America’s fraudulent missile defense program continues to threaten world security
Photo: Lockheed Martin
Photo: Space4Peace.org
The U.S. Missile Defense system, enthusiastically promoted by the outgoing Bush administration, has long been met with criticism and doubt within the scientific community. In this episode, Dr. Caldicott talks with Dr. Ted Postol, Professor of Science, Technology and National Security Policy in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Postol, winner of the 2001 Norbert Weiner award from Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, has defiantly uncovered numerous false claims about missile defense made by his employer, which he claims is “representing a weapons system they know will not work as something that will work.”
He describes how the idea of a missile defense system fits in with U.S. strategic nuclear policy and how such a system is dangerously flawed. Dr. Postol and Dr. Caldicott talk about how Russia and China perceive America’s new missile-defense installations in Poland and Czechoslovakia, moves which Dr. Postol calls “worse than irrational.” Dr. Postol says that any nuclear weapons accident occurring at a time of heightened tension between the U.S. and Russia would be more catastrophic than anything the human race has ever experienced. He mentions the 1995 false alarm that brought the world close to nuclear annihilation when a sounding rocket set off the early-warning system of Russia. Read Going Postol in the Boston Globe Magazine about Dr. Postol’s issues with MIT.
The hour concludes with Dr. Caldicott’s summary of missile defense or “Star Wars,” which she calls “crazy, provocative, and dangerous,” from the time Ronald Reagan introduced the idea in 1984 - at a time of nearly unanimous public support for global nuclear disarmament - to the present. She outlines how this “useless program” has mostly benefited universities, to the tune of $100 billion. There are signs that missile defense development will continue under the Obama administration, especially if the pro-Star Wars Robert Gates is retained as Defense Secretary. She describes the new $38 billion missile defense office complex to be opened in 2010 near Washington, D.C. Read the Time magazine article Why Obama Will Continue Star Wars.
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