perfidy

Well, I'm still pissed at whoever burned the library of Alexandria.

It's not arrogant if you're right. But seriously, I'm not talking about taking down every comic opera great leader in the world, to bring salvation to mankind, and to generally immanentize the eschaton. Just the worst ones, and the ones who pose the greatest potential threat to me, personally, as a US citizen who works a block from the White House. (Threat and nastiness generally overlap a great deal.) If we can take out the leaders of these unhappy few, and bring some measure of sanity to the benighted populaces thereof, that's a clear win. The likelihood of any successor government being worse than Saddam, Kim Jong-Il, or Assad is, shall we say, slim.

There are over a hundred and seventy nations on our fair planet. Deranged totalitarian leaders have made some neighborhoods rather unlivable. Think of it as slum clearance, followed by a nice fat welfare check for the people of the neighborhood. (That's socialist, yay!) It's a short list: Syria, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Burma (yeah, right Myanmar) and France. That's maybe four percent of the world's nations. The rest can stay as they are.

It's not just with the Saudis that their populace resents the US. In general, throughout the world, if the government of a nation is a group of reprehensible thugs, the attitude of the people towards the US is inverse to the friendliness of the US to the government.

Mike, I am puzzled. You keep talking about the pure, received faith in Marx as prophesied by his disciple Engels (and very interesting that you should use such religious imagery, btw.) and how basically almost no one over the last hundred plus years has ever gotten it right. Now, I am more than willing to believe that you are correct and every leftist/Marxist over the last century was completely wrong. Most people are idiots. However, your description seems completely different from the way almost every leftist/Marxist/environmentalist/Commie in the world thinks of themselves.

I worked with hardcore environmentalists for years, and I can assure you that they all believed in Marx. They had copies of the Communist manifesto. They spouted communist doctrine, hated capitalism, the works. They laughed at the watermelon joke (green on the outside, red on the inside.) Marx' picture was on walls throughout those murderous states that were founded by faux communists. But it is curious that as soon as someone gets power and begins murdering people, oh wait, he's not a communist. Can we ever know what a communist government is like? We know what democratic, monarchical, republican, totalitarian and oligarchical governments are like, because we have seen them. It seems that your communist prophecy is completely unverifiable, in that it ceases to be communist as soon as it gains power.

Given the statements in the last paragraph of "Speaking of phony leftism," do you believe that it ever will be verified, that an actual communist government will ever exist - by your definition of communism? If not, why does anyone bother being communist, when the only result is either a) frustrated fringe dwelling in affluent societies or b) rampant murder, terror, and poverty if a communist ever gains power anywhere else? Looking at the wreckage of states whose leadership fervently believed (despite disagreeing with you) that they were communists, and were the followers of Marx, and looking at the stagnant economies in nations that have adopted large scale socialist programs (Sweden, France, Germany) where before there was rising prosperity, I have a hard time swallowing the whole left/Marxist/socialist package on a pragmatic basis. Of course, my classical liberal ideals give me other reasons not to like it. But is there anywhere in the world where this has worked? Not that I've ever heard of.

In this article by David Brooks, I read about the connection between Nazism and Aflaq. 

MICHEL AFLAQ was born in Damascus in 1910, a Greek Orthodox Christian. He won a scholarship to study philosophy at the Sorbonne sometime between 1928 and 1930 (biographies differ), and there he studied Marx, Nietzsche, Lenin, Mazzini, and a range of German nationalists and proto-Nazis. Aflaq became active in Arab student politics with his countryman Salah Bitar, a Sunni Muslim. Together, they were thrilled by the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party, but they also came to admire the organizational structure Lenin had created within the Russian Communist party. The Baath party is not quite like the Communist parties. It bears stronger resemblance to the Nazi party because it is based ultimately on a burning faith in racial superiority. The revolution, in Saddam's terms, is not just a political event, as the Russian or French revolution was a political event; it is a mystical, never-ending process of struggle, ascent, and salvation. 

There was another article, but I can't find the link. The author was Iraqi. This article mentions how Nasser was a hero of Saddam's. 

From the Encyclopedia Brittanica: 

Pan Arabism Nationalist concept of cultural and religious unity among Arab countries that developed after their liberation from Ottoman and European dominance. an important event was the founding in 1943 of the Baath Party, which now has branches in several countries and is the ruling party in Syria and Iraq. Another was the founding of the Arab League in 1945. Pan-Arabism's most charismatic and effective proponent was Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser. Since Nasser's death, Syria's Hafiz al-Assad, Iraq's Saddam Hussein, and Libya's Muammar al-Qaddafi have all tried to assume his mantle.

Why would a dictatorship of the proletariat be any better than any other kind of dictatorship. Dictatorship: bad. Freedom:good.

