SDI OPPONENTS: GULF SHOWS THEM TO BE WRONG THEN, NOW

So read the headline over a lengthy (and excellent) News Analysis article in Friday's St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Ironic, isn't it? Some of us have spent decades working and fighting for peace through strength, including the high-tech weapons that mean the difference in modern warfare. For this we get called warmongers, supporters of the "military-industrial complex" and worse, by the sort of people who look to the editorial page of the Post-Dispatch for guidance on policy.

This very newspaper, Missouri's largest, speaking through this same News Analysis section, has opposed virtually every advanced weapons system, the self-same "costly gadgets" it now concedes have made the difference in "Why The Skies Were Ours."

I keep wondering. When will one of the intrepid sleuths of the national television networks take a break from interviewing Mr. Rogers on what the kiddies think of war and instead seek out former Colorado Senator Gary Hart? Recall that Sen. Hart spent years campaigning against the very kind of advanced weapons systems that have kept loss of life both civilian and military so stunningly low since hostilities began last Wednesday evening.

Well, things are different now, aren't they? One wag has said that Sen. Hart must be turning over in his political grave. Still, I would love to hear from the Phil Donahues, the Walter Mondales and the George Mitchells, the Alan Cranstons and the Teddy Kennedys now that their cliches and blatant misinformation are exposed, as one weapons system after another that they wanted to sacrifice to the arms control process vividly demonstrates its irreplaceability.

At the very moment I write this Monday evening, more Soviet-made Iraqi SCUD missiles are headed into Saudi Arabia for the fourth such attack in the last five evenings. None are hitting their targets. Why?

Very simple. In the first-ever battlefield application of the principle of the much-maligned Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), our Patriot missiles are shooting the SCUDS down. The wicked SCUD, an offensive missile wielded by a wicked dictator, is being thwarted and rendered impotent by superior technology, combined with the skill and courage and tenacity of the American crews manning the defensive Patriot missile batteries.

When this is over in the Persian Gulf, or perhaps before, President Bush should take the podium on national television and face down his congressional and media antagonists. He should demand a capital gains tax cut, and threaten an uninterrupted string of vetoes of congressional budget-busters, the better to tame the Congress as the teeming rabbit-warren that it surely is. Mr. Bush should open a riveting national debate on the question:

Shall America be defended?

Shall we have full funding for SDI research and development, the better to protect America in a dangerous world? Having sent Patriot missiles to protect the Israelis, making the difference at a critical moment in Middle Eastern history, shall we have less to defend American lives, property and interests here at home, and around the world?

Every Member of Congress should be forced to respond: Precisely what is your answer to these questions?

And as with the Patriot missile, so it is with the Tomahawk cruise missile, made by McDonnell-Douglas of St. Louis. These magnificent weapons are fired from battleships hundreds of miles off shore, race to their targets at a radar-evading altitude of 50-350 feet, strike with computer-directed accuracy in the exact window their targeters planned, and so minimize casualites on both sides with maximum destructive effect against strategic targets.

I keep watching to see how many of the very same people who wanted to sacrifice these cruise missiles to the arms control process will now be interviewed, and called to account. Ah, yes, the Congress very same folks who caused the Savings and Loan crisis, made a complete farce of the budget process, and spent $40 million trying to put Ollie North in jail, caring nothing for violating his constitutional rights in the process.

The last few days have shown that when Mr. Bush picks a fight, he brings a lot to the contest. Please, Mr. President, pick some fights with the clowns and the cowards of Capitol Hill. From some media sectors there will be howling, but the rest of us will love you for the enemies you make.