Real Missile Defense

A. Scott Piraino

We need missile defense. The threat from emerging nuclear powers is real and growing. But as the terrorist attacks of September 11th have shown, missiles are not the only means an enemy has to strike at us.

Last December President Bush ordered a missile defense system to be activated by September 30th, 2004. Prior to issuing that order, the Bush administration had released contingency plans to attack seven nations in the event of a nuclear emergency. Since then events have rapidly spun out of control.

Recently the North Korean regime admitted that they were producing nuclear weapons, and they already have missiles that can reach Alaska, and US bases in Japan and Okinawa. Nor can we ignore China’s growing arsenal. Thanks to technology transfers during the Clinton administration and theft of US nuclear weapon designs, China is now deploying the DF-31. This mobile missile has a one megaton warhead and a range of 5000 miles, making it capable of hitting the US.

In response the Pentagon has proposed an elaborate, multi-tiered missile shield. Total cost will be near 50 billion dollars when the entire system is deployed in 2026. The Clinton and Bush administrations have already spent over 30 billion dollars on development and testing. After all this, the missile system has failed three out of eight attempted intercepts.

A recent General Accounting Office report warns that the Pentagon plans to field an untested system that relies on unproven technology. But the GAO report does not go far enough. While the US squanders billions on a dubious missile shield, cheaper alternative systems are ignored.

Israel is the only nation with a missile defense shield in place. After eight successful intercepts in nine attempts, the Arrow missile has been deployed by the Israeli Air Force. This system was developed in the United States for less than three billion dollars, with US taxpayers paying over half of the cost.

Although the Arrow system is designed to intercept shorter range missiles like those deployed by North Korea, the Arrow can be deployed now. For a fraction of what the Pentagon has already spent on missile defense, this system could already be protecting Alaska, and our armed forces in Asia. In addition, since the Arrow uses more proven technology, increasing the missile’s range would be a more cost effective solution.

But the most promising technology for missile defense is not a missile at all. The Airborne Laser, or ABL, is a modified Boeing 747 with a powerful laser mounted in the aircraft’s nose. Once operational, the ABL will be able to shoot down hostile missiles from hundreds of miles away.

This system promises not just defense but deterrence. The ABL will destroy hostile missiles much earlier in their flight, dropping the payload onto the aggressor’s own soil. Potential enemies contemplating a missile attack will face the prospect of their warheads detonating on their own territory.

Unfortunately, funding for the Airborne laser was not originally included in the budget for missile defense. Although developing the ABL has cost less than three billion dollars, the Air Force removed 800 million dollars from the program three years ago to fund the latest fighter aircraft. This has caused a delay in testing the first prototype. The first Airborne Laser was originally scheduled to shoot down a missile this year, now that test has been postponed until December of 2004.

Ultimately, all this talk about missile defense misses a crucial point. Missiles are just a means of delivery, the warheads they carry make them dangerous. We must defend our country against nuclear attack, not just missile attack.

No missile shield will prevent terrorists from smuggling nuclear bombs into our cities and detonating them.

In a study released after September 11th, the CIA acknowledged the increased threat from ballistic missiles, but concluded that terrorists using weapons of mass destruction was even more likely. Last month the Federal Government submitted an unclassified report to the UN security council. The report warned that there was a “high probability” Al-Qaeda terrorists will use WMD to attack the United States within the next two years.

During trail testimony in 1998, Al Qaeda members admitted trying to purchase weapons grade plutonium from Russia. In May of last year US authorities arrested an Al Qaeda terrorist for plotting to build a primitive bomb using nuclear material. Since the end of the Cold War there have been concerns about the safety of Russia’s weapon storage sites, and even rumors that nuclear warheads have disappeared.

Instead of making the security of these weapons a top priority, the Bush administration has reduced funding for a Department of Energy program that monitors Russia’s nuclear stockpile. The DoE is also responsible for detecting nuclear materials being smuggled into this country. The Nuclear Emergency Situation Team, or NEST, uses radiation detectors to locate and neutralize hidden atomic weapons. A program to develop more sensitive radiation detectors for NEST languished during the Clinton Administration, only to be resurrected after September 11th.

The threat of a nuclear attack against the United States is a gravely serious national security issue, but you wouldn’t know that by observing our defense priorities.

We could purchase the Arrow missile, fund the Airborne laser, and buy Russia’s surplus nuclear stockpile all for less money than the proposed national missile defense system. Unfortunately, these systems are not expensive enough to attract the attention of defense contractors. Instead the Pentagon bureaucracies plan to leisurely spend 50 billion dollars over the next twenty years on another expensive, useless boondoggle.

We don’t have twenty years to purchase a missile defense system that may not even work. The United States faces new enemies, some of whom will stop at nothing to destroy us. A nuclear attack on our country either by enemy missile or terrorist bomb, is no longer a possibility, but a matter of when and where.

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The Nerve of the Federal Reserve

A. Scott Piraino

In 1981 the United States entered the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. With the country mired in recession President Reagan proposed a novel solution: Cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans so they could spend and invest more money.

As if by magic, the recession of 1981 ended the following year. Not because of Reagan’s tax cuts of course, but because the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates. Paul Volcker, the Fed Chairman at that time, was determined to crush the rampant inflation of the 1970’s once and for all. His draconian solution was to send interest rates soaring to over twenty percent.

This caused the recession of 1981 and the Reagan administration knew it.

But that did not stop them from using the recession as an excuse to pass the biggest tax cut in US history. Quasi-economic terms like “supply side” and “trickle down” were used to give Reagan’s proposal an academic veneer. In fact Reaganomics was nothing more than intellectual camouflage to reduce taxes for the rich.

Although Paul Volcker coordinated the recession of 1981 with the Reagan Administration, he can perhaps be excused for jarring the US economy to a halt. He had to stifle the real, chronic, double digit inflation that plagued the country during the oil shocks of the 1970‘s.

Alan Greenspan on the other hand, has not concerned himself with real inflation, but with “wage inflation” and “employment costs”. More quasi-economic terms, but these are simply euphemisms for “pay raise”. And his battle against wage inflation has been a success.

