-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the July 20, 2000
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
EDITORIAL: NATURE OF THE BEAST
For every working mother on a months-long waiting list for
childcare, for every head of an AIDS program in the
oppressed communities who has to beg for paltry funds, for
every director of vastly under-funded drug rehabilitation
programs and for every parent or educator who has had to
run a bake sale just to get decent books for their children
in school, it must have been a bitter pill to hear the news
about the $100 million wasted on the socially useless,
failed July 7 test of the Pentagon's interceptor rocket
that was supposed to shoot down a missile in mid-air.
Behind this one-day hundred-million dollar effort to
advance the so-called National Missile Defense system is
$60 billion already spent and, if the military-industrial
complex has its way, another $60 billion to be spent in the
coming decade. Indeed NMD, as it is called, can be seen
from one point of view as a massive program of wealth
transfer from the masses of people in taxes to the giant
corporations such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, TRW
and their thousands of corporate subcontractors.
Given that in the U.S. one-quarter of the children go to
bed hungry, 30-40 million people live in poverty or near-
poverty level, 43 million people have no health care and
two million people are in prison--the majority of them
Black and Latino youth, driven there by poverty and racism-
-the criminality of this giveaway to the merchants of death
is a mighty condemnation of the entire capitalist system.
But the debate in the big business media over the NMD and
the latest failure does not rotate around whether or not to
discontinue this militaristic welfare program for the rich
in order to deal with the economic and social problems of
the masses. The axis of discussion is over whether or not
the weapons system is workable.
There are those who foolishly draw some optimism that
militarism suffered a setback from the humiliating failure
of the Pentagon's latest test, in which elementary
separation technology that is 40 years old failed. But that
is based on an utterly na�ve misunderstanding of the
military-industrial complex and the militarists in the
Pentagon.
Boeing--which is the prime contractor for the NMD--and all
the advocates for a land-based missile system did not
change their position one bit because of the failure. They
are all urging the Clinton administration, which has been
pushing the program, to go ahead and order deployment.
A $1.6 billion three-year contract to develop the program
is sufficient motivation for Boeing to disregard all
technical failures. Boeing, like all the military
corporations, is hungry for cash. And this program means
billions of dollars for decades to come, including for
Lockheed and Raytheon--both of whom have a piece of the
pie.
And the opposition within the establishment to the land-
based, Air Force-sponsored NMD is no less militaristic or
profit hungry. Their main spokesperson, Theodore Postol, an
MIT missile expert, has been paraded about with his
outspoken criticism of the land-based interceptor
technology that just failed the test. He has accused the
Pentagon forces that are in favor of the land-based system
of falsifying data to hide fundamental flaws and of rigging
tests. He is probably right.
But it is not widely publicized that Postol, a former Navy
expert who worked on submarine warfare in 1982 and 1983, is
actually in favor of a sea-based system using the Aegis
missile ships. These ships would be deployed off the
coastal waters of countries around the world so the Navy
could supposedly shoot down other countries' rockets as
they are launched. The weapons system, designed by
Lockheed, would presumably be cheaper. There are powerful
forces in the Pentagon whose position coincides with
Postol.
The point of it all is that the Pentagon, the Clinton
administration and the military-industrial corporations
have all spent enormous funds and energy vilifying north
Korea, Iraq and Iran in order to create a so-called
national threat in the minds of the masses. They want to
push through gigantic contracts and at the same time
strengthen the military domination of the world by U.S.
imperialism.
In the course of this struggle for domination there are
rivalries between the wings of the military for authority,
ruthless battles over contracts, deep differences over
military strategy--but all pushing in the direction of
increased militarism and war. No technological obstacles
are going to retard this tendency one iota. This tendency
is an outgrowth of imperialism, which is the reactionary
final phase of capitalism. It can be ended and humanity can
finally free itself from the scourge of militarism and war
only when capitalism is destroyed and not before.
- END -
(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
------------------
This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>.
To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
