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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 13, 2004)
Oregon Daily Emerald Wednesday, October 13, 2004 NEWS STAFF (541)346-5511 IEN SUD1CK EDITOR IN CHIEF STEVEN R. NEUMAN MANAGING EDITOR JARED PABEN AY1SHA YAIIYA NEWS EDITORS PARKER HOWELL SENIOR NEWS REPORTER MORIAH BALINCIT MEGHANN CUNIFF KARA HANSEN ANTHONY LUCERO CANELA WOOD NEWS REPORTERS CLAYTON JONES SPORTS EDITOR JON ROELMAN SFNIOR SPORTS REPORTER STEPHEN MILIER BRIAN SMITH SPORTS REPORTERS RYAN NYBURC PULSE EDITOR NATASHA CHILINGER1AN SENIOR PULSE REPORTER DAHVI FISCHER AMY LICHTY RYAN MURPHY PULSE REPORTERS DAVID JAGERNAUTH EDITORIAL EDITOR JENNIFER MCBRIDE AILEE SLATER CHUCK SLOTHOWER TRAVIS WILLSE COLUMNISTS ASHLEY GRIFFIN SUPPLEMENT FREELANCE EDITOR GABE BRADLEY NEWS FREELANCE EDITOR/ DIRECTOR OF RECRUITMENT DANIELLE HICKEY PHOTO EDITOR LAUREN WIMER SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER TIM BOBOSKY PHOTOGRAPHER ERIK BISHOFF PART-TIME PHOTOGRAPHER BRET FURTWANGLER ILLUSTRATOR/GRAPHIC ARTIST KIRA PARK DESIGN EDITOR ELLIOTT ASBURY CHARLIE CALDWELL DUSTIN REESE DESIGNERS SHADRA BEESLEY JEANNIE EVERS COPY CHIEFS KIMBERLY BLACKFIELD PAUL THOMPSON SPORTS COPY EDITORS AMANDA EVRARD AMBER UNDROS NEWS COPY EDITORS LINDSAY BURT PULSE COPY EDITOR ADRIENNE NELSON ONLINE EDITOR BUSINESS (541)346-5511 JUDY R1EDL GENERAL MANAGER KATHY CARBONE BUSINESS MANAGER REBECCA CRITCHETT RECEPTIONIST NATHAN FOSTER AIBINC GUO ANDREW LEAHY JOHN LONG MALLORY MAHONEY HOLLY MISTELL DISTRIBUTION ADVERTISING (541)346-3712 MELISSA GUST ADVERTISING DIRECTOR TYLER MACK SALES MANAGER ALEX AMES MATT BETZ HERON CALISCH-DOLEN MEGAN HAMLIN ELISA JESSOP MAEGAN KASER-LEE MIA LEIDELMEYER EMILY PHILBIN SHANNON ROGERS SALES REPRESENTATIVES KELLEE KAUFTHEIL AD ASSISTANT CLASSIFIED (541)3464343 TRINA SHANAMAN CLASSIFIED MANAGER KATY GAGNON SABRINA GOWETTE LESLIE STRAIGHT KERI SPANGLER KATIE STRINGER CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING ASSOCIATES PRODUCTION (541)3464381 MICHELE ROSS PRODUCTION MANAGER TARA SLOAN PRODUCTION COORDINATOR JEN CRAMLET KRISTEN DICHARRY CAMERON CAUT ANDY HOLLAND DESIGNERS The Oregon Daily Emerald is pub lished daily Monday through Fri day during the school year by the Oregon Daily Emerald Publishing Co. Inc., at the University of Ore gon, Eugene, Ore. The Emerald operates independently of the University with offices in Suite 300 of the Erb Memorial Union. The Emerald is private property. Unlawful removal or use of papers is prosecutable by law ■ In my opinion Unrealistic missile defense system Next month “Doctor Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,” widely ac claimed as one of the greatest satirical films of all time, will be re-released in a 40th Anniversary Special Edition DVD. For those who haven’t seen Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 masterpiece, it’s about the lighter side of nuclear destruction. By chance, the re-release coincides with the most ridiculous nuclear fiction of our day — President Bush’s plan to begin deployment of a national missile defense. The Ballistic Missile Defense Sys tem (BMDS) is the modern incarna tion of Reagan’s “Star Wars” program, a shield designed to protect the Unit ed States from nuclear attacks. So far, the Washington Post reports President Bush dumped $31 billion down this black hole. He’s calling for an addi tional $9 billion to $10 billion a year if he’s re-elected. The administration has shunned requirements, goals and standard re view processes. There is no way to measure BMDS’s progress apart from tests conducted by the agency whose very existence depends on BMDS vi ability. The result is unrealistic test conditions involving incoming mis siles equipped with global positioning systems. Even these highly scripted tests failed to prove BMDS’s feasibility and were halted two years ago. The project marches on, regardless. Senator Jack Reed (D-R.L), member of the Armed Services Committee, criticizes the lack of oversight. “We’re in this hugely expensive race to build something, but we don’t know how much it'll cost in the end or what it'll do,” Reed said. The few people in charge of inter nal review doubt BMDS will be com petent. Thomas P. Christie, director of Operational Test and Evaluation at JENNIFER MCBRIDE QUASHING DISSENT the Department of Defense, esti mates that the system may be only 20 percent effective. Expert physi cists question developers’ claims that the system will ever be able to distin guish a nuclear weapon from a de coy. Tests with even simple targets become exhibitions of pure pathos. Pentagon officials blame this not on design flaws but on issues dealing with the quality of specific, individ ual parts. Some of those “individual parts” aren’t even available yet, and won’t be in the near future. If we’re not even sure if BMDS is possible and it’s clearly underdevel oped, why are we setting up to deploy it? Nobody seems to know. But the administration’s gung-ho efforts to produce a public relations victory are putting Americans at risk. Deployment before equipment is ready discourages further develop ment. In the 1990s, the U.S. devel oped Theater High-Altitude Area De fense, a similar anti-missile system, but pressures to deploy early led to compromises in its design and test ing. Ironically, early deployment de layed the project by years. The same thing could happen to BMDS. Philip E. Coyle III, the Penta gon’s chief weapons evaluator during the Clinton administration, worries de ployment will lock the U.S. into fatally flawed technology while creating a false sense of security. “The design gets frozen in order to build