Report Supports Sea-, Space-Based Missile Defenses

Global Security Newswire for NTI ^ | August 4th, 2006 | Staff

[Paul Ross]

An additional point I should make in regard to this issue you raise:

I find it hard to believe they really want to loose our Nuclear advantage over Russia and China. What could they gain from being held hostage by those two? It doesn't seem to make any policy sense to meet any goal.

Remember that back in early 2001 W thought that Putin was really a closet Christian, and took at face-value his claims to rejecting Communism. He stuck doggedly to that assessment as the evidence mounted up that it was a sham...and pursued all these self-wounding policies that debilitated the U.S. vis-a-vis these "covert" enemies.

It is likely that the President relied as a "back-stop" or "safety margin" on the alleged cushion that the strategic liberals blithely assured him we had. But clearly not taking the hazard of a coordinated surprise nuclear first strike from Russia/China seriously.

I know that he over-ruled Rumsfeld on the MX dismantlement...who dragged his feet (and quite reasonably so, I might add). W had a "come-to-Jesus" meeting with Rumsfeld over it...making sure Rumsfeld actually took the Peacekeepers apart, not just out of their silos.

I believe we need to revisit the previous warnings against the liberal policies being implemented. Such as patriots like Admiral Mies, whose statements Rightwing2 aptly spotted and posted as quoted herein:

Here are some key excerpts (part only) from an article worth repeating which refutes both the statements of GEN Butler calling for the abolition of all US nuclear weapons and the radical unilateral nuclear disarmament initiatives of President Bush by the Commander-in-Chief of STRATCOM, Admiral Mies:

Nuclear Arms Chief Questions Cut In Warheads By Walter Pincus,
Washington Post Staff Writer
July 15, 2001

The commander of U.S. strategic nuclear forces has forcefully, though indirectly, challenged President Bush's plan to slash the number of warheads and take intercontinental ballistic missiles off "hair-trigger" alert. Bush has said repeatedly -- most recently in a May 4 speech at the National Defense University -- that he would like to move quickly to reduce U.S. nuclear forces, unilaterally if necessary.

Adm. Richard W. Mies, chief of the U.S. Strategic Command in Omaha, told a Senate subcommittee Wednesday that it is "naive and mistaken" to believe "that the 'nuclear danger' is directly proportional to the number of nuclear weapons and, accordingly, lower is inevitably better." There is "a tyranny in very deep numerical reductions that inhibits flexibility and induces instability in certain circumstances," Mies said at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services subcommittee on strategic forces. "Stability is the most important criterion as we assess further initiatives to reduce our strategic forces to the lowest levels consistent with national security."

Although Mies did not directly criticize the president's position, his remarks indicated that there is deep resistance in at least some parts of the military to reductions below 2,500 to 3,000 warheads, the level proposed during the Clinton administration for a possible third strategic arms reduction treaty with Russia. The United States now has about 7,000 warheads.

As the head of the Strategic Command, the admiral carries great weight inside the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has recently made two visits to Omaha to talk with Mies and other officers there as part of a review of strategic deterrence.

[DoughtyOne]

Articles on this topic (MUST read)

Even after 09/11 we were still pursuing deep nuclear cuts.
I am stridently opposed to this.

Bush and Putin to Sign Treaty to Cut Nuclear Warheads
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/683106/posts
05/2002

Bush Announces Nuclear Cuts With Russia
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/682845/posts
05/2002

Now For The Tricky Part: Bush Announces Two-Thirds Cut In U.S. Nuclear Stockpile
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/571242/posts
11/2001

Bush Will Offer Nuclear Cuts to Sway Russia
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/561953/posts
11/2001

Bush Says He Has Decided on Nuclear Weapons Cuts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/565980/posts
11/2001

Bush Says Will Honor Vow to Cut Nuclear Weapons
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a71ff5f414a.htm
01/2001

[DoughtyOne]

Please note the word "unilaterally" was used in conjunction with Bush's thoughts on this.

Even if Russia didn't agree, he was still willing to slice our nuclear arsenal by 2/3rds, even if Russia didn't reciprocate.

Sheesh!

I'm posting this to you, but I'm sure you're already aware of it. I wanted others to realize it as well.

[Paul Ross]

None Dare Call It Appeasement.

This was an early Heads-Up as to the kind of Ivory-Tower disconnect from reality this President is perversely willing to engage in.

[Paul Ross]

What do you make of that General Butler character?

[Iconoclast2]

I find the hypothesis that the Commies (or someone advancing their interests) took over in the mid-1960s to early 1970s to explain an awful lot of data. It's not just space defense, it's policy area after policy area where the United States shoots itself in the foot.

As always, of course, there is the competing hypothesis of pure stupidity, but as McCarthy once said, before the Commies got rid of him, if it were just stupidity or accidental mistakes, occasionally one of these "mistakes" would favor the interests of the United States.

