Page 4
Daily Nebraskan
Thursday, January 21, 1982
Editorial
M
X missile; The expensive project nobody wants
The MX missile system has come a long
way. At one time it was the boondoggle
that Utah and Nevada didn't want. Now
it's the boondoogle that nobody wants.
It's not like the MX hasn't been
shopped around. Utah and Nevada got first
crack at it, and despite the urging of several
Defense Department bigwigs, they were
not buying. For a very brief time there was
talk of basing the MX system, or at least
part of it, in western Texas, but that plan
didn't seem to get very far. The Pentagon
would apparently be satisfied basing the
missiles anywhere, except the Pentagon.
Two administrations have had a chance
to scrap this colossal mistake, but both
have decided that this project is worth
while no matter how incredibly expensive
and unpopular it might be. No doubt the
only argument in favor of the MX system is
that we need it to keep up with the
Russian military buildup.
But must the Russians be the only and
constant consideration? Does it do us any
good to keep pace with the Russian
military if in so doing we lose track of the
American economy? It is interesting that in
this time of tight-fisted economics the
thought of pouring billions of dollars into a
product of such questionable value has not
been questioned.
Consider what we are getting with the
MX missile system. In the first place, it is
no longer the same system it started out to
be, as the need to find a place to put the
missiles meant the elimination of the
mobile basing mode. With that big selling
point gone, and rightfully so, it is hard to
imagine what the big advantage to the MX
missile is. Sure, it probably has the kind
of accuracy that will allow you to aim it at
the second floor men's room of the
Kremlin, but if the war gets to the point
where we are actually going to fire these
things, how much will another mile of
accuracy matter?
The very best thing that could happen
to the MX system if it is built is that it sits
and rots and never gets used. All the MX
can do is turn Russia into a blot on the
map when they turn us into a blot on the
map. Every justification ever presented for
the MX with the old mobile basing mode
was that if the Russians should attack (we,
of course, would never fire first) there
would be enough MX missiles to launch a
counterattack. If that is the case, it is hard
ly a device that will make us more secure.
Considering the state of flux the MX
missile system seems to be in, it is not too
late for President Reagan to avoid the mis
take President Carter made and unload the
MX missile system. An administration that
rolled into Washington claiming a mandate
from the people should realize the fact that
no state wants to house the MX system
represents another mandate - a mandate
to scrap this expensive and irresponsible
project.
T I I WO.
The proverbial hot potato
Reagan 's arms sale policy beneficial to Taiwan
The Reagan administration's decision in the matter of
arms for Taiwan appears to have annoyed both Taipei itnd
Peking, but not, in either case, quite to the point of un
endurabUity. The Nationalist government has insisted that it needs
F-16s, America's most advanced jet fighters, in order to
defend Taiwan and its neighboring straits and islands
against Red China. The Red Chinese, however, have
threatened to have a terminal case of hysterics if America
William
Rusher
sold those powerful planes to the Nationalists. The
Reagan administration, torn between its ideological
partiality toward Taiwan and its desire to keep Peking
oriented against Moscow (e.g., in such matters as the
current crackdown in Poland), dithered a bit, and has now
come forward with a decision that in effect splits the
difference: it has reaffirmed its right and intention to
keep on arming Taiwan, but will not sell it the particular
planes that Peking objects to so strenuously. How wise
was this decision?
The name of the game, as far as Chinese air power is
concerned, is control of the 100-mile-wide Strait of
Formosa that separates Taiwan from the Chinese main
land. Currently the skies over the strait are patrolled, and
controlled, by F-5E fighters of the Chinese (Nationalist)
Air Force, which are superior to most of the planes
possessed by the Communists. These fighters are manu
factured right on Taiwan under license from North Aviat
ion. As long as they continue to maintain air superiority
over the Strait of Formosa, any possibility of a successful
Communist invasion of Taiwan dwindles to the vanishing
point.
But fighter aircraft, like all of technology's children,
are forever being rendered obsolete as improvements in
design occur. And Taipei claims to have gotten wind of a
Peking plan to start producing a new fighter that, when it
takes to the skies in three or four years, will be capable of
outperforming the F-5E. That, Taipei contends, is why it
needs the F-16s now - for it will be too late to sell the
Nationalists these aircraft in 1984 or 1985 and start then
the long process of training Chinese pilots in their use.
But it is precisely here that the administration's
decision to equivocate may conceal certain advantages for
the Nationalists. For according to my information, Taipei
will be permitted to upgrade the performance character
istics of the F-5E in various technical respects. The plane
that Nationalist China will be flying over the Strait of
Formosa by 1984, therefore, may still be called an F-5E,
but it will have many of the attributes of a F-5G, which is
a distinctly better plane (albeit no F-16) and believed to
be quite capable of taking on anything Red China is likely
to put in the air.
Meanwhile the administration clearly has decided to
stand firm on the far more basic issue of its right to sell
arms of any kind to Taiwan. Such sales are authorized
under the terms of the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979,
which was enacted by Congress after President Carter's
rabbit-punch "derecognition" of Taipei in December
1978. But Peking has insisted that American's acknow
ledgment that Taiwan is a part of China make it improper,
under international law, for the United States to sell arms
to what Peking regards as mere rebels on its island
province.
The Reagan administration flatly disagrees, and has
reaffirmed its intention to go on selling the Nationalist
government a variety of military items and the spare parts
necessary to keep them functioning at top efficiency. In
the long run, Taipei needs this assurance far more than it
needs F-16 fighters or any other specific piece of equip
ment, and that is why, despite the Nationalists' thorough
ly understandable disappointment over their failure to get
the F-16s the administration's overall stance is almost cer
tainly, on balance, in their favor.
(c) 1982 Universal Press Syndicate
fyl Letters
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Concerns international
Serious abuses of human rights, ranging from exile or
imprisonment of political opponents to government-
sponsored kidnapping, torturing and murdering are wide
spread throughout the world. It is thus appalling, though
not unusual, to see Amnesty International, the London
based, Nobel prize-winning human rights organization,
criticized by people like William Rusher (Daily Nebraskan
Jan. 14) for its efforts to publicize and fight such abuses.
Rusher himself, like other right-wing ideologues, attacks
AI for focusing on abuses in countries allied with the U.S.
Meanwhile, Communists and other left-wing ideologues
criticize AI equally often and with equal vehemence for
focusing on abuses in the USSR and its allies or in un
aligned third-world nations.
The fact of the matter is that AI is concerned about
abuses of human rights wherever they occur, regardless of
the political or economic orientation of the government
responsible. Contrary to Rusher's claims, this can easily be
seen merely by noting the diversity of the countries dis
cussed in any AI newsletter or annual report.
David Moshman
Assistant Professor, Ed Psych & Social Foundations
Publications are balanced
On Jan. 14 you carried a column by William Rusher
criticizing Amnesty International. Mr. Rusher attacked AI
for providing "a propaganda tool of immense utility to
the Communists" by criticizing at times the human rights
puucies oi me united Mates and its authoritarian allies.
In the January issue of "Amnesty Action," the lead
story is about an AI appeal to Polish authorities because
of the large-scale detention of civilians under martial law.
On the inside is a story about repression in communist
China, as well as about AI communiques to President
Brezhnev concerning the detention and mistreatment of
Andrei Sakharov in the Soviet Union.
In sum, AI is a valuable human rights organization
which is careful about balance in its publications. It re
quires balance in the activities of its sections, requiring
them to "adopt" foreign political prisoners from differ
ent political camps - Western, Eastern, and Third World.
David. P. Forsythe
Professor
Political Science