Why U.S. pushes Star Wars

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Nuclear weapons and nuclear power will always lead to accidents and always lead to death, and leave us only with the burden of radioactive waste that we can pass on to our children. And now they want to irradiate food....As for me, I want none of it. Dismantle the bombs, close the nuclear power plants and prohibit food irradiation." Joseph Majer, San Francisco (from a letter to the editor, San Francisco Chronicle, May 12, 1986).

There is an ever-growing loss of confidence in atomic energy and its uses, as the above letter reflects. A Cable News Network and U.S News and World Report poll conducted in May found that 52 percent of American adults believe the accident at the Chernobyl reactor "shows the inherent danger of nuclear power in all countries."

When President Reagan launched the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) project in March 1983, he declared that it would provide a defensive shield over the nation that would render nuclear weapons "impotent and obsolete," and thus "free the world from the threat of nuclear destruction." It was, in Reagan's words, "a vision of the future which offers hope."

But then he gave the game away. "As we proceed," Reagan cautioned, "we must remain constant in preserving the nuclear deterrent." This means that the buildup of nuclear offensive weapons—MX missiles, B-l bombers, missile-carrying Trident submarines, etc.—will not cease, despite the president's declaration that such weapons will become "obsolete."

And further, it is not a new initiative—but rather, a deceptive new name for a highly sophisticated antiballistic missile system that has been in the experimental stage for many years. It is, in fact, a system of a type prohibited by the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) of 1972.

Strike first with Star Wars The Strategic Defense Initiative is essentially an offensive weapon—a needed component in a first-strike weapons system. Tagging the system as purely "defensive" is designed to counter the growing support for the anti-nuclear movement here at home.

It is also designed to distract attention from the Pentagon's role as military protector of U.S. investments and private property around the world.

"Since the end of the Second World War," as Seymour Melman notes in his book "Pentagon Capitalism,' "what we have had is not a defense establishment, but rather a war-making machine of unprecedented destructive power."

A war-making machine, it should be added, that now gobbles up 54 percent of the federal budget. For 1987 that adds up to $320 billion. Over the next five years $1.8 trillion is expected to be allocated for "defense."

Of course, this "military-industrial complex," as President Eisenhower called it in his farewell speech, did not begin with Reagan. The basic philosophy of the "defense establishment"-that only military force can solve the problems of this decaying capitalist system—was actually first formulated under President Kennedy.

Melman points out that under Kennedy, "the armed forces were redesigned and enlarged in accordance with war plans that included required capability for fighting three wars at once: A NATO war; a war in Southeast Asia; and a smaller Western Hemisphere operation."

The basic war plans described by Melman have not changed under any succeeding president, Democrat or Republican-except that the Middle East and Central America have replaced Vietnam.

The philosophy and practice of America's rulers precludes acceptance of the Soviet Union's offer to end nuclear testing and abolish all nuclear weapons by 1999. These proposals are brushed aside as "propaganda" by the Reagan administration, which insists, as Secretary of State George Shultz has made clear, that nuclear testing must continue.

Why? Because Star Wars is not necessarily a "nuclear-free" system. Scientist Edward Teller, a well-known supporter of Star Wars, has proposed that the system be powered by nuclear reactors. Hence, testing to develop such a reactor must proceed.

How would Star Wars work?

Dr. Robert M. Bowman, president of the Institute for Space Security Studies and a former director of space programs for the Air Force, explains some of the key components of the Star Wars project in his book, "Star . Wars: Defense or Death Star." It includes the following:

• High-power lasers, powered by either chemical or nuclear fuel, would be put into geo-stationary orbit at a height of 22,300 miles. A laser is a means of concentrating and applying intense heat, beams of light, which burn through the object the beam is applied to.

• Each laser, including fuel and a giant 30-feet-indiameter reflecting mirror to direct the laser beam to targets on earth, would require an orbiting platform the size of a football field. To effectively "kill" even 90 percent of incoming missiles (at the boost phase or later), Bowman estimates that 90 such platformed lasers would be needed.

Each platform, including the cost of putting it into orbit, would cost $2 billion. And note: A 90-percent accuracy rate in targeting "enemy" missiles, which is the most that can be expected—means that the number of incoming missiles would be reduced to a point just sufficient to blow up the country!

• In case of war, the orbiting laser, controlled entirely by computers, would quickly direct its beams to lower orbiting relay stations (equipped with smaller mirrors), which would relay the killer beams to targets.