This story, from msnbc, talks of the terror camp in the north, and of its connection to Al Quaida. This story, from AP by way of the St. Petersburg Times, talks of the training camp found by the Marines south of Baghdad. This story, from the Herald, gives some background on the Iraqi regime's connections to terrorist groups, even the fundamentalist ones. There have been several reports of possible chemical weapons stores - none confirmed as yet. However, several commentators, including this one, believe that the military is holding off on confirming reports until they are absolutely sure. One thing to keep in mind is that for the last three weeks, the American and British forces have been focused on ass-whupin', not seeking out every hidden facility in a country the size of California. As we move into the next phases of the operation, we will see more reports as military personnel either discover or are tipped off to the presence of these sites. 

I think you're a leetle too hard on Fox News. The fact that they have a bias different from what you're used to does not mean that they are less accurate. I'd put them on par with other cable news, just with a different slant. 

[wik] The Ministry of Future Perfidy would like to inform you that all the links in this post are decades stale, and have been removed.

Even the most keen and incisive of political minds can be wrong from time to time. It is with some embarrassment and considerable sadness that I report that my previous speculations on which country would next be invaded have proved tragically wrong. The next country is, in fact, us. In these troubled times, there is one source that all thinking observers of the world scene can turn to for completely honest and truthful reporting. That source has revealed that North Korea has, for some time, been planning an invasion of the United States. The Weekly World News has reported that even now, there are thousands of North Korean operatives on our West Coast, cunningly disguised as insurance salesmen and preparing the way for the invincible, 800,000 strong Korean Army that is making its way to California by way of Hawaii in hundreds of Korean Junks. After they seize ships from the American Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, they will be unstoppable. Mike, you will finally have the opportunity to live in a communist worker's paradise. I'm afraid that I will be interned in a reservation much like those used for Indians (sic), only harsher. Most tragically, life for our canine friends is destined to be short as they are destined for the tables of our new Korean overlords.

The WWN also reported that we have seized the Garden of Eden, and are protecting it from Saddam's Republican Guard; and that the CIA is breeding man-eating flies for the war on terror.

According to this story, the middle ages were much warmer than currently. This certainly jibes with my knowledge of history - the little ice age that happened right after the middle ages certainly wasn't the result of industrialization.

Almost 8000 words in three days.

I think we will put a lot more effort into reconstruction in Iraq. Although we have lots of money, it isn't infinite. As long as Afghanistan is not home to terror training camps, it will remain peripheral. Iraq is rather more important.

I think that there is little reason to fear that the new Iraqi government will be worse than Saddam's regime. The stories that are coming out, like the big CNN "we didn't tell you this when it mattered, but…" story, among others - prove that any new regime would have to go to extreme lengths to be worse.

Also, there are reports (sorry, can't find the link) that many of the more recent civilian casualties are the result of Republican guard and secret police pushing people in front, or threatening their families if they don not attack the Americans. I don't think the increase is particularly alarming, except perhaps to CNN.

?? They say, "Here's why we're going to war: WMD, 9/11, Saddam's a repugnant fuckwit." You say, "Why are you going to war?" There doesn't have to be some fevered conspiracy amongst Jewish Neocon Operatives, to set up worldwide American Hegemony. I think they have been straight with us - and are withholding only the plan for reconstruction, and any plans for other targets.

I was referring to the anti war protestors. You explicitly deny that you protest. Therefore my attack on filthy hippies does not apply to you. I think that if we got back to the ideals of 1776 and 1787 and 1865, we'd be a lot better off. For one thing, it would mean that we'd jettisoned all the bonehead Marxist economics that are provably unworkable. And postmodernism would be gone. But, it would mean that we could keep the cool computers and rockets and stuff. 

I never said that our course of action was historically inevitable. Justifiable in terms of a pursuit of liberty or justice, but not inevitable. One important thing to remember, that many don't, is that liberty applies to individuals, not nations. Saddam denies liberty to his subjects. The Iraqi government does not have any right of liberty, that we can never interfere. I don't think that this war is outside the "American Way of Doing Things" - we used similar justifications for the Spanish American War, WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam. 

And yes, your fashion sense is empeccable. You're right, "To Hitler" should be a verb. 

On Trees: thank you very much. I should hope to be in that company. But, speaking of that tree, and of the value of sacrifice, I was moved to think this: (Mike can correct me on the details) The Marxist formulation of value is that only things that labor is the only source of value. Or something close to that. If you work, that produces value, no matter what it was. It seems to ignore a lot of things that truly have value, like liberty, that we should be ready to sacrifice for. Lives are worth that. Both ours, and the enemy's. 

Mike avoided calling a Bush a Hitler, but only by doing it to Cheney and Rumsfeld. Sheesh. Saddam hitlered the Baath party, then hitlered the Iraqi people, then hitlered Kuwait. He may have Goeringed, in both senses, but I'm not sure. But I would argue that he is getting Churchilled right now, just like Hitler did. (More properly Roosevelted, I guess, but I like the sound of Churchilled better.) 

