According to an article by Tim Weiner in the New York Times last week, the U.S. Air Force is urging President Bush to develop a program of space weapons to "secure outer space to protect the nation from attack." Besides being reminiscent of Ronald Reagan's unrealistic and ill-fated Star Wars program, this news item also makes me wonder whether our military leaders and politicians have any common sense whatsoever. The article further quotes General Lance Lord, leader of the U.S. Air Force Space Command, as telling Congress recently: "...we must establish and maintain space superiority... Simply put, it's the American way of fighting."

I wonder what the leaders of other countries--and I am thinking of highly advanced technological powers such as China--will be doing while the United States goes about establishing "superiority." An arms race in space makes about as much sense, and would make us just as secure, as the nuclear race has made us down here on earth. Our superiority over North Korea in terms of nuclear arms is not questioned, so why are we worried about it?

It all reminds me of the famous lines from Bertolt Brecht's poem, "A German War Primer": "Those who lead the country into the abyss call ruling too difficult for ordinary men." Perhaps the ordinary men (and women) of the United States will have something to say about the plans of the so-called geniuses who run our country?