[PEN-L:3868] Right-wing Oz on Right-wing Clinton

[Rob Schaap <rws@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

G'day Penners,

It is my considered position that the best insight into how Murdoch is
thinking about issues du jour is to read this bloke.  Anyway, in case Yanks
are as obsessed with what others are writing about them as Australians
(pathetically) are, here's a right-wing Australian spraying little maps of
the Philippines all over the upholstery in a moving (and only slightly
qualified) tribute to your president (from today's *The Australian*) and
his ersatz sex toys - mebbe Ange was right about that phallus business
after all ...


Star Wars II: May the Reagan force be with Bill
Opinion by GREG SHERIDAN

26feb99

   THE metamorphosis of the Clinton presidency into a right-wing Republican
presidency in policy if not personality terms, a kind of Reagan redux, is a
wonder to behold.

   By supporting certain traditional feminist policy positions and by being the
embodiment of the central proposition of the baby-boomer generation that
there are no moral judgments, Clinton has given himself a lock on left
liberal support.

   In order to keep attacks on his presidency mired in sex, where he knows
he cannot lose, and to ward off a potentially more potent attack from the
Right, Clinton in a policy sense has moved to a pure right-wing Republican
agenda; namely, cutting taxes, cutting welfare, strong support for the
death penalty, tough law and order campaigns involving more police and more
jails, increased military expenditure and selective deployment of US
military force abroad.

   Although it discombobulates them electorally, this is all really a great
policy victory for Republicans. But the sweetest victory of all, and one
that must warm the heart of every old Cold War warrior, is Clinton's
commitment to reviving Ronald Reagan's Star Wars missile defence policy.

   Clinton has committed $US10 billion ($15.7 billion) of new money for
missile defence over the next six years. For the first time, Washington has
allocated enough money and a time frame for missile defence deployment.

   Nothing earned Reagan more ridicule, contempt and contumely from the
international liberal establishment than his Star Wars dream, known in
those days as the Strategic Defence Initiative.

   Yet, as Henry Kissinger argues in his superb Diplomacy, it was a classic
example of decisive presidential leadership from Reagan, against the views
of even his closest advisers. And Reagan was right.

   SDI played a crucial role in ending the Cold War, as the prospect of the US
   embarking on a new frontier of high altitude defence technology
demoralised the Soviets, who knew they could never match the Americans in
this, and effectively forced them to sue for peace.

   Like all visionaries, Reagan was ahead of his time and the ultimate
deployment will involve somewhat different technology from his original
plan. Reagan envisaged a system of satellite-based lasers that could knock
down incoming missiles.

   THE Pentagon believes it can, by 2005 to 2007, deploy both Theatre
Missile Defence for specific areas, mainly in Asia (thus greatly upsetting
the Chinese), and National Missile Defence to cover the whole of
continental US (thus greatly upsetting the Russians).

   Although the technology is different from Reagan's dream, it is no less
dazzling. It will use space-based infra-red systems to detect
intercontinental ballistic missiles (isn't it fun to be able to write those
words again?) more or less the moment they are launched. In their boost
phase, ICBMs (ah, wonderful acronym) are big, slow, hot, heavy, lumbering
missiles. They are beautiful, juicy targets. That's when they are most
vulnerable. When they re-enter the Earth's atmosphere they are much
lighter, having shed most of their fuel, and begin to engage in various
anti-detection manoeuvres that make them more difficult to knock down.

   For knocking the ICBMs out of the sky, the US will use a variety of
systems, mainly land-based missiles such as the Patriots, which operated
with some success in the Gulf War. But they could also use sea-based
missiles and air-borne lasers, a development that has endeared the program
to the US Air Force.

   It's pretty well inconceivable, at this stage, that a system could be
effective enough to knock down thousands or even hundreds of simultaneously
launched missiles.  Thus basic deterrence between the US and Russia will be
preserved. But it is overwhelmingly likely that a system can be developed
that can deal with a few tens of missiles at a time.

   It is the phenomenon of missile proliferation and the consequent threat
of missiles from rogue States such as North Korea, Libya or even a
well-funded terrorist group sheltering within a rogue State which is
motivating the US. Such missiles could easily carry weapons of mass
destruction.

   The usual howls of protest will come from the usual suspects. But a
missile defence system is exactly that, a defence system. It cannot easily
be turned to offensive purposes. No one, other than those who might plan to
use missile intimidation to back up their diplomacy, can seriously oppose
the program as being militaristic.

   It does demonstrate how the US mastery of information technology is
going to place it increasingly far ahead of all possible competitors.
Happily, Australia, as an ally of the US, is fully participating in the
missile defence program.

   The US is the richest nation the world has ever seen and can well afford
$US10 billion for missile defence. If it stops, or better yet deters, a
single missile that could have been used against the US, it will have paid
for itself a thousand times over.

   Of course, terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction can take
other forms than missiles, which is why the Pentagon has also reinstated
vast civil defence programs on a scale unseen since the 1950s. Every
civilised nation has the duty to do what it can to prevent such terrorism.
Stopping missiles is a good start.

   It is utterly fitting and an irony of infinite sweetness that it should
be Clinton who implements the Reagan dream.

   Reagan was a real leader who shaped and defined the times in which he
governed.  Clinton is a billiard ball of a leader, bouncing off the soft
cushions of public life and, albeit with great skill, reflecting only the
force others have imparted to him.