Word: commanders
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Where does this leave the MX? A presidential commission is studying that question. I will address one issue: Should we have a "counterforce" capability (an ability to strike accurately at Soviet missile silos or command centers), or should we continue to aim for "assured destruction" of civilian and industrial targets? Ever since the Soviets began to approach strategic parity, it should have been obvious that a strategy aiming at civilian destruction was an irrational, suicidal, indeed nihilistic course that no President could implement. Undiscriminating slaughter is not a defense policy but a prelude to unilateral disarmament...
Thank you for a thorough and judicious account of the "Verdict on the Massacre" [Feb. 21]. The distinction between direct and indirect responsibility is sound, though it is still questionable whether the top Israeli command was not more directly, though only partly, responsible for the calamity. Nevertheless, it is even more imperative for the Lebanese government to bring to justice those Phalangists who perpetrated the mass murders in the camps. Unless this is done, and done soon, the conscience of humanity will forever decry the horrendous miscarriage of justice...
This winter, however, the guerrillas launched an offensive that enabled them to score several psychologically damaging victories by briefly holding the towns of Berlin, Corinto and Meanguera. Alarmed, Lieut. General Wallace H. Nutting, head of the U.S. Southern Command in Panama, sent National Security Adviser William P. Clark a report that the military situation in El Salvador was actually far worse than the U.S. embassy was saying...
...Reagan Administration, meanwhile, is deeply dissatisfied with the performance of the Salvadoran military machine. Its commanders insist on broad and expensive battalion-size sweeps of the countryside, rather than the small-unit, anti-insurgent tactics urged by the U.S. trainers. The high command is rife with political infighting. Complains an official close to Reagan: "We have to deal with barracks politics as well as the attitude of 9-to-5 fighting...
...dogfights with MiGs. Only in the last decade has the Air Force produced a good close-support plane, the A10, which can fly slowly enough to find enemy tanks, is sturdy enough to take hits, and is capably armed with a simple and effective 30-mm cannon. Tactical Air Command pilots ridicule the A10, joking that they fear being hit from the rear by birds. In recent years, the Air Force has tried to delete the plane from its budget...