As a college kid George Bush loved to play high stakes games of RISK, the game of global domination. The older version finds himself moving real blocks of military assets around the Middle East in his “New Way Forward” in Iraq.
Meanwhile the game threatens to jump off our earthy stage, into the final frontier of space. Recently the U.S. got its undies in a wad over China’s newfound ability to take out space satellites, something America achieved in the mid 1980’s. The Red Scare responded to world outrage by suggesting an agreement outlawing weapons in space.
"Since other countries care about this question and are opposed to weaponization of space and an arms race in space, then let us join hands to realize this goal," said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu when asked to respond to criticism of the test by the United States and Japan.
But is the President in any mood for hand holding? Past efforts indicate George Bush wants space to be America’s exclusive domain for defensive weapons.
President Bush signed an order in October tacitly asserting the U.S. right to space weapons and opposing the development of treaties or other measures restricting them.
In recent years, China and Russia have called for an international space treaty but encountered strong opposition from the United States. The two countries presented a draft outline for a treaty to prevent the deployment of weapons in space to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva in June 2002. The U.S. objected at the time, saying the 1967 Outer Space Treaty provided sufficient guarantees against the weaponization of space.
Given this pattern, it looks like President Bush wants to take his game of international domination off the board and into space. At what RISK for future world peace?
No comments:
Post a Comment