Mike, Federalism nowadays is not exactly like the party platform of our first two presidents. It is a euphemism for states rights (sullied by the unfortunate association with slavery, Jim Crow, etc.) with a bit of limited governmentism. You can be a hardcore modern Federalist without accepting any of those ideas - in fact, some of them are rather incompatible with modern federalism. However, #3 is a bit overstated, #4 is backwards, and Hamilton never aimed at Burr, so we never got to find out how dangerous dueling with a Federalist is. 

Johno, the rest of federalism is rendered silly? I should beat you over the head with my annotated Federalist papers. 

Hundreds Slaughtered: The only people around this sad little planet ending things like that over the last fifty years has been the United States. Too bad we couldn't help everyone. The UN is a useless sack of shit. 

The Rave act falls under the same category as Patriot II. Biden is also a useless sack of shit. 

We got 82% of Den Beste's average monthly output? Not bad at all, considering we all have jobs. 

Taliban and Afghanistan - it's a problem, but I think that they are a leetle too backward to easily make the jump to a sane government. Afghanistan has always been more of a geographical abstraction than a nation. Hopefully, though, we can get some more assistance to them. 

To Buckethead, on space exploration - perhaps I could have saved everyone some time and said that it's expensive, and the only way that will change is if it becomes less expensive. 

To Mike on cultural differences: this may all be true, but when a Marine hears someone say, "Allah bless George Bush," it probably means he's happy to see the Marine. 

To Johno on Jeffersonbait: The reason was that, despite posting some rather lengthy pieces, I haven't actually read the page for over a week.

Mike, you're right about Iraq and the British - but there were German troops in Vichy-run Syria, just not in significant enough numbers to affect the war in North Africa. A great fear of the allies was that the Germans would move East and take the Mosul oilfields. The Baath party was founded by Michel Aflaq, who was influenced by the Nazis. While the Ba'ath party was anti-colonialist, it was also Arab nationalist, and socialist. 

Yes, Syria still rules most of Lebanon. While the risk of more terrorist attacks may increase in the short term, bringing democracy and freedom to the middle east would dramatically decrease the risk of attacks in the long term. I don't believe we will need to invade Iran, because I think the large democracy movement there - with perhaps some aid and encouragement, will handle the job nicely. The people of Iran hate the mullahs, and its only a matter of time. 

As for Syria, it is a much more entrenched totalitarian state - much like the similar Ba'athist state that existed up 'til recently in Iraq. There is no organized resistance or opposition in Syria that we could negotiate with. BTW, we did make the Germans and the Japanese into democrats at the point of a gun. I think that the fact that Saudi Arabia is not on our list is merely a tactical move, until we have another secure base from which to operate, and another large, secure source of oil. They will appear on the list, the sooner the better. 

(I used Mohammedan because I was tired of writing Islam and Muslim. Poetic license. They can call me a white trash cracker in retaliation if they wish.) 

How free are the Germans with our planes and tanks in their country? I never suggested that we attack every repressive government in the world. But the fact that we don't attack that one is not a reason we can't attack this one. And, although given the current world situation, it might not be wise to attack our god friends the British; we're 1-1 against them so far. Everyone else on your list is open season as far as I'm concerned. Castro just sentenced another 75 journalists and dissidents to quarter century prison terms. Fucker. Who decides what is an oppressive regime? It's fairly obvious, unless your head is so full of ethical relativism that you can't tell the difference between a nation like, say Finland, and another like Cuba. 

Also, most slippery slopes aren't terribly slippery, at least in this country. It's the one thing that gives me hope in regards to the whole Patriot Act thingie. 

I did generalize about the left for the sake of brevity. But are you saying that there have been no communists since Engels died? Because every time someone who thought they were communist got power, millions of people died. The Black Book of Communism lays this out rather starkly. The central feature of every leftist regime is the total unconcern for the rights and lives of its citizens. No one has freedom, and those who argue become dead. 

Even among the socialists forced to work in societies like ours where there are inconvenient things like the Bill of Rights, the goal is regulation. Every liberal policy seems to center around restricting my freedom to act. Or at least taxing me so much that I can't afford to do anything. You cannot maintain liberty when you are restricting people's liberty - even when its for their own good. The regulatory state is just a watered down version of the ideas that led to five year plans, forced collectivization and the famine in the Ukraine. You suggest (hopefully jokingly) that we forbid capitalism to get a space program. But of course, we'd have to get everyone to do it. That scheme is more ambitious than my cunning little plan to take out a few odious fuckwit dictators. But yet, that is the communist world revolution. I can make many practical arguments for keeping capitalism around for a while longer. It has produced the economy of the United States, where even the poor live better than kings in almost any other country. Capitalism made that possible. But the key reason that I support Free Markets is that they are, well, Free. People choose - what they want to buy, and others choose to take risks forming companies that they think will supply consumer needs. 

