Pro or con, stay skeptical of U.S. base assumptions

The Prague Post ^ | July 15, 2004

[Grzegorz 246]

As the United States intensifies its search here and in Poland and Hungary for a site to host a "son of Star Wars" missile-defense system, get ready for a barrage of "here come the foreign invaders" chatter in the Czech media.

You know, the Soviets had bases here and they were the bad guys. So anyone else who wants to have a military base here will clearly a) destroy the country's sovereignty, b) exploit the Czech Republic for its own evil plan of world domination and c) enslave the population.

Now, when the base builder happens to be the United States, mastermind of the unpopular Iraq invasion, you can understand a reluctance to donate territory for a missile-defense site.

But while this country's obsession with historical wrongs is understandable, it is not always practical -- witness the lingering hesitancy to come to terms with the Roma, the Vatican or the Sudeten Germans.

Some people simply believe the Roma, or Gypsies, have a biological bent toward theft. But these people refuse to even consider the implications for the larger society of not helping the Roma fight poverty and discrimination. Because of historical concerns over state funding and church greed, the Czech Republic is the only country in Europe that has not signed a treaty with the Vatican, an affront to the nation's Catholics. Finally, the government still will not recognize the wrongs committed against the 2.5 million ethnic Germans expelled from Czechoslovakia following World War II. Such a posture taints the state's credibility on the world stage.

But back to the matter at hand. As the pundits go into "here we go again" martyr mode, expect the government and Defense Ministry to go into "hello, sailor!" mode while they contemplate the potential monetary benefits of hosting the base.

The irony is that defense leaders will be supporting the idea for reasons every bit as unsound as those of the knee-jerk naysayers.

The missile-defense system is an untested, unproven concept dreamed up by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, ostensibly to counter a Soviet threat. Two decades later, there still is scant evidence such a system would create a safety net. (What's more, in the post 9/11 world ICBMs are far from the preeminent threat to the civilized world.) The Pentagon is reportedly lobbying Congress for the $35 million (910 million Kc) it says is needed to "begin preliminary work" on placing 10 missile interceptors on foreign soil. That may represent chump change in Pentagon terms, but don't believe it. Remember back in February 2003 when U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz lambasted his agency's own budget specialists for estimating the cost of the Iraq war and reconstruction at $60 billion to $95 billion? Turns out the bean-counters hadn't inflated the figures, as Wolfowitz complained, but low-balled them.

So we find it hard to take seriously any Pentagon projections for the missile-defense system, especially for "preliminary work" (which likely means hiring a public relations firm to name the project).

The Czech Republic is unlikely to "win" the right to host the anti-missile base; signs point toward Poland. But even if it were placed in this country, Americans living here (at least the ones paying U.S. income tax) would have more reason to be concerned about the project than Czechs. After all it will be their tax dollars paying for a folly that, according to Knight-Ridder news reports, even the Pentagon chief weapons tester contends is fraught with technical problems and has not been tested under realistic conditions.

[Grzegorz 246]

http://www.praguepost.com/P03/2004/Art/0715/news3.php

[MCRD]

I told Wilbur and I told Orville "that thing will never fly".

[vbmoneyspender]

The Prague Post's concern for how much a missile defense system will cost American taxpayers is touching. But I am still trying to figure how that relates to the question of whether or not the Czech Republic should host such a system.