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Jewish World Review June 15, 1999 /1 Tamuz, 5759
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Jewish World Review June 15, 1999 /1 Tamuz, 5759
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| Pollard |
(JWR) ---- (http://www.jewishworldreview.com)
CHINA'S ACQUISITION of U.S. strategic technology threatens to undo the
United States' World War II victory in the Pacific. The Clinton
Administration's
complaisance about it can not be understood as an intellectual error. The
private
interests of William Jefferson Clinton and of his closest associates explain
that
complaisance all too well.
The military technology that China has acquired from the U.S. through
espionage, through U.S. companies' stretching the bounds of cooperation, as
well as by legal means, adds up to more than the Soviet Union got a half
century
ago through atomic espionage, the capture of a B-29 bomber, and lend lease.
And yet the U.S. government has not deprived any company of contracts. It has
not punished, or even demoted, anyone---except for the Energy Department's
security chief who uncovered a big chunk of the espionage. Nor has the
Administration changed military plans to account for a China that will
shortly be
able to make good on long-standing bloody threats against America. In what
may be the most obvious indicator of the Administration's priorities, Wen Ho
Lee
and Peter Lee, who reportedly passed the most clamorous secrets, are not even
in jail.
Contrast this with the fact that the Administration vehemently insists on
imprisoning for the rest of his life Jonathan Pollard, who gave secrets of an
incomparably lower order to Israel which, unlike China, poses no threat to
America. From the standpoint of U.S. national security, this makes no sense.
Alas, in
Consider what China's harvest of U.S. military technology will enable China
to do. Through cooperative satellite launch programs China acquired the
technology for accurate staging and orbital placement of large rockets, as
well
as multiple satellite release. The Clinton Administration licensed the sale
of a
McDonnell Douglas manufacturing facility. This means that China will be able
to
build a force of big, mobile, accurate, multiple warhead missiles better than
the ones we designed nearly two decades ago.
This force will be invulnerable
to any preemptive strike, and will be able to penetrate the dumbed down
"Theater Missile Defenses" that the Clinton Administration is preparing. As
for
warheads, through the efforts of Wen Ho Lee at Los Alamos, China apparently
got the entire dump on design and manufacturing of all our major nukes,
including the W-88 warhead: 150 Kilotons delivered to within about 80 yards.
Through Peter Lee at Livermore, China apparently got the key to testing these
warheads through simulations and in a camouflage mode. The same Lee seems
to have given China the software for radar detection of operating attack
submarines. Good-bye protection for U.S. carrier task forces.
With these missiles, China will be able to hold hostage Japan, South Korea,
and Taiwan. With its new knowledge of submarine detection, it will be able
to
defeat any attempt by U.S. forces to help these allies. More important,
China is
gaining the capacity to back up the warning it gave the U.S. three years ago:
interfere with our plans in Asia, and you will lose Los Angeles. In sum,
thanks to
its new technological edge, China will not have to invade our Asian allies to
tear
up the Pax-Americana that the Pacific basin has enjoyed for a half century.
Very soon then, our erstwhile allies will have to seek their security outside
the
framework that has served us, them and the world so well. We cannot know in
advance how Japan will provide for itself. But odds are that a Pacific Rim
dominated by Sino-Japanese nuclear rivalry will export more trouble than
consumer electronics. So much has been lost so very fast. All of us will
have to
pay.
The Clinton Administration's attitude toward China's spies is even more
revealing. The Administration's formal explanation for not even bringing
charges
against Wen Ho Lee is that evidence shows only that he downloaded the
information onto a non secure computer site, which was then accessed by
persons unknown. By this logic no one could be prosecuted for espionage for
putting stolen documents into "dead drop" such as a hollow tree, for later
pickup by foreign agents. But what about Peter Lee? He did in fact give
China
our warhead testing techniques and, it now turns out, our radar submarine
location technology. And what did the Administration ask for a penalty? Not
one
day in the pen. Both Lees are "on the street."
But why? Real trials would focus the public's attention on the Clinton
Administration's larger relationship with China, which has been most
profitable
for some of the Democratic Party's largest constituents and contributors.
If, as is
probable, Chinese officials also do not want the American public to think in
such
terms, the Clinton Administration may well have listened to them. After all,
China now holds some four dozen persons fleeing subpoenas from American
courts regarding the Clinton administration's activities. If China's spies
were
handled roughly, China might well dump a lot of anti-Clinton witnesses into
the
U.S. court system.
And so, even as the Administration finds legal excuses to keep Wen Ho Lee
and Peter Lee out of jail, it continues to scratch for excuses to keep
Israel's spy,
Jonathan Pollard, behind bars. The heaviest items of the official indictment
against Pollard are that he gave Israel pictures of Middle Eastern countries
other
than the ones the U.S. government wanted to give, and that he gave parts of
a list of electronic surveillance addresses that the U.S. government had
withheld, as well as a host of reports about Middle Eastern countries. It
does not
take expertise in national security affairs to see that these items are in a
league
orders of magnitude different from the Lees. The differences between the two
sets are so big that no mind, no matter how dull, can confuse them.
This takes us back to our original observation: The Clinton Administration's
decisions about national security affairs are being driven by private
interests,
loves, and hates---everything but what should drive a serious country.
Related:
other terms, it makes perfect sense.
The inherent seriousness of these events contrasts sharply with the Clinton
Administration's attitude: China has not yet deployed its new weapons. The
Chinese government's whipping up anti-American hysteria is only for domestic
purposes. American anti-missile defense would be de-stabilizing. Mr.
Clinton
knows that China's new missiles are coming, and that the Chinese regime's
public opinion campaigns are the truest indications of its policy. But it is
enough
for Clinton that two powerful constituents, the Democratic Party's domestic
core,
as well as Chinese officials, object to missile defense.
Angelo M. Codevilla is a professor of international relations at Boston
University.
He is a former staff member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
03/05/99: It's time we all saw the "secret charges" against Jonathan Pollard
01/08/99: Equal treatment under the law demands Pollard's release
11/19/98:The Spy Left Out In the Cold Too Long
11/11/98:
Pollard hopeful
GOP changes will
benefit him
10/28/98:
Peace process
or spin politics?
4/9/98: The US Navy's two faced Pollard policy
