been encouraged by the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to re-examine the feasibility of nuclear-tipped intercepters, nearly 30 years after the idea was abandoned as technically and politically unacceptable. It is the latest in a series of signs that the Bush team is radically rethinking the role of nuclear weapons in its arsenal, in a way that its critics believe will blur the distinction between conventional and nuclear warfare. Late last year the Pentagon produced a nuclear posture review which called for research into low-yield "mini-nuke" bombs for use as tactical weapons to penetrate enemy underground bunkers. Mr Schneider said that Mr Rumsfeld had asked the board to think "outside the box" on missile defence. "We've talked about it as something that he's interested in looking at," he said. The system being tested relies on "hit-to-kill" technology by which intercepters destroy incoming missiles by force of impact rather than by detonation. This approach presents enormous technical problems in programming the intercepter to ignore decoy war heads and hit the live missile. A nuclear explosion in space would destroy everything in the vicinity, including chemical and biological warheads, Mr Schneider pointed out. Apart from the risk of accidents, electromagnetic shock waves and ionized clouds, a nuclear blast in space could also disable communications satellites and knock out ground-based electronics. These potential problems caused research into nuclear intercepters in the mid-1970s to be shelved. "It seems to be a sign of desperation that they cannot solve the problem of the hit-to-kill programme of distinguishing targets from decoys," Henry Kelly, president of the Federation of American Scientists, said. "It was rejected three decades ago for very good reason: a one megaton explosion would knock out a great number of satellites, and that is obviously much more of a problem now than it was then." Mr Bush decided in December to withdraw from the 1972 anti ballistic missile (ABM) Treaty, which presented an obstacle to research and tests of the embryonic missile defence system. He also accelerated the timetable for missile defence deployment, making 2004 the deadline for the deployment of a basic system. The US conducted its latest test of the "hit-to-kill" intercepter last month over the Pacific, scoring a direct hit on a dummy incoming missile. The Pentagon hailed the test as a success, pointing out that it was the fourth hit in six tries. guardian.co.uk