4 :Page 4 OPINION Saturday, October 1, 1983 Y e f, of t, I } w t t Striking back against a The Michigan Daily first-strike MX By Kim Miller The shape of the argument for building the MX missile continues to take on new forms as Congress readies to either approve or reject funding for he controversial weapon in late Oc- ober. The military has lobbied for ore than 10 years for the production of .his super-accurate, destabilizing, fir- t-strike weapon on a colorful assor- ment of arguments. Those arguments nust be rejected once and for all. The original selling point was simple: Since the United States has modern, ig, powerful and accurate weapon, it should add it to its nuclear arsenal. If =the military had the technology, the argument continued, it should moder- :te its weapons system to keep abreast ;~hhose advances in technology regar- ;cess of the military or political ends .tward which they contribute. CONGRESS didn't go along with that .easoning because of the awesome cost ;,and considerable question of merit on the necessity of the MX. So another argument developed around the vulnerability of existing land-based missiles. This argument said the United States needed the MX because its other land-based missiles were open to attack by Soviet inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).. But it soon became apparent that though U.S. land-based missiles were indeed vulnerable, there was no way to base the huge, cumbersome, ten- warhead MX to wipe out that vulnerability. President Reagan then took over the flight when he appointed the Scowcroft commission, assigning it the task of selling the MX to an increasingly skep- tical Congress. The commission 1 Edited and managed b Espm Editorials represent a ma missiles when the Soviets were ready, and both agree the world is less safe today due to their deployment of multiple independent reentry vehicles (MIRV) weapons. Nixon and Kissinger mistakenly thought the Soviets would negotiate from an inferior position. The time to ban MIRV weapons was lost as soon as the United States deployed them. Likewise today, the time to bargain away accurate, destabilizing weapons is prior to deployment, not after the fact when the Soviets will be forced to develop their own first strike weapons. WHEN THE bargaining chip argument was exposed for the fraud it was, Congress moved further away from support, for the MX. But the Korean jetliner incident now represen- ts, in a twisted way, an important reason to build the MX and "get tough" with the Soviets. This argument runs counter to any thoughtful analysis of the situation. The Soviets certainly fear the MX. They view it as it should be viewed: as a first- strike weapon capable of destroying Soviet missiles in thier silos, as well as knocking out communications and command bunkers buried under ground. More importantly, they have made it clear to U.S. arms negotiators AP Photo in Geneva that they will move to a com- if the puter based launch-on-warning stance if the MX and the Pershing II missiles are deployed. osals on te-range Inversely, the United States must es could move toward its own launch-on-war- f 100 MXs ning policy as soon as the' MX is hrms. deployed in existing, vulnerable ating the Minuteman III silos. The "use it or lose nd Henry it" logic is applicable to the MX de when situation, as the United States will lose ssed up a the retaliatory capability of ten warhead warheads for each MX knocked out by a single incoming Soviet missile. Therefore, the United States must launch the MX upon warning that a Soviet attack is on its way, and is unable to wait until a missile from th Soviet Union lands to respond in kind as policy has traditionally held. Of course, if the United States resorts to a launch-on- warning of a Soviet attack, it will be ac- cepting the message error prone com- puters. When both, sides are forced to move to a policy of launch-on-warning, the chances of accidental nuclear war are moved from possible to probable. It must be recognized that all of these shifts and changes of why the United States needs the MX covers up the reall reason the military feels they need this weapon. The MX represents a first step in the progression toward developing a capacity to deliver a decapitating first strike against the Soviet Union. The administration's leaks to the press regarding presidential talk of limited and winnable nuclear war are no mistake. They represent a sharp shift away from the traditional concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) to a very scary idea that nuclear war is not only conceivable, but winnable. We must not provide the strategists sitting behind their computers with the weapons they need to actually play the real game. The House of Represen- tatives and Senate will get a chance to send a clear message to the ad- ministration that thinkable nuclear war planning is not acceptable to the American public when the defense ap- propriations bill comes to a vote in Oc- tober by voting a decisive no to the MX. Miller is one of two Midwest organizers -for the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy. No, this isn't the latest basing modef Soviets launch a first strike. recommended that the United States move away from multiple warhead missiles and begin working on development of a small, single- warhead, mobile . missile - the Midgetman. But, the group maintained, plans for the MX should continue until the Midgetman could be readied for deployment. HERE, THE argument shifted to for the'MX. But the ten-warhead missiles are no better than sitting ducks embrace a line of illogic that the United States needed the MX for negotiation purposes even though there was no ef- fective answer to the vulnerability question. Many moderate members of Congress approved this idea until the U.S. Arms Control Agency announced that the MX was not actually on the bargaining table. Instead, it was being used as an incentive to get the Soviets to agree to other related prop strategic and intermedia weapons. The United Stat threaten to build 200 instead of if the Soviets did not come to te All Reagan is doing is repe mistake both Richard Nixon a Kissinger admit they ma negotiating SALT I. They pas chance to ban multiple y students at The University of Michigan 420 Maynard St. ajority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board Stewart PSN: Bucking passivism 1,a C9 __ ,; ,,, _ O .