Missile-Defense Arrogance as a Reflex Action

No matter how the United States played the completion of the missile-siting deal with Poland, Russia was bound to see it as directly tied to the Georgia midadventure. But the U.S. could have let the low-level signing of the deal August 14 speak for itself. Instead, Condi Rice came storming in to Warsaw with trumpets blaring, setting the propaganda level to "high" and reminding those ignorant Russkies that missile defense was for everyone's benefit.

Funny, then, how a good conservative Reagan aide like Jack Matlock could be interviewed on Public Radio International's World and call the Bush administration "amazingly provocative" in its approach to concluding the Czech and Polish deals. Funny how a good U.S. buddy like Mikhail Gorbachev could write a New York Times op-ed piece blaming the U.S. for a good portion of a re-kindled Cold War.

Condi's having to lie through her teeth to make the point in Poland that this "limited" missile-defense system (the twin to systems deployed in California and Alaska) is only good for spotting single missiles from rogue states like Iran. If only that were true. Frances FitzGerald and other analysts already have argued how the multi-tiered missile defense of the 1990s and 2000s is in many ways even more offense-oriented than Reagan's original Star Wars plan. George N. Lewis and Ted Postol, in a detailed article in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, shows that the current European Midcourse X-band radar in the Czech Republic would not be useful for discriminating warheads from far locations like Iran - and forget about North Korea. However, the radar might be worthwhile if it was combined with a future Forward-Based X-band Radar currently being considered for Azerbaijan - or Georgia. Georgia, hmm, where have I heard of that potential NATO member before?

I'm with Matlock, Gorbachev, and similar radicals - if you want to see where at least half of the new Cold War posturing is coming from, look to Washington. Condi might say that even mid-level Russian diplomats these days are using a mocking, ugly tone not heard since the Brezhnev era. But when Russian critics are chided like toddlers in discussions of Star Wars weapons, and respond with disdain, the next step is vituperative and nasty rhetoric coming from the Bushies.

Jan Bednar, Czech Hunger Striker, in Liver Failure

Jan Bednar, one of two activists in the Czech Republic who launched a hunger strike to oppose U.S. missile-defense radar based in his country, has gone into liver failure but will still continue his hunger strike. He needs all our prayers and good wishes. He began his hunger strike with Jan Tamas, pictured at left, who many of us in Colorado met. (The original post identified Tamas as the one with liver failure, the result of a miscommunication I had.)

Tamas came to the U.S. in April and impressed many people with his good humor and dedication. I am concerned about how fasts unto death are waged. Occasionally, as in the case of Mapuche activist Patricia Troncoso in Chile, a government responds when a hunger striker is hospitalized. But all too often, particularly when the U.S. government is involved, a hunger striker can die and the parties in charge simply don't care. Let's all wish the best for Jan Bednar and Jan Tamas, and we all need to sign the Czech petition to bar the radar base from Czech soil.