Dr. Strangelove vs. the President
If the United Nations were in Vegas, and policy geeks were gamblers, this would be a match made for the MGM Grand. In one corner we'd have a bright young voice in the ring, fighting for a renewed American dream--where nuclear weapons are seen as obsolete liabilities in the face of today's biggest threats. In the other corner is the unhinged general, passionately obsessed with the atomic bomb, clutching it to the bitter end.
On Thursday, the president is going to chair a U.N. Security Council meeting to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons and prevent their spread. For the first time in years, nuclear weapons are back in the headlines.
Yes, that's right. Despite some admirable efforts, they didn't go away when the Soviet Union disappeared in 1991. Like a lot of other Cold War relics, they sat around and cost taxpayers billions of dollars a year to maintain. Some countries aren't even sure where all their weapons materials are anymore.
We've kept legions of brilliant scientific minds drawing the coordinates of mega death instead of diverting their knowledge to combat climate change. Thousands of nuclear weapons still exist. It's time to deal with this problem so we can move on.
But Dr. Strangelove's obsession persists. He's like some creepy adviser in the attic of U.S. government bureaucracy--unable to let go of his core identity--despite the fact that the world has gone on to struggle against other dangers. Despite the fact that we desperately need to stop looking backward for threats when the future has plenty in store for us. And despite the fact that having so many of these weapons makes us less safe.
The subject of nukes will be present a lot over the next year. The Strangelove echo chamber is preparing to scare us back to the 1960s. We got a taste of it last week when the president made a sensible adjustment to European Missile Defense. Beware the Armageddon lobby. Some wear suits and might represent you. Lots are employed by Fox television. Many believe they have enlisted Jesus to their cause.
The president showing up in New York this week is significant for many reasons. It is saying to the world that we're back in the game. We're going to stop being the rule breaker and start being the deal maker. We're going to take responsibility for reducing the risk posed by the most destructive weapon ever devised, capable of destroying most life on this planet. It is hugely important that President Obama himself goes to the UN--because the step by step process that lessens this serious danger needs his leadership and it must include everyone.
Two major treaties will be up for ratification or review in the next 12 months--one that outlaws the explosions that lead to more weapons and one that updates the international agreement to eliminate nuclear weapons. America's negotiators will be helping build a pathway toward these important goals. Right now, this pathway is the most important thing. "Banning Nukes" will take awhile. It's the "Eyes on the Prize" part. It's why we are inspired, but not the starting point.
Though Obama has put an amazing team together to deal with nuclear threats, he's making up for a lost decade. We used to have considerably more capacity within government to track and reduce nuclear risk. But the same conservative hunting party that turned Congress into a mantel trophy also bagged the important government institutions that dealt with this threat.
The Office of Technology Assessment--one of Newt Gingrich's first victims--drew up comprehensive conversion plans for our nuclear labs in 1994. Their plans had our scientists working on renewable energy and environmental technology. It was gone by 1995. The Arms Control and Disarmament Agency disappeared three years later. CTR, the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program (a bipartisan success story), started in 1993, has been the bright light on the landscape for years. It actually dismantled weapons in the former Soviet states and safeguarded dangerous materials--but struggled to gain traction because so many elected leaders remained mired in the past. CTR's day may have finally come.
During the last decade, national security transitioned from a world that was linear, predictable and technological to one that is chaotic, random and very human. Security really isn't about rocket science anymore. Security is about people. Case in point, Pakistan's top nuclear scientist sold his expertise to some very scary countries--the world's first entrepreneur of annihilation.
From counterinsurgency to climate change, Americans increasingly sense that we must behave differently in order to reach desired goals--our own safety being one of them. Coercion doesn't work well for most problems. Climate change has no military solution. Nor do international pandemics or contagious ideologies. In today's world, nuclear weapons create risk rather than reduce it: thousands of them means a lot of opportunity for them to fall into the hands of crazy types.
These days, security is about people. So perceptions of fair treatment and expectations of reciprocity have strategic implications. We Americans are the ones who built this ideal. We're the ones who asked others to be like us. At long last, we need to do what we tell everyone else to do. If we don't want other countries to have these deadly things, we need to get rid of our own and stop building more. The world is waiting for us to walk our talk.
Follow Lorelei Kelly on Twitter: www.twitter.com/loreleikelly
Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)
Nuclear Weapons - News - Science - The New York Times
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the ...
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With Iran shilling for Putin it is going to be so easy for the neocons to attack any non-proliferation, nuclear reduction agreement as caving to Iran it's DOA before it starts.
OK maybe he's shilling for himslef but my money is on Putin on this one.
Maybe we'll get an agreement on better tracking and containment of existing material. Maybe but only because you can sell that as keeping it out of the hands of terrorists. Of course that would ideally require a waste disposal facility preferably in the US to ensure safety of materials which will never be permitted as long as enviro's are fighting the specter of Nuclear Energy. Can't create a safe place to dispose of waste if you don't want nuclear power.
