Marble Composition

More on Nuclear Proliferation

I've written a little bit about this before, but I saw a pretty good post over at the Huffington Post by Joe Cirincione that adds more to a topic which I think is one of the most critical security issues facing the U.S. today. As for treaties and policy:

Though not without its failures and faults, this interlocking network of global restraints had blocked if not altogether prevented the spread of these dangerous weapons. Far more countries over the past 15 years, for example, have been persuaded to abandon nuclear weapon programs or weapons than have initiated such programs. There are half the number of nuclear weapons in the world today than there were 15 years ago and chemical and biological weapons have been largely eliminated as serious state threats. All this is due to the policies and treaties negotiated by Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

The new team would have none of it. They were scathing in their criticism. Then-Under Secretary of State John Bolton said in 2004, "The Bush administration is making up for decades of stillborn plans, wishful thinking, and irresponsible passivity. After many years of hand-wringing with the vague hope to find shelter from gathering threats, we are now acting decisively. We will no longer accept being dispirited by difficult problems that have no immediate answer."

Our current U.N. Ambassador sure sounds like fun guy. I read this as follows: treaties and arms control accords are for pussies, and what we need is more weapons. More importantly, what we really need is the moral certitude to inflict as much violence as we can, regardless if we're seen as butchers by the world community. At this point in history, our representative at the United Nations is nothing more than a madman with anger issues running around with a cudgel threatening everybody.

Gary Schmitt, an analyst at the Project for the New American Century, said more directly, "Conservatives don't like arms control agreements for the simple reason that they rarely, if ever, increase U.S. security." He contended that it was no longer "plausible to argue that our overall security was best served by a web of parchment accords, and not our own military capabilities."

Sure, the best way to negotiate with people is to threaten them.

The danger of nuclear terrorism has also grown as the ideology of al Qaeda has spread like wildfire throughout the Muslim world. But our programs to secure and eliminate the highly-enriched uranium and plutonium scattered in stockpiles in dozens of countries have not kept pace.

Amen. One notable exception to all this is Lybia giving up their nuclear ambitions and turning over all of their equipment to the U.S. That success occured mostly in spite of U.S. policy, and was brokered for the most part by the British in negotiations that tooks years to complete.

So, don't be surprised if thousands of Americans are murdered, and a large U.S. city is rendered uninhabitable in the next fifteen years because the Bush administration has failed to take this situation seriously. Their response to such an attack mirrors their current policy: unleash a massive wave of violence, preferably using nuclear weapons.

posted by FuzzFinger @ 5/05/2006 06:55:00 PM