Totally incoherent neocon nonsense from Jon Kyl and the zero-credibility Richard Perle in today’s WSJ.
A bipartisan congressional commission, headed by some of our most experienced national security practitioners, recently concluded that a nuclear deterrent is essential to our defense for the foreseeable future. It also recommended that urgent measures be taken to keep that deterrent safe and effective.
Unfortunately, President Barack Obama has adopted an agenda that runs counter to the commission’s recommendations. … Thus, in his Prague speech, Mr. Obama announced that the U.S. would "immediately and aggressively" pursue ratification of the comprehensive ban on the testing of nuclear weapons. The administration believes, without evidence, that ratification of the test-ban treaty will discourage other countries from developing nuclear weapons.
Kyl and Perle are referring to this commission and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which failed to pass in 1999. And guess what? The commission didn’t oppose the CTBT.
While the Strategic Posture Commission did not reach agreement on the matter of whether the Senate should heed President Obama’s demand that it consent to the ratification of the CTBT now, it did agree that before the Senate considers the matter, the Obama Administration should conduct a net assessment of the treaty’s costs, risks, and benefits.
Did these clowns even bother reading the report they claim Obama’s violating? Meanwhile…
In the nuclear-free world that ended in 1945 there was neither peace nor security. Since then there have indeed been many wars but none has come close to the carnage that occurred regularly before the development of nuclear weapons, and none has pitted nuclear powers against each other.
Great news! So since there’s an inverse relationship between nuclear weapons and carnage, why don’t we just give them out to everyone?
This idea, an article of faith of the "soft power" approach to halting nuclear proliferation, assumes that the nuclear ambitions of Kim Jong Il or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would be curtailed or abandoned in response to reductions in the American and Russian deterrent forces — or that India, Pakistan or China would respond with reductions of their own. This is dangerous, wishful thinking.
D’oh! So nuclear weapons keep the world carnage-free, but we shouldn’t let Iran or North Korea have any, and PS, it’s a bummer than China and Pakistan and India have them already.
This is all very silly. The US currently operates 14 Ohio class subs armed with Trident missiles, and each could wipe out any country on the planet, several times over. The idea that "our enemies" will rush to develop nuclear weapons if we stop testing new weapons of our own is absurd on its face.
On the other hand, I think it could be argued that the US’s bombing and invading whatever countries we see fit — the policy favored by the likes of Kyl and Perle — probably does drive the nuclear ambitions of hostile states.
Related posts:
- Second Iranian Nuclear Facility Discovered; Obama, Brown, Sarkozy Pledge Sanctions Unless IAEA is Allowed to Investigate
- Keep Me Secret, Keep Me Safe
- Negotiation Works? Iran Nears Agreement on Nuclear Deal
- Richard Clarke Reminds Cheney and Condi of Their Incompetence
- Entrenched Interests Are Safe from the Obama Administration
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And Korea and Vietnam were picnics? And that is not addressing the wars since then…. what planet does Kyl live on….. or maybe the AZ heat finally has fried his brain….. it was 111 degrees yesterday….
Neither Kyl nor Perle, oh, man, what an asshole, have ever let reality interfere with their world view. Rebuilding America’s Defenses is still their bible.
*sigh* They just don’t quit, do they?
I saw the good news while lurking in EPUland. Congrats. Pullin’ for ya every day. (((katymine)))
Those arguing against the comprehensive test ban treaty have no respect for the quality of science and engineering done by the Stockpile Stewardship program. This program has some of the best physicists and computer scientists in the world, and routinely has computational capacity in the top 10 supercomputers worldwide.
Our bombs will explode if we ever choose to use them . We don’t need additional testing.
Truman should of done this long ago….. the idea that we had to live with duck and roll, bomb shelters (boy were they big here), and living in Las Vegas during the above ground testing always makes me wonder where my rare cancer came from….
Then there are the chemical weapon fields out in places like Idaho that look like weird hills/bunkers where who knows what is leaching into the soil from 40-50 year old drums……and suddenly how herds of sheep and cows croak…. And their disposal method….. burning it……
Nuclear weapons are trash, shit , garbage that are worthless as having any use other than to command death itself, in place of GOD.
From exposing the troops to tests to duck n cover what a God Damn waste of our limited, precious resources on the phallic congressional manhood substitutes.
Or the above ground testing couldn’t have caused an explosion of Alzhimers disease because the Government would have made sure we were safe before they made the bomb to keep us safe. Funny I don’t feel safe under the nuclear umbrella.
My father worked as a game warden for the state of NV during above ground testing. He drove and walked into their ground zero without one sign posted….. Of the 6 guys who worked together, he is the only one alive(died years ago) and did not die of some type of cancer…. several of prostate ca…..
The only country ever to develop & use the nuclear bomb for offensive purposes is the United States. All other countries developed it for defensive purposes. And it worked. They didn’t get attacked by the U.S. (Not sure if Israel was attacked before or after it got the bomb.) Even Stalin stopped developing nukes once he found out Hitler had stopped the German program, owing to its expense, with resources needed for other parts of the war in both countries. Stalin did not resume the nuke program until the U.S. dropped the bomb on Japan. And then he saw the handwriting on the wall, and geared up quickly.