The decade of the 1990’s saw the longest economic expansion in US history. Worker productivity increased at its fastest pace in thirty years, while inflation remained at historically low levels. Yet US workers today earn less than they did twenty years ago, after adjusting for the miniscule rate of inflation. Per capita income has climbed only because a handful of our wealthiest citizens have made obscene profits.

Throughout the tech boom of the 1990’s, Alan Greenspan’s monetary policy prevented the US economy from growing so fast that employers would have to pay higher wages.

He has lowered interest rates, but to bail out the global economy, not to ensure rising incomes for Americans. When the Asian markets collapsed in 1998, Mr. Greenspan quickly came to the rescue of global financiers by lowering interest rates. He even helped negotiate a bailout of East Asia’s economies at US taxpayer expense.

At the same time Alan Greenspan made a speech where he languidly described the plight of blue collar workers by saying, “workers should move from the steel districts of western Pennsylvania to a vibrant Silicone Valley“. He went on to call wage-challenged American workers “victims of progress”. Of course Alan Greenspan supports manufacturing, but only in low-wage nations where global corporations can make higher profits.

While Greenspan was fighting a battle against non-existent inflation, the economy has been undermined by a far more dangerous economic stimulus, speculation. Nearly seven trillion dollars in investors wealth has disappeared since the stock market meltdown began in spring of 2000. Investment banks are already reeling from the collapse of stock prices, but they are stifling worries about the biggest speculative bubble of all.

Derivatives are hedge funds, or bets based on the fluctuations of various markets. These funds avoid regulation by limiting their clientele to only the wealthiest and most sophisticated investors. Their operations and balance sheets are secret, unknown to regulators, and the rest of the financial system. Billionaire investor Warren Buffet has called derivatives “weapons of mass destruction”.

Mr. Greenspan recently expressed concern over the stability of the 142 trillion dollar derivatives market, but he cannot raise the alarm too loudly. He would incite the very panic that he fears. JP Morgan alone has 25 trillion dollars invested in derivatives, that’s a portfolio twice the size of the US economy. The implosion of one of these huge funds would set off a chain of financial failures, precipitating a monetary crisis.

Five years ago the Federal Reserve took the unprecedented step of bailing out a derivative fund to prevent its collapse. Long Term Capital Management received a 3.5 billion dollar bailout orchestrated by Mr. Greenspan. The firm had leveraged that small sum into 1.25 trillion dollars worth of derivatives.

In addition to rampant speculation, the Fed must be wary of our debt. Thanks to Reaganomics, the national debt stands at 6.5 trillion dollars. Thanks to President Bush’s tax cuts, that debt is growing again. Both our trade and budget deficits will surpass $400 billion this year, new record highs.

At this weeks meeting of the G-7 Nations, central bankers expressed concern about the soaring deficits in the United States. There is now an international consensus that the US dollar must be devalued, but Treasury Secretary John Snow is seeking to avoid the inevitable. He traveled to China last week seeking to remove that country’s artificial exchange rate, and pressured the European Community to lower interest rates, all of which would bolster the sagging dollar.

The recent instability of the dollar in world markets represents investors real fear for the stability of our economy, and our ability to finance our deficits. In the event of a financial panic, the Fed could be forced to monetize, or create the money, to pay our debts. And this brings us to the real purpose of the Federal Reserve.

The Government and people of the United States do not print their own currency, only debt. The US Treasury prints bonds, which the Federal Reserve buys for dollars. The interest we pay on those bonds is our national debt.

Not even war stops the Federal Reserve, and this process of debt creation.

After the September 11th attacks the US government enacted a 55 billion dollar emergency spending measure. At the same time Alan Greenspan ensured the stability of the banks “through an extraordinary infusion of funds”. The day after the attacks the Fed purchased 61 billion dollars worth of bonds in exchange for cash and distributed $41 billion to the banks.

While the people of the United States go further into debt to fight the War on Terror, the banks create money for free. The Federal Reserve prints currency in exchange for bonds, but other banks also expand the money supply by extending loans, in both cases creating debt. This ability to create money for free, while increasing the public debt is the insidious truth behind our private banking system.

When economists and media pundits discuss the Federal Reserve, the subject is always the Fed’s control of interest rates. By lowering interest rates, the Fed is simply giving banks incentive to create new loans, and increase economic activity. Alan Greenspan has engineered twelve interest rate cuts since the market meltdown in 2000, in an attempt to stimulate the economy.

But stimulate what? Manufacturing is now done in nations where our corporations do not have to pay American wages, (see the trade deficits above). At least the capitalists of past boom and bust cycles built factories and infrastructure in this country. Today’s oligarchs are not concerned with creating or distributing wealth, but in siphoning that wealth to themselves.

Alan Greenspan works for those oligarchs. He is more concerned with ensuring that the assets of the wealthy are not devalued by inflation, than in ensuring rising wages and income for the majority. He has endorsed more tax cuts for our wealthiest citizens and trade agreements that give corporations more power than governments.

The United States faces a financial reckoning, either by currency de-valuation, or by the Federal Reserve being forced to monetize our debt. Whatever the outcome, Alan Greenspan deserves his share of the blame. Because he knows exactly what he is doing.

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Chasing the Dragon

A. Scott Piraino
China has grown from an agrarian backwater into the world’s third largest economy in the last twenty years. While our yearly trade deficits with China have risen from zero to over 100 billion dollars a year, their country has been the world’s fastest growing economy. China has become a colossus precisely because of these trade deficits.

The global economy has been very good to China. Their country has been industrialized with someone else’s money, ours. Throughout the 1990s US corporations increased their factory investments in China, seeking an endless supply of cheap labor.

China is not our ally. Their trade policy has always served to advance Chinese industry and technology. And with this new wealth, China has sought military parity with the United States.

However, they could not modernize their armed forces without US expertise. Several US companies wanted to sell weapons and technology to the Chinese, but the sales were prohibited by law. Economic sanctions for the Tiananmen Square massacre and restrictions on technology exports prevented US corporations from selling China the armaments they wanted.

