Moscow angered by US plan for 'star wars' bases in Europe

[cal04]

Moscow angered by US plan for 'star wars' bases in Europe to counter threat of Iran

In a move that is raising hackles in Moscow, the US is proposing to install an anti-missile defence system in central Europe to counter any future attack from a nuclear-armed Iran. The plan, for which the Pentagon has requested $56m (£30m) of exploratory funding from Congress, would cost $1.6bn and involve 10 interceptor units.

The most likely base for the system is Poland, followed by the Czech Republic, officials said. For the moment, the scheme first reported in The New York Times this week and which would parallel the anti-missile shield under construction in Alaska and California against attacks from North Korea is largely symbolic and hypothetical.

Iran currently has no weapons capable of hitting western Europe, let alone an intercontinental missile that could strike the United States. But as a showdown moves closer between the West and Tehran over its uranium-enrichment programme, and with the Israeli Prime Minister in Washington warning that Iran represents a threat not only to Israel but to Western civilisation, the US is determined to send another signal of its determination to act.

The new shield would bring a direct US military presence deeper into Europe. And for Russia, the project reeks of American encroachment into what used to be its own sphere of influence. The move would have "a negative impact on the whole Euro-Atlantic security system", Sergei Ivanov, the Russian Defence Minister, told a Belarus newspaper, hinting at further strain on ever-delicate relations between Russia and Nato. The mooted site for the system was "dubious, to put it mildly", he said. This is not the first time the missile shield has divided the two countries.

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http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article570954.ece

[Vincardog]

1. The negative impact on the whole Euro-Atlantic security system

is that Star Wars does not work. It is a RW WET DREAM. They can't even pull off a staged "Demonstration" they can not shoot down a dummy when they have its' trajectory and timetable. The missile defense system is just another way for the crones to loot America.

[Downtown Hound]

2. Chill out Moscow

It's not like the system actually works. Any missiles you have are going to go right through it should you ever need to use them, although I pray that you don't.

Even the Patriot missile's much taunted abilities are largely exaggeration and outright lies. That system doesn't work nearly as well as the military would have us believe, and the only thing it's ever been put up against are two generation old Scuds.

[peacetalksforall]

3. This is just a money stealing scheme for PNAC and Friends of PNAC with

a cut to the hosting country. Russia should just ask for their cut to keep quiet.

Who is going to believe PNAC? They must have some kind of goal they maintain in their stolen money slush fund. Just another idea for a construction job and subsequent abandonment, but possibly with a residue suggestion that the structure be used for some future Olympics event.

If Iran can't reach us - go to them, huh? If they go further east, they will end up in Moslem territory - not good. Got to keep it in a Christian country for the full effect of the Crusade.

With all due sarcasm and disrespect.

[FloridaPat]

4. The system is for an offensive strike against Russia & China.

One of the generals that was originally working on it resigned when he found that out.

http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0502-05.htm

"We want to be the aggressor," says Robert Bowman, president of the Institute for Space and Security Studies, based in Melbourne Beach, Florida. Bowman was director of advanced space programs development for the Air Force during the Ford and Carter Administrations.

"Star Wars has nothing to do with defense," he says. "It's about maintaining absolute military superiority by developing new offensive weapons in the guise of defense."

If the United States wanted to launch an attack on another nuclear power, it would strike first at that country's satellite and communications centers, as well as at that country's nuclear stockpile. Assuming that it failed to destroy all the opponent's nuclear weapons, the shield would be there to knock down the stragglers.

"We'd be putting up the shield after the sword has been thrust," explains Millar of the Fourth Freedom. "In Pentagon parlance, it's called 'cleaning up or mopping up the residual.' "

[teryang]

5. Poland has attacked Iran for the last time!!

What utter nonsense. Did the jackasses in Congress authorize these expenditures?

[cliss]

6. ....as the US moves closer and closer

to a military dictatorship.