The socialist economies of Europe are (slowly) going down the shitter, while despite war, terrorist attack, and cyclical downturn ours is still performing better. Because we are freer than they are.

Because I haven't commented on anyone else's posts for far too long, here are some thoughts, replies and comments on youse guys posts over the last couple weeks. 

To Mike's counterpoint to Mark Steyn: 

No one suggests that we should be giddy simply because civilian casualties are light. But, we should be happy that we can remove an evil dictator at so light a cost to his victims. Every death is a tragedy, but it is good that there are so few of them. Also, there is proof that there is a connection between Al Quaida and Iraq. Al Quaida operatives were given refuge in Iraq, and we have found (and destroyed) several large terror training camps. Also, the fact that the Baathists are secular and the Al Quaida fundamentalist is no barrier to their cooperation. Remember, Saddam's government has paid 35 million dollars to the families of suicide bombers in the West Bank, many of whom were members of the very fundamentalist group Islamic Jihad. It is, after all, an old Islamic proverb, that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Although it is too early to tell at this point, it doesn't look like we are radicalizing the Iraqi citizenry, who seem quite glad to have us there, and Saddam gone. 

Again on WCM: 

De Genova's comments were reprehensible, indeed. And kudos to Foner for actually calling him on it. But the whole thing made me think - this is an anti-war movement, but not a peace movement. They are against American involvement, but willing to countenance the brutality of the Saddam's regime. There was a German resistance movement in WWII, but could it have liberated the German people from Hitler's regime without outside help? Mike is certainly right that comments like those piss people off. Wishing for the deaths of Americans certainly makes his anti war stance seem rather less credible, as well. 

But is nothing served by death, anywhere? Are not some things worthy of sacrifice? Freedom is certainly worth sacrifice. Nothing of value is without cost. We have to always be deeply aware of the cost, and remember who paid. Freedom is one of those things. Many have and will continue to give cynical motives for our war in Iraq, but the real benefit will be to the Iraqis, who free of Saddam might be able to live ordinary lives, in liberty. 

To Johnny, on increasing dovishness: 

How do you feel now, now that we have found chemical weapons and terror training camps? And remember, Bush has been talking about regime change for over a year - regime change was only ever the means to eliminate the threat of terror, and WMD. 

To Johnny, on the "as in not funny" nature of the press: 

The media is a collection of old women, who flutter and shriek at the slightest change in temperature, conditions, or movement. So of course they would rave about the justthatbuilding bomb, and then the MOAB. And rave about blinding advances, then twenty minutes later cry "quagmire." Also, the reason you're gotten no firm news is because the military pulled the biggest snow job in military history. The embeds are like headlights to the media deer. Immediacy, vivid images, and "you're right there" reporting consume the media's attention, while the army is able to move whole divisions without anyone in the media noticing. Suckers - gotta hand to the military for cleverness on that one. 

To Johnny, on the media polls: 

Reminds me of a something that happened during a political discussion with our friend Burton. We was advocating some risky liberal scheme, one that would give decision making powers from the general citizenry and vest it in some government agency. His basic justification was, "75% of people are idiots." I argued with his plan, and Burton got the idea that I disagreed with assessment of the intelligence of the American populace. A day later, I was complaining to Mike about Washington drivers, and he expressed surprise - "Well, you disagreed with my 75% - why complain now?" I said, "Mike, if anything, I think the percentage is higher, but they still have the right to be stupid however they want. That's what liberty means." Hardesty's corollary to Voltaire's observation: the true test of someone's commitment to liberty is how stupid or offensive someone has to be before you want to start regulating their behavior. 

From everything I'm hearing, Patriot II is gonna be a nightmare. But then, I'm still complaining about RICO statutes and civil forfeiture. 

To Johnny on AA: 

The United States, as a whole, should never be color blind. The U.S. government, and the law, should. The only way to end discrimination is to well, end discrimination. The quote you added hits it right on the head - these are cultural and moral issues, not legal ones. Therefore, stop the legal wrangling so that we can deal with these issues where they should be dealt with. 

Patriot II needs to be killed dead. Here's something the liberals could actually be useful on - rather than waving puppetheads and smelling funny in public. Republicans are often too willing to sacrifice freedom for security in this realm. Economically, of course, it's the other way around. 

This is where limited government should really, really come into play. What part of the constitution, and I'd like an exact quote, does this bill get its authorization from? 

To Johnny on Forests and Trees: 

I would argue that the military plan we used did take the political goal into account. However, just like the military plan, you can't publish the political plan in advance, for fear of rendering it useless. n.b. I think this classifies as a world class cakewalk. 