The Chinese turned to a shadowy cast of characters that funneled millions of dollars into Democratic Party campaign coffers. These illegal donations were instrumental in re-electing Bill Clinton in 1996. President Clinton took contributions he knew came from China, and played another angle as well.

In return for campaign contributions, the Clinton administration relaxed export controls and allowed corporations to decide on their own if their technology transfers were legal or not. When easing restrictions wasn’t enough, Clinton signed waivers that simply circumvented the law. The President’s waivers allowed the export of missile technology, defense electronics, and even a communications system for the Chinese Air Force.

In one extraordinary case of corruption, the CEO’s of Loral and Hughes each donated over one million dollars to Clinton’s re-election campaign. These companies had an interest in seeing China develop reliable missiles to loft their satellites into orbit. Both companies were allowed to upgrade the launching and guidance of China’s missiles.

In June of 1995, the CIA learned that China had stolen the crown jewels of our nuclear arsenal, including the neutron bomb and the W-88 miniaturized warhead. Later that year National Security Advisor Anthony Lake was briefed on the thefts. He was quickly replaced on the Security Council by Sandy Berger, a former lobbyist for Chinese interests. In June of 1996, before Bill Clinton’s re-election, the FBI opened a formal investigation into the theft of US nuclear weapon designs.

When the press learned that China had stolen nuclear weapon designs from US research labs, the Clinton administration downplayed and even denied the reports. But this scandal was too big to ignore, and Congress began a formal investigation by forming the Cox committee. The administration was forced to reveal the extent of China’s nuclear espionage, while insisting that Clinton was not told about the thefts until 1998, three years after the fact.

The Cox Committee report was released early in 1999. It confirmed that China had stolen the neutron bomb design and the W-88 miniaturized warhead. The W-88 would allow China to field smaller, mobile missiles and carry multiple warheads on larger missiles. In addition, the Cox report proved that US corporations illegally transferred “missile design information and know-how”. Chief among the offenders were Loral and Hughes.

On October 1st, 1999, the fiftieth anniversary of China’s communist takeover, a new missile was paraded through the streets of Beijing. The DF-31 is a modern, mobile nuclear missile capable of hitting targets in the United States. The rocket motor and guidance systems were made possible by Loral and Hughes. The nuclear warhead is a copy of the W-88, stolen from the US.

The Chinese have not disguised their plans to use these weapons. In March of 1996, on the eve of Taiwan’s first democratic elections, China used the threat of force to intimidate the island nation into electing a pro-Beijing candidate. Military maneuvers included bombing runs and launching ballistic missiles that impacted within twenty miles of the island. When the United States sent an aircraft carrier into the Taiwan straits, a Chinese general threatened to “rain down nukes upon Los Angeles”.

In the summer of 1999 the pro-independence leadership of Taiwan called for talks with China on a state-to-state basis. The enraged Chinese demanded Taiwan enter unification talks or face attack. A communist Party approved newspaper published a plan to conquer Taiwan. It involved using neutron bombs against any Taiwanese resistance and a nuclear standoff with the United States.

The incoming Bush administration confronted this new China when a US Navy surveillance plane was damaged in a mid-air collision with a Chinese fighter. The US aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing on a Chinese island. 24 crewmen were held for eleven days and repeatedly interrogated by PLA soldiers.

President Bush initially threatened to withdraw China’s normal trade status and block entry into the WTO if the airmen were not released. Instead the Bush administration appeased China’s demands by apologizing for the dead fighter pilot that caused the collision, and for the reconnaissance plane landing on Chinese soil without permission. Immediately after the crisis, the administration signaled that there would be no long term damage to US-China relations.

True to his word, President Bush granted China normal trade status after the spy plane incident. Nor has his administration investigated, or even mentioned, the China scandals of the Clinton era. While US warplanes were bombing Afghanistan, President Bush did not miss a chance to attend a summit in China, even appearing on national television wearing traditional Chinese robes.

The fact is, the US has very little leverage over China. In the event of an economic crisis or military confrontation, the Chinese could simply seize all US assets in their country. This would bankrupt many of our own corporations that manufacture exclusively in China.

The Bush administration has no choice but to maintain a pro-China policy, because they are in hock to the same corporate interests that corrupted Bill Clinton. American corporations have spent hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying our elected officials to pass free trade agreements and legalize technology exports. China has not been industrialized by US presidents seeking “engagement”, but by our own corporations, seeking profits.

A few American stockholders have made fortunes modernizing China’s armed forces, still more US companies have built factories in China. These factories and plenty of cheap, docile labor earn huge profits for these investors. Protecting these profits is America’s China policy.

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The De-Evolution of Warfare

A. Scott Piraino

Conventional warfare is dead. More precisely, wars with national armies fighting across opposing lines will be the exception in the future, not the rule. Instead the twentieth century has seen the rise of guerrilla warfare and its vicious stepchild, terrorism.

The Boer war was the first modern guerrilla war. In 1906, German settlers fought the British Empire for control of South Africa’s wealth. In a war of small battles and skirmishes, Boers used hit and run tactics to stalemate the British troops. The term “commando” was first used to describe these small units carrying out raids and ambushes.

The tactics of guerrilla warfare are simple. Modern automatic weapons and explosives make small groups of soldiers much more lethal. They can strike quickly at occupying forces, then disappear into the native population. In a war against a hidden enemy, the occupying army becomes demoralized and withdraws.

Terrorism is a de-evolution of guerrilla warfare. Instead of targeting an occupying army, an entire population becomes the enemy. Using anything from makeshift bombs to weapons of mass destruction, small groups of fanatics can cause death and destruction far out of proportion to their numbers

We can argue the morality of this new warfare, but we cannot deny its effectiveness. Guerrillas have defeated the US in Vietnam, and the Russians in Afghanistan. A bombing campaign forced the French to withdraw from Algeria. After ten years of terrorist warfare the exhausted British have negotiated a peace settlement with the IRA.