[Paul Ross]

I find the hypothesis that the Commies (or someone advancing their interests) took over in the mid-1960s to early 1970s to explain an awful lot of data. It's not just space defense, it's policy area after policy area where the United States shoots itself in the foot. As always, of course, there is the competing hypothesis of pure stupidity, but as McCarthy once said, before the Commies got rid of him, if it were just stupidity or accidental mistakes, occasionally one of these "mistakes" would favor the interests of the United States.

Bump!

One Freeper of note who had a chance to work in Reagan's SDI program got a chance to see the sabotage up close: He was told, up front, at Los Alamos that the program was not going to be for the U.S., but some international super government...not the U.S...and that if he didn't like it...he could leave, but that in any case, the conversation would be denied.

[308MBR]

Being a "war monger" is much more productive than being a whore monger.

[Paul Ross]

Thanks for the links! I think rightwing2 has long since been totally vindicated. Especially prescient was this posting Bush Says Will Honor Vow to Cut Nuclear Weapons http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a71ff5f414a.htm 01/2001):

Bush's inner circle of mostly CFR advisors (Powell, Rice, and others) believe in global government alright. Since Bush has no foreign policy experience and indeed had no concept of foreign policy before 1999 when they began tutoring him, he thinks and says what they have trained him to think and say. They are in fact his puppetmasters with the power to manipulate President Bush into undertaking globalist and America-Last foreign policies at their whim.

This is the downside about electing a President with no core values, concrete policy agenda or previously-informed views on vital national security issues facing the US today. Bush is not an issue-oriented type guy. Tell him both sides of an argument and he instinctively takes the middle ground. Most of his knowledge of US foreign and domestic policy was derived from the past two years of tutoring indoctrinating him in the ways of the CFR "force".

The CFR party line says unilateral nuclear disarmament is good and that the other nuclear superpower, Russia, poses no threat to the US so Bush goes forward with demolishing the US nuclear deterrent to the jubilation of America's enemies the world over. Bush is an idealist who fails to comprehend the dangers and repurcussions of destroying the bulk of our nuclear arsenal, which have the practical effect of increasing the assymetry in nuclear warfighting capabilities between the US and Russia and make a nuclear first strike much more achievable and a nuclear war much more winnable for Russian Army/KGB hardliners now in power.

All these extremist anti-nuke wacko politicians in power today leave me longing for the days of the nuclear freeze movement which was supported only by the radical ultralibeal fringe of the Democratic Party. Today, a "nuclear freeze" of the US arsenal is a policy espoused only by the "radical right" Republican Congress and conservative national security specialists in the know. This same nuclear freeze policy of the ultraleft of two decades ago is now viewed as too conservative or far right by US policymakers today like Bush that believe if we only give away the store and appease Chinese and Russian dictators, they will play nice and leave us alone. They continue to bury their heads in the sand as to the existance of a growing nuclear threat from both countries. The unilateral nuclear disarmament of the United States was a traitorous policy during the Cold War and it remains so today.

BUMP!

This conclusion bears repeating:

The unilateral nuclear disarmament of the United States was a traitorous policy during the Cold War and it remains so today.

[DoughtyOne]

GENERAL GEORGE LEE BUTLER - Biography
Retired Feb. 28, 1994
http://www.af.mil/bios/bio.asp?bioID=4877

NATIONAL PRESS CLUB REMARKS
General Lee Butler, USAF (Retired)
Wednesday, December 4, 1996
Washington, D. C.
http://prop1.org/2000/genbut.htm

General Lee Butler Reflects on Working Toward Peace
Santa Clara University
The Jesuit university in Silicon Valley
The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics
http://www.scu.edu/ethics/architects-of-peace/Butler/essay.html

Zero Nukes
A Project of the Interfaith Community for Nuclear Disarmament
Military Leaders Speak Out for Nuclear Disarmament
http://www.zero-nukes.org/militaryleaders.html


What do I think of him?

Well, it seems to me that he has the credentials to say what he wants on this issue.  Rather than accept his views though, I have come to an alternate understanding.

There are several thoughts that come to mind.  My first thought is that this is the prime example of why you cannot blindly accept a position as your own, even if it is offered up by an expert in his field.  (This is a lesson that very few people understand BTW.  Can't tell you how many times I've been scorched for opposing the views of a supposed 'expert'.)  IMO there's no fool like an old fool, and this guy should be the poster boy for that saying.  Perhaps more disconcerting is the fact that this guy, holding these views, feeling the way he did, was an inside man within our top nuclear facilities.  I've not read everything there is out there on him.  To the extent that he had access or influence in and over our nuclear hardware and policies, this becomes an increasingly troubling issue.