To Mike on Patriot II: 

Like many conservatives (as opposed to mere Republicans) I worry a lot about civil liberties. I think the Drug War has been a civil liberties disaster. The erosion of our constitutional rights has been scary. This threatens further erosions. Like Franklin said, those who trade liberty for security will soon have neither. I would like to have our representatives see that it is our freedom and liberty that is the best defense against these threats (at least internally - the U.S. Army and Navy are better for overseas.) Perhaps the best example was the passengers on flight 93. While I might be safe under this administration, as time goes on, we would all be targets. How long would I last if Gore became president? We could have adjoining cells. 

To Johnny on RIAA: 

I think it falls into the same category as Patriot II. 

I have to pee. More later.

After three weeks, we have seen the complete destruction of all major Iraqi army formations, low casualties amongst both coalition forces and Iraqi civilians, minimal collateral damage to civilian infrastructure, including especially the oil fields in both north and south, and, once assured that Saddam was truly history, celebrations in the streets by joyous Iraqi civilians.

The doomsayers who cried quagmire on day five of the war, and those who predicted a Stalingrad (ve vill not haff much fun in Stalingrad, no.) when we moved into Baghdad were proved dramatically wrong. This war has, as much as any conflict in history, gone almost exactly according to plan, and met even the most optimistic goals of the planners.

A horrific regime has been extinguished, and without having to go through the trouble of annihilating the nation it rules in the process. The military has been talking about a revolution in military affairs for over a decade now, and it appears that they may be right. The advent of information age weaponry is transforming the way that the United States wages war. Our capabilities are increasing, even in an era when we are spending less, proportionally, on our military than we did throughout the course of the Cold War.

While the precision weapons that we have deployed have received the lion's share of media attention, it is important to remember what has really changed. The 2000 pond bombs that we drop our essentially the same as a 2000 pound blockbuster used in WWII - a metal casing surrounding a large lump of high explosive. What is different is the guidance package. The GPS guidance system used in the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) or Joint Stand-Off Weapon (JSOW); or the laser guidance system that was first used back in the '91 war are the real change - the thing that allows us to thread a needle with a bomb dropped from 20,000 ft. We have even started using concrete bombs - "inert" bombs that, when dropped from fifty thousand feet will utterly destroy a tank while leaving everything around it untouched. (These and other weapons systems are described here, at the Federation of American Scientist's webpage.)

These guidance systems are a product of the advanced technologies that our nation produces with no thought for military applicability. The computer systems developed for the civilian world are being adopted by the military wholesale, and this is where the true revolution is occurring. It is the communications and networking technologies that are making our military so effective, and so lethal. These communications systems disseminate intelligence throughout the entire armed forces - allowing a sergeant in an armor unit to directly call on artillery in his own unit, bombs from Air Force or Naval fighters, and cruise missiles from Navy subs or destroyers. It allows the military to rapidly coordinate fire from all branches on one spot for maximum effect, or on a thousand points at once for maximum enemy confusion.

The army has installed the IVIS system on its armored vehicles. This Inter Vehicular Information System instantly transmits intelligence gained by one vehicle to every other vehicle in the unit. What one tank crew knows, every tank crew knows. Initial tests at the National Training Center at Ft. Irwin showed that units equipped with this system were five times more lethal than units equipped exactly the same in every other respect. This is because of the coordination that the system allows. No time is wasted by commanders explaining the situation - every one has the picture, and has probably already begun taking the correct action before the commander even gives the order.

This coordination and flexibility is what makes our military so effective. And over the next few years, similar systems, such as the Landwarrior system, will give the same capabilities to individual infantryman. New communication and reconnaissance systems will only increase the trend that we have seen in Iraq. The United States, without even really trying, is widening the gap between our military and the armed forces of even the other industrialized nations.

I think that this growing disparity between the effective combat power of the United States and that of the rest of the world will lead to more interventions. We will do it not only because we can, but because we can do it easily. This will no doubt bother many. But how many of those bothered are bothered by the application of American military power abroad itself, or rather because of who sits in the Oval Office? Many who complain about the current war had no problem with Kosovo, Serbia, Haiti, and any number of other interventions launched by the previous administration. Personally, I have no problem with America using its power to advance its interests in general, but in general we have used our power to bring freedom and democracy to other parts of the world. As long as we have an ethical basis for intervention, and the results of that intervention remain positive, I say keep going.

We can't bring peace, order and democracy to every nation on Earth. But for every one that we do, its that many millions more people who don't live in places where leaders personally feed dissidents into wood chippers feet first. This is a good thing to fight against. The nations that fall into this category are sadly numerous. But there is a subset of them that also pose a threat to us, personally. The top of that list is North Korea, Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.

Maybe I've gone off the deep end, but I think that eliminating these regimes in the same manner that we eliminated Saddam's would be good for us, and good for the citizens of those nations.