Western Democracies have had few successes against this new form of warfare. Our troops are brave and skilled, but our generals and political leaders order the impossible. In theater after theater, they have sent armies to occupy hostile territory, then lacked the stomach to prosecute the war as viciously as the enemy.

Only repressive regimes can finally defeat guerrillas and terrorists. Since it is futile to fight an elusive enemy hiding in hostile country, the solution is to target the entire population. Ethnic cleansing has emerged as a cruel but efficient military strategy, but liberal governments hesitate to use this tactic.

Again, we can argue the morality of ethnic cleansing, but we cannot deny its effectiveness. This is the truth of the new war; It is no longer possible to conquer hostile territory without deporting or destroying the hostile population. This does not bode well for conflicts raging around the world today.

In Chechnya, the Russians are seeking to avenge their failed invasion of 1996, when the Red Army was humiliated by Chechen guerrillas. Unable to expel the Russian army with conventional forces, The Chechens have resorted to ambushes, raids, and terrorist bombings in Russian cities. The Russians cannot win, but are unwilling to withdraw and admit defeat. They have resorted to scorched earth tactics, in effect ethnically cleansing the Chechen people.

Israel has been locked in an endless war of attrition with the Palestinians for over thirty years. Of course Israel cannot withdraw from the conflict without dissolving their country. So they endure uprisings, raids, and now suicide bombings from the Palestinians who hate them. The bloodshed will continue unless both sides make a lasting peace, or one group is deported or destroyed.

Now that the United States has been drawn into a War on Terror, we face the same military dilemma. In response to the September 11th attacks, the US immediately invaded Afghanistan. Operation Anaconda was a sweep of the mountainous terrain in Afghanistan, seeking the terrorists responsible for the attacks.

We have arrested many suspected terrorists, but we have certainly not destroyed Al Qaeda, or captured Osama Bin Laden. In the past month, battles with Taliban guerrillas have intensified, with reports of hundreds of soldiers and aircraft fighting near the border with Pakistan. Our war in Afghanistan is far from over. So far 35 US troops have been killed, many more have been wounded, and the targets of terrorist attacks.

After September 11th, no one could deny our right to pursue the perpetrators of such murderous acts. But the Bush administration has given up the moral high ground with this reckless invasion of Iraq. Now in Addition to Afghanistan, 130,000 US troops are committed to a hazardous occupation of Iraq.

Since Operation Iraqi Freedom officially ended on May 1st, 182 US soldiers have been killed, more casualties than during the invasion. The commander of the occupation forces in Iraq recently admitted that there are an average of fifteen attacks per day against US troops. The Iraqi resistance is using modern guerrilla tactics, hit and run attacks and terrorist bombings.

Terrorist bombs have struck the UN headquarters in Iraq, the Jordanian embassy, and a very powerful car bomb struck a holy shrine in Najaf. 140 people have been killed and hundreds more wounded by these attacks. So far these attacks have not claimed any American lives, but that will inevitably change now that the bombs are aimed at US troops.

Two weeks ago a suicide bomber drove a truck laden with explosives into a US command post in Irbil, killing two Iraqis and wounding 53, including four Americans. Yesterday a another suicide carbomb was detonated just short of the Bagdhad Hotel, killing six bystanders and wounding dozens more. Both bombs were aimed at US personnel, and only the fortunes of war have prevented any US deaths.

The US invasion of Iraq is devolving into a guerrilla war, a war we cannot win. This unwarranted invasion has only fueled the grievances of radical Muslims, and provided these militants with convenient targets by placing US troops in their midst. The Bush administration is still telling us that we can win the War on Terror by occupying Iraq. They would do well to remember two earlier US interventions in the turbulent Middle East.

In 1983 the United States entered a civil war in Lebanon, then withdrew after a terrorist bombing destroyed a Marine barracks, inflicting hundreds of casualties. In Somalia, a commando mission went awry, and a company of US Army Rangers was caught in a ferocious firefight in the city of Mogadishu. The United States withdrew from both theatres after suffering ignomious defeat at the hands of local guerrilla and terrorist fighters.

The Commanding General of US ground forces admitted last week that the Iraqi resistance was growing stronger and more tenacious. Of course he did not publicly condemn the war or admit to the futility of conquering Iraq. But he did add that, “we should not be surprised if one of these days we wake up to find there’s been a major firefight or a major terrorist attack”.

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A Bright Shining Lie

A. Scott Piraino

The President’s pretense for launching this invasion was his assurance that Iraq had, or would soon develop, Weapons of Mass Destruction. Now those accusations have been proven false, and it is impossible to believe that President Bush actually thought those weapons ever existed. The Bush administration does have overwhelming evidence of a rogue state developing nuclear weapons, but in North Korea, not Iraq.

In the weeks leading up to the invasion of Iraq, a ship loaded with North Korean Scud missiles was intercepted heading for Yemen. The Bush administration dithered, then let the ship sail to its destination. Yemen is an ally of the US after all, and it would not do to protest too loudly against the North Koreans, while beating the drums for war with Iraq.

The North Koreans took offense anyway. Angered by the ship’s seizure, they announced the next day the reactivation of a nuclear reactor capable of producing weapons grade uranium. They ordered UN inspectors out of their country, and dismantled surveillance equipment at their nuclear facilities. While UN inspectors were being evicted from North Korea, they were on the ground in Iraq, searching for Weapons of Mass Destruction.

The UN team failed to find any illegal weapons in Iraq, even though Saddam’s regime provided a 12,000 page report detailing their weapons programs. The Iraqis allowed the inspectors to search anywhere they pleased, and were very forthcoming with information, but this did not satisfy the Bush administration. Iraq was declared in “material breech” of UN demands, and President Bush launched his invasion.

After the invasion of Iraq, North Korea became the first nation to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. North Korea probably has a few atomic bombs, but after seizing 8000 fuel rods being guarded by the UN, they will definitely have nuclear weapons within a few months. Yesterday they announced that those fuel rods have been reprocessed into weapons grade uranium, enough to produce several nuclear warheads.