Obama's dream of a nuke free world was imagined in 1986, by Mordechai Vanunu the Whislte Blower of Israel's WMD Program, who told me in 2005:
"When I became the spy for the world, I did it all for the people of the world. If governments do not report the truth, and if the media does not report the truth, then all we can do is follow our consciences. Daniel Ellsberg did, the woman from Enron did, and I did.
"The United States needs to wake up and see...Isra
"The Israelis have 200 atomic weapons and they accuse the Palestinians and Muslims of terrorism.
"The Dimona is 46 years old; reactors last 25 to 30 years. The Dimona has never been inspected and Israel has never signed the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty but all the Arab states have.
"Twenty years ago when I worked there they only produced when the air was blowing towards Jordan ten miles away. No one knows what is happening now. The world needs to wake up and see the real terrorism is the occupation and the Palestinians have lived under that terror regime for 40 years.
Eileen Fleming, Producer "30 Minutes with Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu" FREELY STREAMING @ VANUNU ARCHIVES:
http://www
Nuclear factoids. Read this before you post here and look too damn dumb! lol We have made over 70,000 nukes. These weapons are not like an old Camaro you can put on blocks in the front yard of your trailer at the end of it's 'usefulness' and go buy another car. They are still bombs full of dangerous for the next 20,000 or so years. That is a hard concept for neo-cons that believe the world is 4,000 years old dontcha know.
http://nuc
ps. Duck and Cover under a school desk was proven not to be a viable defense against an 8,000 degree nuclear blast wave for some reason.
America possesses 11,000 nuclear weapons with many in excess of 20,000,000 tons of TNT -the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 12,000 tons- yet claims to be based on Judeo-Christian ethics, but “How can you kill people, when it is written in God’s commandment: ‘Thou shalt not murder’?”– Leo Tolstoy.
"You cannot talk like sane men around a peace table while the atomic bomb itself is ticking beneath it. Do not treat the atomic bomb as a weapon of offense; do not treat it as an instrument of the police. Treat the bomb for what it is: the visible insanity of a civilization that has ceased...t
It is also insane to ignore the law of karma: the nuclear fallout/blow back from just one of those bombs will return to where it came from in the air and by sea.
"Many believe they have enlisted Jesus to their cause."
Who would Jesus bomb?
These war mongers are the one's who have defamed the name of Jesus.
This just in!! Jebus was rushed into a local ER after a construction accident. The examining intern says to him 'so Mr. Haysoos Krist I see your date of birth here is 12/25/0000 is that correct?', JC nods. The intern continues 'Well sir unfortunately you are too poor to have insurance, you are an undocumented alien from a country that does not exist, you don't have a green card to be a carpenter here and take away a job from an American and so you don't qualify for any government coverage plans. Further more someone of your age should not be up on a ladder. Due to your advanced age all of your other ailments are pre-existing conditions and would not be covered under any private insurance plans anyway. Maybe the free clinic downtown will help you. We are discharging you immediately, sign here.'
JC wouldn't bomb anyone, but due to Failures of Intelligence and Anti-Christ hearts in many Christians we have come to this sorry state.
"For decades, the military built a sense of solidarity out of a singular purpose, the Cold War struggle between free markets and state-planned economies—the shining city on a hill versus the evil empire…meshed neatly with ideologies [that connected] nationalism and fundamenta
"The Crusade for a Christian Military: Jesus Killed Mohammed" details how the entrenchment of Christian fundamentalism in the USA military beginning during the Cold War accelerated during the Vietnam era and has now wrecked havoc on the very soul of our nation.
The Rest:
http://www
"Pakistan's top nuclear scientist sold his expertise to some very scary countries--the world's first entrepreneur of annihilati
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were way ahead of him.
"The courts in Pakistan have ruled that A. Q. Khan, the father of the Pakistan nuclear weapon man who provided assistance to the Iranians, the North Koreans, the Libyans, has now been released from custody. It is very, very important we find out and know long term what he is up to. He is, so far, the worst proliferator of nuclear technology in recent history."-
The restrictions denying freedom of movement against A. Q. Khan have all been lifted; but the 'democracy' of Israel continues to deny Vanunu-who did NOT sell his photos or story in 1986 that proved Israel had already manufactured upwards of 200 nuclear warheads- the right to leave the state.
Cheney is not the only pol to ignore this fact and many more, because their corrupt ways has made them blind and they blow:
"Idiot wind, blowing like a circle around my skull, from the Grand Coulee Dam to The Capitol."-
Excerpted from "Message to Cheney, The CIA, Pentagon, White House and USA Christians"
http://www
It's ABOUT TIME Pres. Obama did something ACTUALLY Progressive!
Here's where he should start: GO OUT & INFORM the American public (& hapless/ghoulish corporate media) that RONALD REAGAN is MOST BELOVED for "WINNING the COLD WAR" - NOT because US weapons were 'superior,' but because Gorbachev & Reagan both realized that there would be NO winner in a Nuclear war.
