START and 'Serious Consequences'

By letter to the editor

The news tickers this morning were saturated with Secretary of Defense Gates's statement that if START is not passed, "there will be serious consequences." Well, at least he was finally honest about those consequences:

"It isn't just limited to this narrow subject, but reflects on the relationship as a whole," he said. "And the truth of the matter is the Russians, in the last year or two, have been very cooperative, first of all, helping us establish the Northern Distribution Network to help supply Afghanistan, including a recent decision at my request to allow us to move these mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles - MRAPs - across Russia."

So there you have it. Because we still haven't grown our forces to conduct regional wars, our own SecDef admits the Russians have us by the short hairs when it comes supplying our forces in Afghanistan. And for this enlightened approach to war, we now have to sacrifice our strategic security by signing a flawed treaty.

We are still not taking the war seriously.

Name withheld by request