The Bush administration’s only response has been to quietly unveil the Proliferation Security Initiative. Although not a proper blockade, the US will monitor North Korean ports of entry and search ships and aircraft after they’ve left the country. In effect the US is trying to prevent North Korea from exporting the nuclear weapons we now know they have.

Now the Bush administration must deal with Iran. After invading Iraq, the Bush administration began threatening Iran into allowing UN inspections of that country’s nuclear facilities. The inspectors found evidence that the Iranians were enriching uranium, a necessary process in making nuclear weapons.

The Iranians are not stupid, they have seen what Bush has done to their neighbor Iraq. They are offering to negotiate with the UN, and even with the United States, as long as negotiations are “based on mutual respect and equal footing”. But the Iranians have refused to stop their nuclear programs, and they continue to enrich uranium.

This administration is rapidly losing control of world events. Instead of dealing with North Korea and Iran, President Bush has embroiled one third of our Army in a bloody occupation of Iraq. Not only has the White House manufactured lies to justify this war, they have also ignored the truth, which is much more frightening.

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The Trials of Microsoft

A. Scott Piraino

Microsoft owes their monopoly to a crucial mistake made by IBM Corporation.

When IBM debuted the personal computer in 1984, it had a central processor made by Intel, and operating software from Microsoft. IBM did not seek patents for the entire computer, and soon other companies were copying, (or cloning), the PC. As more companies cloned the PC, Intel and Microsoft became the two key suppliers to the computer industry.

It is important that we realize this, now that Microsoft is worth more than IBM, Boeing, or even General Motors, all without manufacturing anything. The company did not become today’s software goliath through skill or innovation. Microsoft was only able to eliminate their business rivals after being handed a monopoly on computer operating systems.

Microsoft’s first competitor was an operating system offered by Novell corporation, called DR-DOS. Although the program had similar capabilities to Microsoft’s own DOS program, e-mails reveal a deliberate policy to spread “fear, uncertainty, and doubt” about the rival software. Programs were written to work with MS-DOS, but fail when ran under Novell’s operating system. It worked. DR-DOS disappeared, and today Novell is nearly bankrupt.

Next Microsoft copied technology from Apple computer to create the Windows operating system. This program had a user friendly graphical interface and quickly became the standard on all IBM type PCs. Since anyone could clone IBM’s computers, but no one else could manufacture Apple’s machines, sheer numbers of PCs reduced Apple to a fringe player.

By 1991 Windows operating systems were installed on 90% of all PCs. Microsoft then began leveraging their operating system monopoly into the market for software applications. Contracts with computer manufacturers required them to include MS Office when installing Windows on their machines. This put word processors, spreadsheets, and other programs from rival software vendors at a disadvantage.

The Justice Department took note and began scrutinizing Microsoft’s business practices. To avoid charges of violating anti-trust laws, the company signed a consent decree in 1994. This barred them from leveraging their Windows monopoly to control the market for other software products.

Microsoft had won the battle for the desktop, but a new challenge would come from the emerging World Wide Web.

In the mid 1990’s a silicone valley company created a computer program that allowed users to access the internet and view not just text, but graphics, video, and sound. This company became Netscape, and the computer program became the web browser, Navigator. Then Sun Microsystems debuted a revolutionary computer language called Java. A program written in this language could be accessed over the internet and ran on any computer, regardless of type.

A new, internet based computer architecture threatened to make the Windows operating system obsolete. As Netscape’s Navigator became the standard on all PCs Microsoft’s programmers rushed to create their own web browser. But the first version of Internet Explorer released in 1996 was clearly inferior to Navigator. To improve it, Microsoft had to have Java.

They licensed the new programming language from Sun Microsystems, then created “Wintel Java”, a version that only ran under Windows. Sun sued Microsoft for violating the licensing agreement, but the damage was done. Microsoft used their Wintel Java to create a new and improved Internet Explorer.

The problem was, Navigator was already installed on millions of computers. To overcome Netscape’s market advantage, Microsoft forced computer manufacturers to bundle Internet Explorer with Windows on all new computers. This excluded Netscape’s web browser from 90% of all new computers, and violated the consent decree of 1994.

Finally, in May of 1998, the Department of Justice and 19 states file suit against Microsoft for violating anti-trust laws and extending their monopoly on software. In opening arguments Microsoft argued that they weren’t a monopoly at all. But they couldn’t deny that Windows and Office were installed on 90% of personal computers. If further proof were needed, the price of Windows had not declined in ten years, even while computer prices dropped 50 percent.

As the trail progressed the central issue became Microsoft’s leveraging of that monopoly to control the market for web browsers. Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson issued a preliminary order to stop the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows. Microsoft immediately appealed that order in another court and it was overturned.

During the two year trail Internet Explorer continued to be installed on all new PCs. Netscape was forced to distribute their browser for free, but with no revenue their business collapsed. In November of 1998 the company was sold to America Online.

Microsoft’s lawyers crowed that Netscape’s demise made the trail unnecessary, but it only highlighted their sleazy tactics. At one point during the trail defense lawyers brought a doctored version of Internet Explorer into the courtroom, they were caught. When called to the stand, Microsoft founder and CEO Bill Gates alternated between belligerency and amnesia, even denying knowledge of e-mails he had written.

Needless to say these antics did not endear them to the judge and the company lost the case. Microsoft has been found guilty of violating anti-trust laws and abusing their monopoly power. Judge Jackson’s decision was to order Microsoft split into two companies. One company would own the Windows franchise, the other would control all applications, including Office and Internet Explorer.

Microsoft pundits complained that splitting the company would be a disaster, citing the court ordered breakup of AT&T in the 1980s. Of course this was nonsense, AT&T was a huge company with employees and infrastructure throughout North America. Microsoft has no factories and virtually all their assets are electronic.

The breakup was to take effect within one year after all appeals were exhausted. Instead Microsoft lawyers maneuvered their appeal into the very same court that overturned Judge Jackson’s order during the trail. In June of 2001, the Washington D.C. appellate court overturned the decision to break the company in two.