British fishermen had been working the Grand Banks off Newfoundland since the late middle ages. British explorers discovered the coast of North America in the early sixteenth century. The first successful colonies were planted in the seventeenth century. Only in the eighteenth century did those colonies become large, prosperous and self sufficient. Is this the kind of time frame that awaits us in space? Granted, things do move faster in this day than in centuries past. But when the only government on the planet that has the capacity to pursue a bold program of space development has no desire to do so, things seem rather grim. The British government similarly held back colonization of the Americas for over a century. 

There is a growing number of small companies eager to break into the space transportation industry. They have a limited amount of financing from venture capitalists, typically geeky software billionaires. One major aerospace company, Boeing, has an independent venture that is outside the typical close relationship with NASA and the DoD. Sea Launch is a company that has already successfully launched several satellites from its mobile launch pad, using a rocket derived from Russian designs. It promises to lower launch costs by as much as half, by avoiding the waste inherent in many government run launch programs.

But these efforts are nowhere close to actually moving mankind into space. Currently, the amount of money required to develop space technology is completely beyond the reach of any private group. There is no possibility that any latter day Puritans could gather the resources to establish a New Jerusalem on the Moon, or anywhere else in the Solar System. 

Yet, there is hope. Three things may bring about a new golden age to space exploration. First is technology. The incredible advances in computer, manufacturing and materials technology over the forty years since the Space Shuttle first took shape on a draftsman's table may soon make it possible for a well funded independent company to design and build a working rocket. And not merely a rocket like those that have gone before, disposable and wasteful, but a true rocket like those envisioned in the pulp science fiction novels of the fifties - a space ship that can take off, fly into space and return in one piece. Computer aided design, advanced composite materials and automated manufacturing could conceivably bring this within reach, by sharply lowering the cost of development and construction. 

Once the first Single Stage To Orbit (SSTO) space ship flies, the door will open, at least somewhat. The cost per pound to orbit flying on an SSTO would be orders of magnitude less than on a traditional disposable roman candle. The company that builds it would be able to launch from simple space fields, with ground crews more like an airline's than NASA's. They would make a lot of money launching the world's backlog of satellites, and make affordable the launching of satellites for other purposes - those that didn't couldn't justify the vast expense of a current launch. 

Also, a working SSTO is also, by default, the fastest means of point to point travel on earth. No more than forty five minutes to anywhere on the planet. FedEx could certainly find a use for something like that, and likely Virgin Airlines as well. By creating a market for one SSTO, other companies will get in the game, and one would hope that the result would be something like the modern aircraft and airline industry after a little while. 

The second hope is that some other nation will launch an ambitious program of space exploration and colonization, prodding the American Government to get off its collective fundament and begin some exploring and settling of its own. The current world situation is not altogether favorable, what with Europe's economy on permanent hold, and Russia's in a death spiral. The only other potential is China, which is due to launch its first manned mission later this year, and has promised that they will go to the moon by the end of the decade. If the Chinese can pull this off, sheer embarrassment may force the U.S. into action. 

The third hope, and the most unlikely, is that strong leadership from the highest levels of government would create a drive to either go to Mars, or to privatize the space program. The first is extremely unlikely, but the second could happen if it turns out that the space shuttle is not safe to fly again. A decree that promises a large government purchase order to the company that first demonstrates a working SSTO would light a very large and hot fire under the aerospace industry, and thousands of dreamers on shoestring budgets as well. Remember that much of the development of the early aviation industry was motivated by government mail contracts and prize awards. Charles Lindbergh, the dark horse competitor for the Ortieg Prize, won $25,000 for crossing the Atlantic solo, non stop in 1927. But he beat several other competitors who were much better funded. 

People came to the America seeking gold and quick fortunes. In the process of not finding it, they created something as unlikely and wonderful as the United States. If, tomorrow, through some improbable convergence of events we find ourselves in possession of a working SSTO that can deliver cargo to orbit for a thousandth the cost of current launch vehicles; then the whole cornucopia of wonders promised by the space geeks might come true. But the invention of the caravel at the same time that Europe became politically capable of world wide exploration was unlikely, too. If we do go into space, the results will likely be stranger than we can imagine now.

So what does this mean for the frustrated space geek? Well, it's bad news all around. Not only is there no good reason for the government to undertake large scale space colonization, there are several reasons for them not to. 

Firstly, American military dominance is founded to an amazing degree on satellite technology. Our weapons systems use GPS satellites for guidance. Our weapons systems and soldiers communicate with satellites. Our commanders and planners depend on intelligence gathered by satellites. Our Air Forces depend on weather data gathered by satellites. Currently, no other nation has these capabilities.

The Air Force did a study back in the sixties, and realized that a small two man orbital station could do vastly better reconnaissance work with a small telescope than any conceivable (at the time) recon satellite. While computers have vastly increased the capabilities of our spy satellites, the fact remains that if people are up in orbit, a small telescope gives them powers comparable to the most sophisticated military and expensive military or CIA spysats. 

