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Show MX Shouldn't Be Land-Based Land-Based System By TOM BI SSELBFRG CLEARFIELD Saying he'd rather see someone's tuna killed than his grandfather, former for-mer congressional candidate Ed Firmage voiced strong opposition to a land-based MX system last week in a speech to the Clearfield Job Corps Community Com-munity Relations Council. WITHOUT A SALT treaty of some sort, there is no guarantee that buildup will stop at the projected active "JOO missiles among 4.600. Instead, that could multiply to 15 or 20.000 and in the process would ruin the Great Basin, he said. Environmentally, the sheep industry would be severely hurt and water supplies eroded, Mr. Firmage said, noting not-ing some strange bedfellows have been formed as a result of opposition. Indians consider trie area as sacred land while cattlemen have joined with others in their fight to save the region from w hat they believe will be ruin. EVEN WITH the system in place and that will take time before it is fully operational there is no guarantee it will do the job intended that of providing pro-viding a threat to the Soviets, Mr. Firmage said. Some accidentsuch acci-dentsuch as misjudging geese for a missile attack, as has happened with current systems, sys-tems, could lead to an attack. And lest anyone worry that HAFB, Geneva Steel and other local facilities would be prime targets in conventioinal warfare without MX, he said they do not have the priority of other areas. But with MX, the Mountain States would be devastated de-vastated of life and even the Midwest would be gutted and void of the ability to grow crops for six or seven years. AND WHILE the Air Force says it will be impossible to determine de-termine where the 200 "active" "ac-tive" missiles with warheads are located, the Soviets could possibly obtain that information informa-tion and in the meantime will continue a buildup. That defense buildup on the American side means the expenditure ex-penditure sums running up to $1.5 trillion dollars too much for the economy to handle, he said. w AND WITH such emphasis on military buildup, social programs will be gutted an area with which Mr. Firmage has been heavily involved in the past. Sociologists worry when a population rises by more than 15 percent a year in a region. Projections indicate a growth of 500 percent in one or two years and then a similar decline de-cline for such areas as Delta and Cedar City, he said. INSTEAD OF a land-based system, Mr. Firmage favors basing it in the sea on submarines. sub-marines. That way, even if there was only one MX-equipped MX-equipped submarine, there would be a chance the Soviets wouldn't find it. But as it stands now, all the Soviets need do is produce enough weaponry to combat a land-based land-based system. If there were radiation blasts, it would not have the destruction impact on the world's population that a system sys-tem contained in the Great Basin or some other land area would, he emphasized. BIT MOMENTUM is rolling, roll-ing, with expenditures already climbing for the project and Washington interests behind continuing MX, he said, including inclu-ding the triad involving politicians politi-cians and military men who retire re-tire from service and move to positions with firms producing weaponry. Noting enough weaponry exists already for a 40-person overkill, or the ability to kill each person on the earth 40 times, Mr. Firmage said each warhead would contain 28 times the power of the Heroshema blast. Multiplied by 10 per missile it would end up at 56,000 times the power. HE QUESTIONED the ethics of a land-based system, noting it's like taking people and using them as strategy, where population centers are located close to the weapons projects. He is circulating petitions opposing the current MX plan and urged his audience to write letters to President Reagan and others voicing opposition. |