Microsoft’s lawyers have dodged the legal bullet, but they are almost too busy to gloat.

The company has been sued for anti-competitive practices by the new owners of DR-DOS. AOL Time Warner sued for damages over the demise of the Navigator browser, the case was recently settled for 750 million dollars. The lawsuit with Sun Microsystems is ongoing, and the court has already found Microsoft to be in violation of the Java licensing agreement.

After a federal court has found them a monopoly, Microsoft faces hundreds of class-action lawsuits filed on behalf of consumers. The State of California just settled one such civil suit with the software giant for over one billion dollars. Many more class action cases are now being consolidated in a Baltimore court.

Microsoft’s business strategy is clear: Steal technology and ideas from competitors, and when sued for breaking the law simply tie the matter up in the courts. Microsoft has been sued by the company that invented browser plug-in technology, Apple Computer, Sun Microsystems, and numerous other software companies. One case in particular illustrates how ruthless Microsoft is, and how cheap.

Synet had already trademarked Internet Explorer as a brand name when Microsoft came calling, offering 75 thousand dollars for rights to the name. When they refused Microsoft stole the name anyway, and Synet went bankrupt fighting the software goliath’s lawyers in court. After filing for bankruptcy the company was forced to settle for a paltry five million dollars.

Despite their legal woes, Microsoft is still all powerful. The company has over 40 billion dollars in cash, more than enough to settle pending lawsuits and fight legal battles in the courts. Through greed and strong-arm tactics Microsoft has come to dominate the market for operating systems, desktop software, and web browsers.

Now Microsoft’s sights are set on the internet. The company has unveiled a bold new software initiative called Dot Net, (spelled .NET). This new software language is similar to Sun’s Java, in that it is designed for the World Wide Web. But there is one crucial difference, .NET only runs under Windows.

Microsoft’s next web browser will not include support for the Java programming language. Instead programmers of web based programs will be forced to write code using .NET. If Microsoft’s new programming language becomes the standard, the internet will only run under Windows.

Microsoft just might pull it off. The only challengers to the Windows franchise are Apple Computer and open source software programs like Linux and BSD. But while Microsoft’s Windows, Office, and Internet Explorer run on 90 percent of all desktop computers, any competitors face an uphill battle. In the meantime Microsoft owns the software keys to our computers, that and a lot of lawyers.

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Reaganomics at War

A. Scott Piraino

In 1981, when Ronald Reagan was sworn in, the country faced the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. President Reagan proposed a novel solution, lowering tax rates on the wealthiest Americans so they could spend and invest more money. His administration argued that only this increased economic activity could lift the country out of recession.

Quasi-economic terms like “supply side” and “trickle down” were used to give Reagan’s proposal an academic veneer. In fact Reaganomics was nothing more than intellectual camouflage for cutting tax rates on the rich. And if these tax cuts were unfair and would create the largest national debt in history, well so what.

Twenty years later our national debt has climbed to seven trillion dollars. Yearly interest payments on that debt have ballooned to 300 billion dollars. The poorest Americans have seen their living standards decline over the last twenty years, while incomes for our wealthiest citizens have soared.

But these facts did not deter President Bush. His administration used the recession of 2001 to justify a 1.35 trillion dollar tax cut package. Like Reagan, President Bush sold his plan as a tax break for all Americans, knowing these reductions would favor the wealthy.

While reducing income taxes for everyone, his administration quietly increased payroll taxes on working Americans. Social Security and Medicare are flat taxes on all wage income. That means there are no write-offs or deductions, and all payroll income is taxed at the same flat rate.

Of course the wealthiest Americans don’t worry about payroll taxes because they don’t have jobs. They own capital, invested money that makes more money. Capital gains taxes have been steadily reduced, to fifteen percent today. Since this is not payroll income, the owners of capital do not contribute to Social Security and Medicare.

Payroll taxes account for over one third of federal revenue, and nearly all the budget surpluses up to 2001. Yet President Bush did not suggest reducing these taxes, or making them fair. Instead the Bush administration continues the fiction that workers are contributing to a “trust fund”, while spending the surpluses from payroll taxes as general revenue.

This would have been just another craven transfer of wealth to the rich if not for the tragic events of September 11th. After the terrorist attacks, the recession of 2001 suddenly looked like an economic crisis. The surpluses of the previous four years disappeared, spent on military operations, emergency relief, and a bailout for the airlines.

The Bush administration announced an emergency budget increase, and a return to deficit spending. This year’s budget deficit will climb to over 400 billion by year’s end, a new record high. This does not include an additional 87 billion dollars for the war in Iraq, which President Bush requested last week.

With US forces occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush administration had the audacity to suggest another round of tax cuts for the wealthy. President Bush signed legislation last spring further reducing taxes by 350 billion dollars. Included in this new package are more tax cuts for corporations, and further reductions on capital gains taxes.

The War in Iraq is costing over four billion dollars a month, three million Americans have lost their jobs in the last three years, our trade and budget deficits are soaring, and this President doesn’t care. It’s not that he believes in Reaganomics, George Bush doesn’t believe in anything. Recession and war are not reasons for more tax cuts, they are an excuse.

In 1981 the wealthiest Americans received the biggest tax cut in US history. Make no mistake, Reaganomics has done exactly what it was supposed to do. It has made the richest Americans much wealthier, while transferring more of the tax burden to the middle class and working poor.

President Bush shares Reagan’s agenda. Our wealthiest citizens have received more tax cuts, while the rest of us pay for the war on terror, and pay down the debt created by Reaganomics. It’s a disgrace.

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A Cause Worth Lying For

A. Scott Piraino

This is not the first time the United States has lied to start a war.

President Roosevelt knew the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor. Of course he did not think the attack would be so devastating and nearly destroy our Pacific Fleet. But he did not tell the public, or the Navy about the impending attack, because he knew the Japanese attack would draw our country into the war.

