Today, I am going to put in a couple of quotes from a flyer by the Physicians for Social Responsibility.
"This administration was blurring the distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons so the latter could be more readily used by U.S. forces before the September 11th terrorist attacks on our nation. President Bush had already broken America's promise to abide by the Anit-Ballistic Missle Treaty and ordered the development of new tactical nuclear weapons before most Americans had heard of al Qaeda or contemplated the prospect of all-out war against a newly declared "axis of evil."
The tragic events of September 11th accelerated the process significantly and emboldened defence industry lobbyists who quickly began encouraging politicians to "go nuclear" in the gloal war against terrorism."
I am firmly convinced that GW has a shrine up in his office to 9/11. It was the best day of his life. It made his presidency and gave him every justification he needed to get away with murder. Literally.
"President Bush and his Defence Department have defined three scenarios that would allegedly justify U.S. use of nuclear weapons:
Destroying deeply buried targets capable of withstanding an attack with non-nuclear weapons;
In retaliation for an attack on America with weapons of mass destruction; and most troubling of all...
In the event of "surprising military developments."
Taken together, these scenarios give the Bush Administration carte blanche to launch preemptive nuclear strikes anywhere in the world at any time.
This alarmingly aggressive nuclear policy brings nuclear war out of the theoretical realm into reality. And if it is executed, there is no doubt that other nations or terrorist groups with access to nuclear weapons would follow our country's terrible precedent."
For some reason GW seems to think that he can bully the rest of the world into being a WASP paradise with him as the Grand Dragon and no one is going to give back as good as they get. He and Condolezza Rice are two of the most clueless individuals I have ever seen in that level of political office. Obviously someone needs to drag the Carl Sagan Match in a Room Full of Gasoline metaphor out of mothballs again. I THOUGHT we had all learned this lesson already. It feels like we have taken a step back in our intellectual develpment as a country.
"The military industrial complex stands to make billions more dollars as Congress rubber-stamps Bush Administration requests to build an unworkable "Star Wars" missle defence system, new bunker-busting "mini-nukes," land-based intercontinental ballistic missles, and more nuclear warheads for U.S. submarines and bomber forces.
Apparently having more than 5,900 nuclear warheadds in the U.S. arsenal - more than enough to destroy the world hundreds of times over - isn't enough for President Bush. And his trigger finger is getting itchier with each passing day."
Think about this from his point of view. He must be completely sociopathic. Before he was elected I said he was a high functioning moron and I think I gave him too much credit. This is the only way that what he is proposing makes sense. There is no other result of his current program than a dead world. Why are we being forced to make these arguments again? It has been common sense for 20 years now.
"As the drums of war beat ever louder, reckless advocates of U.S. nuclear first strikes are claiming it is somehow "unpatriotic" to question our country's aggressive nuclear posture."
"If a nuclear weapon is detonated anywhere in the world, we will all be downwind -- if not from the immediate radioactive fallout, then from the poisonous political fallout created by our country taking this final, fatal step toward oblivion."
It's deja vu all over again. How large a sledgehammer do we need to use to pound this information through the thick skulls of the conservatives?!?!?!?!?!?
at 11:33 AM :: ~#~