You'll note that the anti-Nuke folks have glomed on to him and a few other retirees.  In this, both he and the other retirees may have found solice for their preception that they participated in some evil project against humanity.  That is sad.  First, the anit-Nuke folks were infiltrated by leftist socialists decades ago.  They lobby on behalf of our worst enemies, across the board.  These retired military men are allowing themselves to be used by what are truly people involved in an evil project against humanity.  The retirees' past activities were part of an operation that denied these very people complete victory.  Now they are actually helping them.

Look who the leftists champion these days.  They hate the U.S., love the leftist/socialists, and actually want this nation to be defeated.  Terrorists are sympathetic figures to them.  The West is the consumate evil.  What these retired military people should realize, they are totally blinded to.

Each of us desires a nuclear free world in our heart of hearts.  That will never happen.  If Russia, China and the U.S. swore off nuclear weapons, the North Koreans, Iranians and a growing number of small natioins would develop and deploy.  And once these nations have what they have sought, their proxies will detonate it over Western territories.  Any thinking person should be able to understand the danger in this.

It's as if the pressure of all those years working in a highly secretive postion, was released at their retirment.  In reaction these folks just flipped 180 degrees.  I'm sure they realize it.  I'm sure they think they're doing the right thing now.  I'm also sure that if their present goals were met, the Doomsday Clock would rest at 11:59:59.9999 and counting.

If these men truly want a world without nukes, they should reverse course immediately.  It was true in the first days of nuclear deterence and it is true today.  Only the Doctrine of Reciprocity will save us.  Our leaders should make it known in no uncertain terms, that if a nuclear weapon is used against us or our allies, that we would utterly destroy a good portion of the offending state.  If that state had furnished the weapon, but hadn't used it, they would be held accountable.  Disarming will empower men that would make Hitler look like Mother Teressa in comparison.

General George Lee Butler is a dilusional fool, and endangers us all by his vacant infantile point of view.  Worse yet, he empowers those who have no morals whatsoever.

The guy is dangerous.  Those who think like him will be the end of us, if anything is.

[Paul Ross]

Perhaps more disconcerting is the fact that this guy, holding these views, feeling the way he did, was an inside man within our top nuclear facilities..... To the extent that he had access or influence in and over our nuclear hardware and policies, this becomes an increasingly troubling issue.

Totally agreed. We need new blood. Less guilt-ridden over our being a superpower. And once installed, we should have an internal "damage assessment" done ASAP to review the conduct, decisions, and possible compromise of our positions, capabilities and technology that these "unreliables" may have perpetrated.

I don't see how we get from here to there though, with Team Bush still in the way, and undermining all Republicans, but especially conservatives...everywhere.

[DoughtyOne]

Bush is problematic, to be sure. What's more troubling is that I don't see anyone on the horizon that has a firm grip on 'conservative' reality.

Take a look at the folks the RP sends out to represent on Sunday mornings. John McCain, Bill Crystol... it just doesn't get any better looking down the road. When we do have a bright spot, someone I refer to that is perhaps excellent on one point and worse on others, they are generally attacked in mass by the party elites.

Buchanan was sharp as a tack on immigration and border issues. He's now miserable on other issues. He threatened the status quo and look what happened. He was compared by the party elites to Hitler on the Sunday talk shows. While they did disagree with him on foreign policy per se, they avoided actually going after him on that, which would have been easy to do.

Look at Tancredo. He's excellent on the border too. Look what the party elite thinks of him. If he were to threaten, he'd be compared to Hitler as well.

This forum is a conservative forum. Even here we have a hard time achieving consensus on conservative issues. IMO and the opinion of others, all too many are willing to sell out core values in exchange for holding office count margins. It seems to matter not that conservatism as expressed by actual office holders is demonstrably more luke warm after each election.

I share your concerns, but I sure don't see a light at the end of the tunnel.

[Paul Ross]

I have a short list of folks that I like (albeit I don't know all their foibles either), besides Tancredo, whether they would make good Presidential candidates, is another story:

Congressman J.D. Hayworth, R-Az

Congressman Duncan Hunter, R-CA

Congressman Curt Weldon, R-Pa.

Senator John Thun, R-SD

[Paul Ross]

Senator John Kyl, R-AZ also should be on the list. About the only one who takes EMP security risks to the country truly seriously...

[DoughtyOne]

From what I've seen of those folks, I don't have any objections. I will say that nobody gets my vote who can't fathom that we need apply a whole new set of rules to future comers to our nation.

[DoughtyOne]

IMO EMP is another 'twin towers' issue. After the fact folks will feign surprise and profess that nobody thought this could happen. 'Good' 'conservatives' will jump in to support that view.

[Paul Ross]

'Good' 'conservatives' will jump in to support that view.

Yeah, most likely the Frists and Hasterts.

[Paul Ross]

Pinging FYI