Roosevelt believed the allies would lose WW II if the United States did not join in the fight. He was prepared to lie, and sacrifice American lives in order to bring US fighting men, and US industry, into the war. Whether or not this was moral is a matter for historians, but the fact is the Axis powers were a threat to the United states, and the world. The Japanese did launch an attack on Pearl Harbor after all, and the German army under Hitler was grinding across Europe.

In the summer of 1964, the destroyer USS Maddox was off the coast of North Vietnam, allegedly on an intelligence gathering mission. Cynics claim that the Maddox’s purpose near North Vietnamese waters was to goad the Communists into attacking the ship, and thus give the US reason to counterattack. What happened next is still subject to debate, but according to the U. S. Navy, the ship was attacked by North Vietnamese patrol boats.

President Johnson stated on national television that “violence against the Armed Forces of the United States must be met not only with alert defense, but with positive reply”. The President ordered retaliatory air strikes against “certain supporting facilities” in North Vietnam, and called on congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. This Act was in effect a declaration of war, giving President Johnson sweeping powers to engage our country in Vietnam.

There are doubts as to whether or not the U.S.S. Maddox was fired upon by North Vietnamese gunboats. But there is no doubt that President Johnson used the incident to embroil the United States in the Vietnam War. Was he right? The fact is, the ferocious North Vietnamese Army was about to engulf the South, and President Johnson was determined to stop them. The rest is history.

Now George Bush the Second has lied to justify his war with Iraq. The President’s pretense for launching this invasion was his assurance that Iraq had, or would soon develop, weapons of mass destruction. Those allegations have been proven false, and it is impossible to believe that the President ever thought those weapons existed.

First, a forged document was “discovered” stating that Saddam Hussein was attempting to purchase uranium in Niger. President Bush used this as a centerpiece of his State of the Union address to argue for war with Iraq. When the document was discovered to be a forgery, CIA Director George Tenet took full responsibility, and publicly apologized for giving the President faulty intelligence.

The Bush Administration has repaid the CIA’s loyalty by releasing the name of a covert agent in retaliation for criticism of the White House.

Joseph Wilson has been a career Civil Service officer for the US State Department since the 1970‘s. He has served in various posts, including US Ambassador to Iraq during the first Gulf War, where he was commended by the first President Bush. He was also the man this administration sent to Niger seeking evidence that Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase uranium.

Two weeks ago Mr. Wilson wrote an Op-Ed piece for the New York times, criticizing the Bush administration’s use of bogus information to justify war with Iraq. In retaliation, an unknown White House official (Karl Rove), leaked the name of his wife to reporters and told them she was a CIA agent. Not only is this illegal, National Security laws protect the identity of covert agents, but more than that it’s just petulant.

So far over 300 US military personnel have been killed in the fighting. Last week the president went before the nation to explain why Iraq deserves another 87 billion dollars, while our economy tanks and our deficits soar. The Bush administration does have overwhelming evidence that rogue states are developing nuclear weapons, but the evidence is in North Korea, not Iraq.

As for the War on Terror, US troops are still fighting and dying in Afghanistan, seeking Osama bin Laden and the perpetrators of the September 11th attacks. We havent even captured Saddam Hussein yet, not that it matters now. The Iraqis have already forgotten him, and remembered their hatred of the American Imperialists. The invasion of Iraq has fuelled the grievances of these radical Muslims, while giving them convenient targets by placing US troops in their midst.

There is just no good reason for the Bush administration’s lies. The moral high ground in the War on Terror has been squandered. The national unity and patriotism that emerged after September 11th is gone. Whatever the final outcome of this invasion of Iraq, this has not been a cause worth lying for.

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On the Fall of Empires

A. Scott Piraino

This is how Rome fell. First a vibrant empire comprised of wealthy citizens was reduced to an aristocracy. Then that decadent, impoverished empire was overcome by external enemies.

Roman civilization has many parallels to our own. The Roman Empire is a historical construct, contemporary Romans always referred to their country as a Republic. Of course Rome was an empire, as successive Emperors consolidated power and began ruling far flung provinces. But the republican values were an egalitarian fiction until the fall of Rome. It is interesting to note that the United States is never officially referred to as an empire, although our country has assumed many imperial characteristics.

As their empire expanded, the Romans built the greatest road network the world had ever seen so their marching legions could defend any threatened territory. These roads facilitated trade and commerce, and were necessary for the growth of the Empire. After WW II, the United States began construction of the Federal Highway system, to move tanks in the event the US was ever invaded. These highways have not just radically improved transportation, they have affected the growth of suburbs, malls, and even whole cities.

The Romans built great coliseums to celebrate sporting events and watch plays or other public entertainments. Our sports amphitheaters are actually modeled on these Roman designs. Aside from modern technology, there is very little difference between the Superdome and the Parthenon. We are also a culture that worships entertainment. Instead of plays and gladiators, we have football teams, rock bands, and movie stars.

But besides our public works, the United States shares other, more disturbing similarities with the Roman Empire.

In the early Roman period the curials were the backbone of society. These were middle class landowners who could vote, and fought in the legions during times of war. By the end of the Empire, the curials had been reduced to the status of serfs. Wealth was concentrated in the hands of a few landowners, and the curials worked the land for them.

The Fall of the Roman Empire can be traced to the demise of the republican values that created it. In modern terms we can compare this to the death of our middle class. Our country was founded not just on Democratic principles, but the idea that the people were the owners of the country.

The first Americans were predominantly small farmers who owned their land, (with the exception of the black slaves, of course). In early American history just as in Rome, voting and military service where the duties of citizenship, and ownership of property was a right. As industrialization eclipsed agriculture, rural farmers became urban factory workers. But the goal of life in America has always been the same, to own a house, buy a car, in short, to live the American dream.

Over the past twenty years, the ability of the average American to live that dream has all but disappeared. Per capita income continues to climb only because a small number of Americans have grown much wealthier. Incomes for the working poor and middle class Americans have stagnated, and even declined. The average American is increasingly a renter, not an owner.

Twenty years ago a high school graduate in Akron Ohio could look forward to a lifetime of factory employment, and earn enough from his wages to buy a house and a car. Today Akron Ohio consists of ghettos and boarded up factories. Those jobs have moved to China and Mexico, and what were once middle class neighborhoods are now tenements for the poor.