something, so development is stopped. ... You can't be building a house and changing the floor plan at the same time.” “They'd still be testing at Kitty Hawk, for God's sake, if you wanted perfection,” Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declared in yet another ex ample of why he shouldn’t be let out of the White House without a leash. But the Pentagon isn’t just deploying a flawed mechanism, it’s deploying a fantasy — and U.S. taxpayers are ex pected to shoulder the burden of an ad ministrational pipe dream. The problem is, if billions of dol lars later BMDS actually does protect us from nuclear launches, even opti mistic officials estimate it can only stop 80 percent of all missiles. To compensate, other nations like Chi na will have to develop more weapons in order to maintain the mutually-destructive status-quo. This could lead to the entire destabi lization of South Asia, pushing the fragile India-Pakistan standoff near er to the brink of destruction. The continued pursuit of this chimerical daydream is destroying our relationships abroad, as they see the U.S. risking increased proliferation for no reason. With our military stretched thin, we are more dependent on allies than ever for our national security. Alienating them is less than wise. BMDS technology is flawed, ex pensive and puts the world in more danger. Every good gambler can tell you there’s a moment when you cut your losses. Continuing to parade BMDS as a pre-election panacea for nuclear war fare is the greatest farce of all. Who knows? In 40 years, someone might make a movie about it. jennifermcbride@ dailyemerald, com OREGON DAILY EMERALD LETTERS POLICY Letters to the editor and guest commentaries are encouraged, and should be sent to (etters@dailyemerald .com or submitted at the Oregon Daily Emerald office, EMU Suite 300. Electronic submissions are preferred. Letters are limited to 250 words, and guest commentaries to 550 words. Authors are limited to one submission per calendar month. Submissions should include phone number and address forverification. The Emerald reserves the right to edit for space, gammar and style. Guest submissions are published at toe discretion of toe Emerald ■ Editorial Parking alternatives follow same bumpy road If there is one serious issue on this campus that gets no respect, it’s parking. It is an issue that confronts the students, faculty and staff on a daily basis and is one that has, for the most part, fallen by the wayside as University plan ners have set their sights on more glamorous and high-profile projects. Let’s face it — the University has a serious problem with parking. The University sells two to three times as many parking permits as available spots, meaning students spend $94 per term (a 3 percent increase from last year) not for a parking space, but rather for a license to hunt for one. DPS Parking and TYansportation Manager Rand Stamm told the Emerald in a Sept. 20 arti cle that price increases are designed to “dis courage students from driving. ” Meanwhile, the University is trying to bully students into either living in their cramped dorms or moving just off-campus to areas that the city government now seems to want to strip of student tenants. Well, it is working. The thought of having to drive to campus makes it hard to get up in the morning. Many in the University community, especially those with off-campus jobs, have no choice but to drive. That can mean scheduling classes in two hour blocks to accommodate parking or desper ately searching for the few free parking spots in the neighborhoods surrounding the campus. We don’t condone the notion that everyone should have their own personal parking space on campus either, but other options seem to be in danger of withering on the vine. The bus is gener ally a good alternative and we applaud the Uni versity for making good use of mass transit, but depending on where you live and where you need to go during the day the bus often won’t take you there in a timely manner, if at all. Biking to school, always a popular alternative form of transportation, now promises to become more of a hassle now that DPS is increasing en forcement of bike laws. Besides, the prospect of biking down any of the University’s main streets (which are essentially the only approved bike routes) five minutes before class means weaving in and out of crowds of clueless pedestrians. While we don’t want to encourage students to drive alone to campus before looking at more environmentally friendly options, there are some cold hard facts to face: the University is growing. In 1997, the total fall enrollment head count was 17,207; today that figure is at 20,033. There are no easy solutions, but more parking or smarter parking should definitely be part of the conversation. The University loves to make claims about how well it plans for the future, but even with all the brain power and innovation in this in stitution, we still cling to the simplest choices. Parking lots around campus, such as the lot be hind the Knight Law Library, just isolate the com munity from the University, setting us off from Eugene like a moat around a castle. University planners might consider skipping the vast vacant lots of blacktop currently employed as parking lots — when new buildings are constructed they should come with underground parking facilities. Whatever the decision, the University needs to take a long hard look at the policies in place, because right now we are on a collision course with disaster. EDITORIAL BOARD Jennifer Sudick Editor in Chief David Jagemauth Editorial Editor Steven R. Neuman Managing Editor Gabe Bradley Freelance Editor
