America's Editors Oppose New Star Wars Plans
Congressional Record - 04 June 1996Now, here's Dole & Co., seeking another $20 billion for that gold-plated rat hole, lest we become vulnerable to North Korea or Libya, a truly screwball idea. Never mind that a few well-placed cruise missile could erase both nations' military capability:
`Resurrection of Star Wars,' the Chattanooga Times, Chattanooga, TN, May 15, 1996.
The Clinton administration . . . takes the reasonable position that Washington should be certain of the kind of threat it is trying to protect against before committing to such a system. . . . This new and unimproved proposal to commit as much as $20 billion to an unproven, destabilizing defense system is nothing more than a political ploy that trivializes a deadly serious issue:
`Indefensible Then and Now,' St. Petersburg Times, St. Petersburg, FL, May 19, 1996.
One of the most wasteful items (in the House defense budget) is the $4 billion earmarked to construct a missile defense system by 2003. This dubious `Son of Star Wars' could wind up costing as much as $54 billion before it finally could be deployed:
`Fort Pork Gets Reinforced,' the Miami Herald, Miami, FL, May 20, 1996.
The Defend America Act is a transparent effort to manufacture an issue to help resuscitate the Dole campaign. Election-year pressures are no excuse for spending billions of dollars to produce a missile defense system that is likely to be out of date the day it is completed:
`Star Wars, the Sequel,' the New York Times, May 14, 1996.
It doesn't make any sense to be cutting budgets for students, the elderly, and low-income families so that the Pentagon can have billions more to develop a missile defense system that will be outdated by the time any nation poses a threat:
`Costly Rush to Star Wars Weapons,' Idaho Falls Post-Register, Idaho Falls, ID, May 17, 1996.
Clinton's approach to spend a few million dollars on missile-defense research while monitoring hostile nations makes eminently more sense:
`Errant Missile: Clinton Should Challenge Defense Budget,' Star Tribune, Minneapolis, MN, May 24, 1996.
Why waste billions on a system that will not work to defend against a threat that does not exist? Congressional Republicans are trying to buy an election issue with taxpayers' money:
`If Missile-Defense Systems were Horses,' the Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, GA, May 23, 1996.
When lawmakers fixate on boosting defense industries in their districts, when partisans demagogue a defend-America issue. ... you can bet there'll be precious little peace dividend left to apply against America's mountain of debt:
`Cold Warriors Spend On,' the Atlanta Journal/The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, GA, May 19, 1996.
Call it the $60 billion campaign promise. ... There is no guarantee the new system will work. The United States spent $35 billion on Reagan's Star Wars dream and built nothing: `Star Wars is an Awfully Expensive Republican Dream,' the Hartford Courant, May 25, 1996.
And for all claims of defending America against any and all attacks, the most sophisticated space-based defense system is helpless in the face of a single, earth-bound terrorist hell-bent on destruction:
`Does U.S. Need New Defense System,' the Plain Dealer, Cleveland, OH, May 5, 1996.
You do not place the fate of thousands of American lives on unproven technology of uncertain proficiency. You eliminate the threat before it eliminates you, a strategy that would make deployment of a missile defense system pointless and redundant: `Offense is Best Missile Defense: America needs a system to protect deployed troops, but should take out attack capability of rogue nation,'
Patriot and Evening News, Harrisburg, PA, May 13, 1996.
If it makes sense to support Star Wars to defend our nation from a possible future nuclear attack by North Korea and Libya, doesn't it logically follow that we should discourage nations from spreading nuclear weapons to Pakistan? If we really want to protect our nation from nuclear attack, doesn't it make sense to do as much as possible to dismantle nuclear weapons that are already in place, able to reach the United States?--
`What's Riggs' Defense Stand?' the Napa Valley Register, Napa, CA, May 14, 1996.
Actions taken by Congress last week suggest that federal funding priorities remain as skewed as ever. ... It is difficult if not impossible to accurately estimate the costs of Dole's `Defend America Act.' Costs could range from $5 billion. ... to more than $44 billion. ... This despite the fact that only China and the former Soviet Union possess ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States at this time:
`How Much for Defense?' Intelligencer-Journal, Lancaster, PA, May 16, 1996.
Political and budgetary considerations aside, a national missile defense system should not be developed until the proper technology is at hand:
`The Missile Flap,' the Boston Globe, May 23, 1996.
Congress' worst-kept secret is out: Members are acknowledging ... that defense spending is driven in part by its value as a local jobs program, not necessarily by the nation's priority needs. ... Most contentious is the congressional stampede to rush new spending on a missile defense program when the CIA says the threat remains highly remove:
`Using Defense Budget as Jobs Program Robs Public,' USA Today, May 20, 1996.
In the defense bills passed by the House and the Senate, GOP lawmakers seem to think money is no object. The same Congress that is shredding the safety net for the poor, raising the cost of college for students and shrinking Medicare is pushing on the Pentagon weapons the military doesn't want or need. That kind of profigacy surely deserves the veto president Clinton is weighing:
`The Defense Pork Barrel,' the Sacramento Bee, Sacramento, CA, September 15, 1995.
The president must balance the true need for this investment in preparedness against the pledge to balance the budget in seven years and, more importantly, against the level of preparedness potentially lost in such areas as education, job training and health care if the money is to be found for the military:
`Military Questions and Spending.' Bangor Daily News, Bangor, ME, May 16, 1996.
The GOP revival of Star Wars, dubbed by its sponsors the `Defend America Act,' looks more political than military in intent. ... If `SDI-the Sequel' passes, Mr. Clinton should veto it, and remind Americans they need to be spending scarce resources on ongoing social and economic, not military, battles:
`Newt's War Toy,' the Berkshire Eagle, Pittsfield, MA, May 12, 1996.
The administration's plan is realistic both in facing up to a rogue-missile threat and in taking into account the considered view of U.S. intelligence that the threat is more than 15 years away:
`Prudent Steps on Missile Defense,' the Washington Post, May 14, 1996.
Shorter-range missiles are an immediate danger to US forces stationed overseas ... Theater missile defenses thus make more sense and should have a faster development rack, as in fact they do. To try to invert these priorities and make a pitch for quick development of a system for national defense ... is foolishness. It would divert money from more-important defense needs:
`Spacey on Defense,' the Christian Science Monitor, May 17, 1996.
Those who oppose missile defense as destabilizing owe it to this nation to conduct a thorough review. It is appropriate to ask whether the U.S. should develop and deploy a more modest system ... A thoughtful analysis produces this policy: robust research, yes, but no to setting an artificial date for deployment before these questions are answered:
`A Wise Pause on Missile Defense,' Chicago Tribune, May 24, 1996.
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