The "C" Country Missile Crisis

One might expect America to have some sensitivity to the placement of weapons systems near a border. The Cuban Missile Crisis occured over the Soviets placing missiles in Cuba in the 1960's. The U.S. stood strong despite the shoe banging antics of Kruschev and the armaments were removed.

Today the shoe is on the other foot. America plans to place missile defense systems in the Czech Republic. Russian President Vladmir Putin sees this much the same way, John F. Kennedy did. While the U.S. claims its system is defensive, isn't that the way all military weapons are sold, as defensive?

Hindisight shows such thinking in Kruschev's placement of weapons on Cuban soil:

The causes of the crisis have long been debated. Khrushchev conceived the deployment in the late spring of 1962, after a hasty and uncritical decision-making process involving only a small group of advisers. His goals appear to have been to deter a feared American invasion of Cuba; to redress the United States's massive superiority in strategic nuclear weapons, publicly revealed by the United States in October 1961, exploding the myth of a “missile gap” favoring the Soviet Union; and less importantly, to reciprocate the Jupiter deployment in Turkey.

Which country launched a pre-emptive invasion of Iraq? Who has and is planning to keep a clear superiority in nuclear weaponry? Which country staked a claim to space and is developing a space military capability? The United States is clearly the answer to all three.

Given our history, America should have some sensitivity in this regard. And no, it's not just a clueless George Bush making the world his stomping ground. The Project for the New American Century is replete with similar figures who occupy critical positions in government and international organizations. Despite Newt Gingrich's assertions of a sole bumbling Bush, Republicans promote and implement systems of American domination at almost every turn.

That the world has taken note is not a surprise...