This concept has broad application. People do things better than robots. If people are in orbit, they can do many things that can currently only be done with expensive automated hardware that only the U.S. can afford. If the U.S. government makes it really cheap to get into space, then it will have given away one of the most incredible military advantages ever possessed by a nation. 

Also, when you drop things from very high up, they hit the ground very hard. This basic law of applied physics has already been proven by the use of Concrete bombs in the war in the gulf. Thanks to precision (satellite) guidance packages, a very large lump of concrete dropped from fifty thousand feet (about eight miles) can easily destroy a tank or APC. When you drop things from 150 miles up, in Low Earth Orbit, you can reach out and touch someone, anywhere on the globe, in less than half an hour, with the explosive force of a pony nuke. Access to space gives great power to anyone who can get into there. 

The U.S. Government does not want to lose these advantages. Nor would any sane government. Another reason that the government would be happy with status quo is simply to restrict access to space generally. In this way, only accredited commercial interests will be permitted launch slots. The other three nations that are space capable, China, Russia and France, follow the same restrictive policies. It is an exclusive club, and even run of the mill bureaucratic inertia and turf defense instincts would be enough to shape policy toward keeping things as they are. 

Then, there are all the commonly heard objections: "We need the money to give to crack mothers, or to fund Richard Maplethorpe." Or, "Space is a pristine environment, and we don't want to kill all the space otters with pollution from the combustion of Hydrogen and Oxygen." Or, "Exploiting space is a typical phallic dominance maneuver of the ruling political class, and only perpetuates the oppression inherent in the system." (Johno or Mike, you could probably do the academic bullshit speak better than me, you've been exposed to it more.) Or, "It will upset the French." 

These reasons, as ridiculous as they sound to the passionate space geek, are nevertheless politically potent objections. Along with the first two, they stand as a formidable bulwark against future space development. NASA may continue to design and redesign space vehicles so as to create an illusion of progress, but it truly is not in the government's interest to promote significant space activities. For the near term, government space activities will be limited to satellite deployment - the orbital equivalent of coastal navigation buoys; and the occasional deep space probe.

So what does all of this mean for space travel? Clearly, the American space program of the sixties was part of the larger Cold War. While Kennedy and his successors painted a lot of rhetoric on why we went into orbit or to the moon, the real reason was simply, and always, to beat the Russkies. Regardless of the hopes and dreams of the scientists and engineers working for NASA and the aerospace industry, they were engaged in the same kind of contest as Royal Navy Admiral Jackie Fisher had with his dreadnoughts sixty years earlier. 

Once Cold War political realities rendered the space race superfluous, it was promptly jettisoned. Of course, no bureaucracy ever truly dies; so NASA fought tenaciously to salvage some of its budget, and to come up with reasons for its continued existence. On their reduced budget, they achieved some rather remarkable things. What did they accomplish after the feverish race for the moon was over? Deep space robotic exploration and the shuttle/space station programs.

As we mentioned, exploration is cheap. For chump change in government revenue terms, we could toss out a Pioneer, Voyager, Pathfinder or Galileo probe every year for eternity and not feel the bite. And, like early sailing ship explorations they brought back fabulous images, scientific information, and a sense that we were engaging in something important. 

The Space Shuttle Program is a technological marvel, to be sure. But it is simultaneously a ridiculous compromise, a kludged up rube-goldbergesque vehicle that tries to be everything to everyone, while actually pleasing no one. So, the Space Shuttle is a shuttle. OK, fine, but don't shuttles shuttle back and forth between things? Oh yeah, well, we're building a space station for the shuttle to fly to. What does the Space Station do? Well, all kinds of nifty research, and it will embarrass the hell out of the commies. Didn't the Soviet Union collapse? Oh.

When you recall that the International Space Station, built with the help of every country in the world but North Korea, and cost two hundred trillion dollars because it was redesigned 8,000 times over twenty years, and in any event is smaller than the space station we let burn up and that was built out of spare parts left over from Apollo, having a shuttle to go to it doesn't seem so cool anymore. And then, after two tragic (not in the sense of aw, that's sad but in the original sense of inevitable doom) accidents, we don't even have a shuttle anymore. 

The Shuttle and ISS are the result of bureaucratic inertia, and the fact that the U.S. Government has an obscene amount of money. The exploratory probes are a result of the fact that NASA, in its spare time, is a jobs program for scientists, and the fact that the U.S. Government has an obscene amount of money. 

We should not be surprised that we do not have a space program, or at least a space program that space advocates would proudly call their own. There is absolutely no political reason to have one. The two reasons that governments fund anything beyond exploration of the most cursory nature is strategic competition with rival powers, or to gain control of vital resources or trade. 

