Wednesday, May 23, 2001

Suppose that on Dec. 7, 1941, the U.S. had in place at Pearl Harbor advanced radar, the latest antiaircraft weapons, adequate pursuit and interceptor aircraft that compared to the Zero in maneuverability, and a navy already equipped with carrier task forces. In other words, a military specifically designed to thwart the most capable potential adversary in the Pacific. Would the Japanese have dared to attack?

All of these capabilities could have been available if the U.S. had put naivete and rosy scenarios aside and simply and realistically designed its forces to meet the actual threat present in 1941.

In one way, things are not so different now as they were at Pearl Harbor in 1941. While Russia and China have intercontinental missiles, and North Korea, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and Libya are building them, the U.S. has no intercontinental missile defense. The reasons are many, but the principle one is the determination of the Clinton-Gore Administration that we should depend on rosy scenarios and an invalid treaty that the Russians had been violating, without penalty, for years. How's that for naivete?

In addition, Clinton-Gore did everything possible, to the point of treason some say, to allow China to acquire the latest missile technology and nuclear warhead design and then acquiesced while China exported some of this technology to Pakistan, North Korea, Iraq and Iran, contrary to agreements with the Clinton-Gore Administration.

To make matters worse, Clinton-Gore failed to sanction the proliferators when these facts became known. Now China is joining Russia as the second country with a road-mobile ICBM that is practically undetectable, and this missile, the DF-31, has a warhead probably designed in the U.S.A.

China has already threatened the U.S. with nuclear weapons. They now have about 20 weapons that can hit the West Coast. And by design, we have no defense. Our options are to either simply absorb the strike and take millions of casualties ourselves, or retaliate and kill millions on the other side. This process is known as Mutual Assured Destruction, and is "mad-ness."

How much better it would be if we simply remember the lesson of Pearl Harbor and build defenses to match our potential adversaries' capabilities. In this case we could simply destroy that missile, harmlessly, above the Pacific Ocean. President Bush says we will build such a system. There should be no question that the nation who put men on the moon and brought them back 30 years ago can do this.

Clinton-Gore, with their slavish adherence to a "strategic partnership" with China, cavalier attitude toward national security, and insatiable desire for campaign money from any source, have made the need for national missile defense a necessity. Their lack of will to enforce laws and agreements, and their decisions to circumvent others, lies at the heart of both the rogue states' new capabilities and U.S. unpreparedness.

This situation must now be rectified by adapting our forces to fight and defeat the militaries of our potential adversaries, including an antimissile defense to protect both us and our allies, before the next Pearl Harbor.

William Fielder

Peachtree City

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