Reagan REALLY WAS a Hollywood actor with a famous, career-long SUNNY DISPOSITION, but when he was given the Commander-in-Chief "Doomsday" briefing he was APPALLED at the devastation & death that would be wrought by even a "partial" nuclear attack....
....NEARLY SINGLEHANDEDLY, Reagan INSISTED on those PEACE TREATIES with Gorbachev, that DISMANTLED & DESTROYED an ENTIRE CLASS of Nuclear Missiles.
http://en.
Had Reagan NOT _WITHDRAWN_ the US Marines from Lebanon, after the Marine Baracks were attacked in 1983,
http://en.
would Gorbachev have been able to go to his Politburo & generals in 1987 and say,
"These Americans are OK, they really DON'T want to TAKE OVER THE WORLD, they just want to buy cars and watch movies and go on round-the-world vacations" and sought their support for "glasnost" & "perestroika" & the INF Treaty??
HELL NO! The Politburo & military would have OUSTED Gorbachev in a minute, had he sought to give away the Warsaw Pact's nuclear umbrella, at a time when the US was seeking to EXPAND its military bases in Lebanon & the Mideast.
“Many believe they have enlisted Jesus”
If Jesus is with you, why on Earth would you need gelignite?
LOL. Well put.
I had no idea Jebus was a US citizen neocon either.
We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when
But I'm sure we'll meet again some sunny day
Keep smiling through, just the way you used to do
Till the blue skies chase the dark clouds far away
Now, won't you please say "Hello" to the folks that I know
Tell 'em it won't be long
'cause they'd be happy to know that when you saw me go
I was singing this song
We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when
But I'm sure we'll meet again some sunny day
Great article, Ms. Kelly, and a great statement of the moral imperative for our country -- to lead the way on disarming and on being part of the world conversation. The saber rattlers just can't see your core point: "These days, security is about people. So perceptions of fair treatment and expectations of reciprocity have strategic implicationsl"
I don't know the group you mention that our President has assembled on the nuclear question, but I'm delighted to hear that they're so impressive, even if, as you point out, they have to try to make up for the Neanderthal policies we've been following for so long.
The US has more nukes than the rest of the world put together, and about three times as many as the next largest stockpile.
There is no way we need this many nukes.
FACT: one Trident nuclear sub can carry enough warheads to destroy every city over 1,000,000 people in Asia and still have leftovers.
Where did you get those stats? Russia has almost 5000 more warheads than us. FACT: You should check your facts before running your mouth.
http://www
FACT: An Ohio class "Trident" submarine carries 24 Trident II SLBMs.
FACT: As of 1995 there were 142 cities in Asia with a population over 1,000,000.
FACT: it took me about 3 minutes to find this information.
FACT: You need to check your facts.
uhh, Hello? A Trident II missile carries "MIRV" warheads, "MULTIPLE independent re-entry vehicle" ie. MORE THAN ONE WARHEAD PER MISSILE, duh.
< A Trident II missile. Both the US Navy and Royal Navy use these missiles aboard their ballistic missile submarines. Each missile can carry up to 12 MIRVs. >
http://en.
hmm... let's see... "24 times 12" = .... MORE THAN 240!
took me LESS than a minute to come up with that one.... that is ONE US Ohio-class SSBN, Wiki states that the US has FOURTEEN Trident Ohio-class subs... not counting cruise-missile armed or other subs. (Much less, heavens forbid, the USAF bombers or missiles or other items in US nuclear arsenal.)
http://en.
seems like you might want to take YOUR OWN ADVICE there, diggg...
(note: Wiki ain't a perfect source for any of this, but EVERYONE knows that Trident missiles are MIRV capable, (much less Trident IIs), they've been making MIRVs for nearly 5 decades now.)
It is Cold War mis-thinking that clings to nukes!
If THAT DAY, we call 9/11 taught us anything, it should be that America's nuclear arsenal cannot defeat 'terrorism' or provide security from the actions of a few violent mad men who target and murder innocent ones.
American money is imprinted with "IN GOD WE TRUST" but reality is we have become a nation of hypocrites, for by our foreign policy we expose that we live by the sword.
America has a nuclear arsenal of over 10,000 weapons and nearly 2,000 remain on hair-trigger alert ever since the end of the Cold War.
An estimated 150 – 240 tactical nuclear weapons remain based in 5 NATO countries and the United States is the only country with nuclear weapons deployed on foreign soil.
American taxpayers provide over $54 billion annually to maintain WMD's, which is but a drop in the bucket of the overall U.S. military spending.
“Any nation that year after year continues to raise the Defense budget while cutting social programs to the neediest is a nation approaching spiritual death.” - Rev. MLK
Time to inhale deeply and change course!
“I state clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”-
SUPPORT that dream with an editable email @
http://www
Let's hope it becomes a tidal wave of peaceful exchanges between nations now, not a tsunami of doubts and fears cascading upon the heads of the people in the form of nuclear rainbows
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