<. . . ,. ;_ */0 Y OU CAN DISAGREE with their tactics, and with their ideas, but you can't argue with the fact that the Progressive Student Network has managed, in a very small way, to break a trend of student passivism. The Progressive Student Network is a small student political activist group organized last year. Its members have devised protests and 1960s-like sit-ins to fight defense department research on campus, the University's five-year budget cutting plan, and national defense policies among other things. Students come to the University today with the idea that they are something like play-dough. They see themselves as formless blobs, unable to draw legitimate opinions about the real world until four years of college have molded them into "intelligent" human beings. And the University has done its part to support this attitude. Ad- ministrators and professors feel that one or two students are great to have around for advice on policy decisions, but for God's sake, they aren't smart' enough to have an actual vote. Some administrators have even managed to convince themselves that students do not want to vote, that they are happy as muted consultants. The result is a student body mired in passivism, always acted upon, always excluded from the decisions which mold the University. The passivism has allowed administrators to openly adopt a policy which says students do not deserve an active role in decision- making, even if they are most affected by those decisions. In their own way, PSN members buck the tradition. They see problems with the Univeristy and with society, and they try to solve them. Their solutions happen to be politically ac- tivist ones, similar to those of the 60s. Actually, they have little choice. With so few members, they cannot hope to change anything by working within a system thousands of times larger than themselves. With sit-ins and protests they can at least provoke some debate and keep issues alive. But activism is not the only solution. With more people, working within the system would be much more produc- tive. Under its surface, the University is a turbulent, intellectual community. It is constantly reevaluating its role in society - Who should it teach? What should it teach? What should it resear- ch? The discussion goes on daily. Today, however, the students are left out. i __.. + Z we---- 144 7-- - lomb, Impoll"- -ir,.. w. 14 Pe8a-nutts . A 4 LETTERS TO THE DAILY: GEO leaders out of touch again r To the Daily: It was with great interest that many of us read in the, Daily ("GEO, University reach accord," Daily, September 28) that the GEO had reached a contract agreement with the University. Are these really the same parties who were so quick to condemn the preceding bargaining team for agreeing to a contract without the full support and consent of the membership? I feel that a number of com- ments are in order. The union leadership has again shown itself to be totally out of touch with the opinions and concern of TAs. Most TAs realize that there is a far greater correlation between the financial plight of TAs and the University's share of the state budget than there is between their fiscal health and the feeble sabre rattling of a politically motivated GEO leadership. their membership dues or representation fee can be inter- preted in no other way. Class size is not a major con- cern per se. When the mathematics department offered the option of teaching two large instead of three small classes for the same pay many TAs were eager to pursue this option despite having a preference for teaching smaller classes. It is' workload that counts, not class size. It will be interesting to see if this new contract is ratified. It contains nothing significantly new over the previous contract which was rejected by 57 percent of the voters. In fact it is hard to get people to the polls to vote for what they perceive as something BLOOM COUNTY that the University is going to give anyway. For the same reason many feel that there is nothing to lose by voting against the contract. The main problem with ratification is that the GEO constitution makes it virtually impossible because at least 50 percent of the members in good standing have to vote in favor in a secret ballot. It cannot be done at a membership meeting as in- dicated in your article. In conclusion, many people are questioning if there is an advan- tage in supporting a union like GEO. Most of the money we pay in membership dues goes directly into the coffers of the parent union, which means the union has very little money to work with. ALK ToIMF 1%LK To TEIM /GEC! There is not even enough left to meet the constitutionally obligated payment into the strike 4 fund. The record of GEO is in- deed a sad one. Any real gains TAs achieved were as a result of TAs taking action against the University, rather than by a weak GEO trying to exert its pressure. We would be far better off with an independent TA union operating under a sensible con- stitution which constrains union officers to deal in the affairs of TAs rather than in peripheral 4 political ideals, and which en- sures that dues collected are used for the benefit of TAs in the University . - Derek Westwood September 30 by Berke Breathed yrll I I I I