How did this happen? To answer that, we must address the issue of leadership.

The first Roman Emperors were crusaders for the Glory of Rome. After the initial conquests of France, Britain, and the Mediterranean, the Roman borders remained essentially unchanged for three hundred years. The later Emperors maintained the trappings of the earlier heroic period, but they served themselves, not the greater good of Rome.

Our founding fathers were idealists. They can rightfully be compared to Caesar, and the early Romans. But though our present leadership uses the same slogans, and shrouds their policies in the same idealism, it is clear they don’t believe in anything. It is said that Nero fiddled while Rome fell, our leadership has fiddled as well, while our country has descended into mediocrity.

The source of our economic decline can be traced to Ronald Reagan and his successors. Reaganomics was nothing more than an excuse to cut taxes for the rich. Just as free trade is an argument for exporting manufacturing jobs to foreign nations where our corporations can pay much lower wages.

In 1981 the United States was the largest creditor nation in history. Today our national debt stands at over six trillion dollars and growing. In addition, our country has exported over three trillion dollars to foreign producers. The US posted a trade deficit of over 400 billion dollars last year, a new record high.

Our budget deficits transfer wealth from taxpayers to bondholders. Our trade deficits transfer wealth from American consumers to offshore producers. These huge transfers of wealth are responsible for the death of our middle class.

Ronald Reagan was either a demented fool or a corrupt servant of the rich, depending on whether he believed his own agenda or not. But there can be no doubt about his successors. George Bush the First called Reagan’s policies “voodoo” economics while campaigning against him, then carried on the same policies during his four years in office.

In 1992 when the Democrats returned to office, our country had an opportunity to reverse the corrupt policies of the Reagan era. Instead we elected a cheap whore named Bill Clinton. His administration continued the same policies, only in a trendier, more liberal guise.

George Bush II has wasted no time getting back to Reaganomics, passing two tax cut packages into law that favor the wealthy, and supporting more free trade agreements. The difference of course is that our country is already over six trillion in debt, and we are the biggest debtor nation in history.

We are also at war.

The Roman Empire did not fall to one superior enemy. Rather the Empire died the death of a thousand cuts, suffering repeated attacks against her frontiers and invasions by increasingly larger and better organized enemies. By the end of the Empire, Roman citizens were loathe to join the legions and defend their country.

The dangerous job of soldiering was left to slaves, and foreign mercenaries. The date for the fall of the Roman Empire is commonly noted as 476 A. D. The year a Germanic mercenary commanding Roman armies deposed the last, enfeebled Roman Emperor.

Today’s US servicemen are predominantly poor whites and poor blacks, even foreign citizens are allowed to enlist to fill the ranks. Our youth increasingly distain the armed forces, preferring a more relaxed urban lifestyle. For those young Americans who do opt for military service, there is plenty of action.

After September 11th, President Bush ordered an invasion of Afghanistan, seeking the terrorists responsible for the attacks. Osama Bin Laden has not been found, nor has the Al Qaeda terrorist network been eliminated. But 8000 US troops are still in Afghanistan, enduring ambushes, bombings, and fighting an elusive enemy.

No one could question our right to attack Afghanistan after September 11th, but that moral authority has been squandered by the reckless invasion of Iraq. 150,000 US troops are now attempting to occupy the country against increasing resistance from indigenous guerrillas. One third of our standing Army is now committed to Iraq and Afghanistan, and the War on Terror is far from won.

President Bush’s imperial ambitions have scattered our Armed Forces across the globe. Now his administration has publicly threatened Iran, as if occupying the entire Middle East will somehow eliminate terrorism. Rather these unwarranted attacks are winning over Arabs to a radical form of Islam, while providing targets to those militants by sending US troops into their midst.

The occupation of Iraq is unraveling, and showing signs of becoming a full fledged guerrilla war. North Korea will certainly have nuclear weapons within a few months, and they have missiles that can reach Alaska and our bases in Asia. Nor can we discount China. That nation is now the world’s third largest economy, thanks to our trade deficits, and no friend of the United States.

The American people have good reasons to fear for the future, and nowhere to turn for answers. Roman civilization faced this uncertainty as well, and by searching, found new answers. The end of the Roman Empire was also the end of the ancient world, and the rise of a monotheistic religion known as Christianity.

Roman civilization was so much more advanced than anything before it, so much wealthier, more comfortable and safe, that people’s view of the universe began to change. In the early Roman period pantheons of gods like Zeus and Apollo were worshipped, and great temples were built to honor them. But after centuries of peace and prosperity sacrificing to these old gods seemed superstitious, even quaint.

As the old ways declined Romans sought cults, astrology, and mystic traditions to address their spiritual needs, before the Empire converted to Christianity. The first Christians were young, urban, educated Romans. The rural people held to the old ways the longest, sacrificing to the old gods, maintaining shrines to local spirits, and keeping up the sacrifices. The word “pagan” is Latin for rural person, with the connotation of hillbilly or hick.

Just as the old gods made no sense to the late Romans, Christianity makes no sense in the modern world. The new generations of Americans, baby boomers and their progeny, don’t look to the Christian faith anymore. Younger, more modern Americans seek new age bookstores and any number of wonkish solutions to their spiritual questions.

The last vestiges of Christianity in our country can be found predominantly in rural America. There you can still find people who go to church on Sundays and read, or even believe, the Bible. They are the pagans, the rural people holding to the old ways.

The cynicism and moral relativity of these times is part of this change in the way we view our universe.

We have called the future post-modern, the information age, the space age, and the nuclear age. Whatever this new age is, we are seeing its birth in our time. Part of that change is a new morality, a new spirituality if you will.

But faith that all will end as it should is no excuse for the incompetence and corruption of our national leadership. Historians will look back on the Reagan, Clinton, and Bush administrations as an era of decadence and decline. Our economy is left tottering, our enemies are plotting our destruction, and we are left with an inevitable sense of fatalism about the future.

This too shall pass.

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