But, the United States has no rivals, for we are a solitary superpower. We do not need to beat anyone to anywhere. The only possible rival is China, but this is not going to happen in the near term. There are no easily accessible resources in space. Most of space is, well, space. There is not only no "Gold in them thar hills," there mostly isn't really even a there there. The closest real estate to Earth, our Moon, is covered in Aluminum and Silicon based dirt. Aluminum and Silicon are hardly the most valuable of mineral resources on Earth. Add to that the fact that we would have to transport not merely miners and tools, but every drop of water, breath of air and crumb of food that the miners would consume during their entire Lunar sojourn, this becomes a undesirable investment option for government. Any other usable real estate is even further away. 

And, there are no friendly aliens to go out and trade with either, despite the fervent beliefs of many in this country. 

The final reason the government might agree to allow large scale efforts to colonize space doesn't apply to the United States either. By and large we are a fat, happy, prosperous people, and have no desire to move elsewhere. We've got it as good as any nation in the history of the world, so why should anyone want to leave? There are no Puritans, no Huguenots suffering from religious oppression, and even when things were much worse for blacks in this country, even when there was still slavery, they didn't want to go to Liberia. 

The only way that the U.S. Government will pay for a large scale space program in the absence of traditional motivations, is if we become so fantastically wealthy that a hundred billion dollars is pocket change..

There are many space exploration advocates who bemoan the fact that the American space program was a political entity, born of the cold war and dying with it. But this view is incorrect in that, historically, exploration has rarely if ever been anything but political. When John F. Kennedy launched the American half of the cold war space race, he followed a tradition of politically motivated exploration that stretches back half a millennium.

When Henry the Navigator organized the Portuguese exploration efforts in the late fifteenth century, he did it for an expressly political purpose - to find an alternate route to valuable commodities. The existing, and expensive trade route to the spices that Europe wanted went straight through the Islamic Ottoman Empire, which for reasons of religion, politics and greed restricted the flow of commerce to the Christian west.

When the Italian navigator Christopher Columbus convinced the Spanish to finance his expedition, the Spanish wanted an alternate route to the east as well - because the Ottomans and the Portuguese controlled the other two. French and British, Dutch and Swedish voyages of exploration over the next two centuries were the result of the desire of those governments to establish colonies in the new world, so as not to be totally left out of the game that was dominated by the first two exploring nations, Portugal and Spain. (And to discover new routes to the east, of course.)

While these explorations seemed to lead quite naturally to trade, colonies, empire and the like, it did not spring magically into existence, simply because new lands had been discovered. Gold inspired the Spanish conquistadors, and soon Spain was in possession of vast territories it didn’t know quite what to do with. The vast difference in military capability between the Castilian soldiers of Cortez and Pizarro meant that the Aztec and Incan empires could be conquered by small groups of adventurers, without constant support from the mother country.

But elsewhere in the world, progress toward empire was slow. In the early seventeenth century, the French government could barely convince a couple thousand of her citizens to settle in New France, and even by the time of the American Revolution a hundred and fifty years later, the population of Canada only amounted to tens of thousands. Even in the rich farm lands of what became the Thirteen Colonies, population growth was negative for decades - the colonies only grew through immigration. The first British colony died out altogether, and the second, third and fourth nearly did as well. Setting up colonies was a difficult business, and rarely profitable until decades later. State support for these ventures was minimal, unless placing a colony directly inconvenienced a rival power, or a valuable resource lay directly under it.

In Africa and in the East, outright empire building was slow to develop. The Portuguese, and later the Spanish, British, Dutch and French set up small outposts and forts to guard their trade routes. And even these were only viable because of the vast amounts of wealth that was easily obtained by trading with the nations of the east.

Governments financed exploration for political reasons - but exploration was cheap. A couple ships, crew and an overly brave explorer were easy to come by. Settlements and Empire were much more costly, and usually avoided, unless there was a compelling political or strategic gain to be had. Those colonies usually fell into one of two categories - securing land to prevent a rival power from getting it (usually sparsely inhabited or primitive areas), or smaller forts, treaty ports, and outposts used to secure trade routes to valuable commodities.

As Europe grew richer and more technologically advanced these networks of colonies, outposts and treaty ports eventually evolved into true empires; usually as the result of some ambitious Leftenant conquering or duping local rulers because the local customs offended his sense of propriety. But in the early stages, this process was expensive and run by the government for its own purposes. Merchants, colonists, traders and mechanics followed later, often much later.

Another factor to consider is that most of the early British colonies in America were self financed, and by groups that wanted desperately to leave England; or they were prison colonies. This pattern was also true, though to a lesser extent, in other British dominions, and in the territories of other powers. It was only after the colonies had become established over a period of decades or centuries, and became prosperous that the central government showed any interest in them at all.

Governments can finance exploration easily. Settlement is a tougher and more expensive endeavor, and only undertaken (by governments) when there is clear and immediate gain to be had.