According to Kyl and Perle Carnage = mass killing or slaughter of white people
Above ground testing stopped over 30 years ago.
OT (marginally related): Could we reduce the national debt via sales of surplus military equipment? DoD has a pretty vast amount of public capital goods (planes, ships, rockets, ordnance) – wouldn’t selling previous generation systems net a fair amount? Maybe the Pentagon could have a bake sale of old ships to pay for new ones?
There’s a snarky post to be had from this idea.
No, they don’t quit; they’re rather mythic, like the many-headed Hydra of yore. Lop off one of their heads and another springs back, spouting the same useless trash.
Richard Perle in particular is quite dangerous; we are up to our neck with challenges with regard to North Korea, because of Perle’s moronic rationale for disengagement instead of continued diplomacy. Before George Bush took office in 2001, we had inspectors on the ground in NK monitoring energy development. After Perle had his way with our foreign policy, we had absolutely nothing and are now forced to undo nearly eight years of damage at at time when NK is extremely volatile and on the verge of a generational power shift.
The cost to us to fix this mess is as yet untold, and the cost is not going to be borne by the U.S. alone since other Asian/PacRim countries are shuffling their diplomatic and militaristic response systems due to the increased risk.
Perle has had his turn and he fucked it and us up royally. Kyl should be far more careful who he hangs with as he can’t afford to be seen with a screw-up of this magnitude.
Because they’re CRAAAAAAAAAZY!!!!!! Don’t you people get it? Yes, we could already blow their countries up 20 times over. Yes, there’s no rational reason for them to start any shit with us. But they’re CRAAAAAAAZY!!!!!!! That’s why we have to KILL THEM NOW!!!!!!! NOW!!!!!!! That’s called the “hard power” approach! HARD!!!! POWER!!! HARD!!! POW- um, excuse me – gotta change my underwear.
As opposed to the hard-eyed, cool and clear thinking of “We’ll bomb Iraq until they love us.”
By the way, does anybody want to try to explain why Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, a minority member of the Senate’s Judiciary and Finance Committees, is up in our grill about foreign policy?
Because I can’t see where Kyl’s got the cred for this stuff, except to act as a meat puppet for Perle and the PNAC peeps.
And does your explanation happen to position Kyl in a slot for 2012?
Remember Kyl-Lieberman?
SOP for the GOP
Yeah, not forgotten, and Kyl had no cred for that, either, except for his ability to be a willing meat puppet.
Jeebus, can you imagine those two dorks running for POTUS/VP?
Did Perle whip out his copy of “World Targets in Megadeaths”?
this all being said, I think can probably agree that Nth Korea not having nukes is probably a good thing.
Interestingly, different nuclear powers seem to have different attitudes toward the value of different types nuclear arsenals:
# nuclear weapon delivery systems, strategic vs tactical (source CDI)
US 7200 strategic, 3300 tactical
Russia 6000 strategic, 4000 tactical
France 384 strategic, 80 tactical
UK 185 strategic, 0 tactical
China 20 strategic, 390 tactical
Pakistan 15 strategic, 0 tactical
Israel 0 strategic, 200 tactical
India 0 strategic, 60 tactical
Does anyone doubt that China or India could have more strategic nukes if they wanted? These nuke arsenals really aren’t the same thing at all. Basically, Israel’s, India’s and China’s arsenals seem to be designed to prevail on large, open battlefields or naval theaters while America’s, Russia’s, England’s (and troublingly, Pakistan’s) appear to be designed to wipe out civilization as we know it – repeatedly.
Yes, the fewer the better is my position, including for us. The neocons’ position is “lots for us, and no one else gets any, and we’ll bomb/invade you to see to it.”
Kinda nonsensical and self-defeating.
We stood a better chance at keeping NK from having a nuclear arsenal when there were inspectors in the country and we were providing them with enough energy technology to keep them from using uranium/plutonium refinement as a necessary precursor to nuclear generated electricity.
Right now we have very few eyes inside the country and cannot be certain how smoothly the transition of power from father to son will be, especially with the son being only 26 years old. Far too easy for a power vacuum to happen and the technology in the country to fall into the wrong hands — and no overt inspectors/reporters on the ground.
Why is Ricard Perle provided a platform in this once venerable paper?
Because one of the world’s most powerful Zionists bought it.
Perle should be in prison for espionage and treason.
If Repubs didn’t waste our ‘defense’ resources on things like Iraq then there wouldn’t be as much need for ‘rebuilding’.
At least it’s a fascinating idea to think there is *that* much surplus, so that the sale of it might end a big part of our debt.
How on earth could anyone figure out it’s worth and what part has technology we still wouldn’t want to let go of?
I heard Perle say one he wasn’t for the Iraq adventure. He just wanted us to take down Iran.
Talk about crazy icing on crazy cake.
McCain has gotten a lot of defense appropriations for AZ, so Kyl is probably helping him. It’s not uncommon for a state’s delegation to play as a team.
Who are the AZ reps? What committee(s) are they on?
Will one authorize it and another ask for it to be financed?
Budget battles…yech.