• Virtually the only practical use for space shuttles is to put military hardware into orbit. Bowman estimates it would take decades, even with much larger and more efficient shuttles than presently exist, to put this system into space. The Challenger disaster was thus a grievous setback for Star Wars.

• The laser system (plus various other systems that would operate with it), in order to "defend" the United States properly, would require a computer program 10 million lines long. This is the Pentagon's estimate.

• Since there is no way of testing such a system, except by a nuclear war, the system would have to work the very first time. Anyone familiar with computers knows that nothing this complicated has ever worked the first time.

But if the system does work, it can also be used as an offensive weapon to create firestorms and reduce population centers to ashes within minutes,. On the other hand, Bowman states that SDI could be rendered ineffective by a single nuclear explosion that would disrupt its millions of computer lines.

• Such a system would be accident-prone. A foul-up in the computers could possibly trigger a nuclear war. In truth, war could be declared by a computer.

"Their Maginot Line in the sky," Bowman concludes, "cannot provide Mutual Assured Survival. It cannot even provide Assured Survival for Fortress America. As we have seen, the Death Star does nothing to do away TRIST Me.

INVEST A TRILLION IN with the threat of retaliation embodied in MAD [the concept agreed to by both the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1972 ABM treaty that a nuclear exchange meant "mutual assured destruction," and no defense could change this].

"Some think it will enable us to 'spend the Soviet Union into bankruptcy! Others see it as giving us military superiority—to force the Soviet Union to 'change its behavior.' They are all wrong.

"Their Death Star alternative would replace a tenuous stability with instability; replace uneasiness with downright panic...replace nuclear stalemate with nuclear conflagration. Their weapons are offensive—in every sense of the word."

Scientists oppose Star Wars The Washington Post reported in May that more than 6500 scientists, including a majority of professors in the nation's top 20 physics departments, have declared their opposition to Star Wars. These scientists have pledged not to accept any Star Wars research funds.

The scientists have condemned this profit-motivated raid on the U.S. treasury as "technically dubious and politically unwise" —it is "a step toward precisely the type of weapons and strategy most likely to trigger a nuclear holocaust." Further on they conclude: "The Star Wars program represents, not an advance toward genuine security, but rather a step backward."

Such opposition to the government's project may be in part motivated by the widely held scientific opinion that an atomic war would induce a "nuclear winter"" that would make the planet virtually uninhabitable for any living thing (except perhaps cockroaches, which are peculiarly adaptable to radiation).

Indeed, as the Pentagon acquires ever-more-awesome weapons, there appears to be no limit to its deadly designs—other than the technical impossibility of devising a weapon that can kill an "enemy" more than once.

A step closer to nuclear war Star Wars will not render nuclear weapons obsolete, but will actually bring us a step closer to their eventual use. From the point of view of the Pentagon and the arms industry, which exert a dominant control over the federal government, including Congress, huge profits are to be had from Star Wars.

For working people, there are no profits, only an accelerated danger of a nuclear conflagration that could mean the end of human life.

As long as capitalism continues to exist, the threat of nuclear extinction will also exist. This, of course, does not imply that a mass anti-nuclear protest movement cannot stop the deployment of Star Wars. Each and every escalation in the arms race by the United States must be answered with protests and demonstrations.

But it does mean that the threat posed by Star Wars and nuclear weapons cannot be permanently removed until the capitalist system that spawns such technological horrors is eliminated.

SOCIALIST ACTION JUNE 1986

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ATU THE PHILA their chips on winning the gratitude of the bosses in return for their collaboration. They hope to be permitted to continue to collect dues-higher dues from fewer members, no doubt—in exchange for their treachery.

They may also be under the delusion that their capitalist partners will gratefully give back what was taken away when, as they hope, U.S. capitalism comes out on top over its capitalist rivals. There is not a shred of evidence to support this conclusion.

We need not look far to see proof to the contrary. Hormel, the recipient of a long series of concessions which contributed to economic success in its Austin plant, is now paying back the workers in its own inimitable way—with more takebacks!

Collaboration doesn't pay

Seventh, this policy of collaboration with the employers, if permitted to follow its course to the end, will doom workers to ever-lower living standards, and eventually add millions more to the pool of permanently unemployed workers.

It should be remembered that since the end of World War II, the rise of long-term

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"There is no way of testing the system except by nuclear war"

THIS NeW DeFeNse SYSTOM AND WELL MAKe WARFARE OBSOLeTe!