There’s a lot of outrage and fear being expressed by American news sources at the prospect of North Korea’s upcoming test of a nuclear weapon. They’re pointing out that North Korea’s actions are in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. President George W. Bush joins in by saying that North Korea must not be allowed to develop usable nuclear weapons, much less to test them.
Much despair is also being expressed about Iran’s development of a nuclear program capable of producing nuclear weapons in a few years. The Iranian government seems to be playing around with contradictory statements about what it really intends to do with its nuclear capability, and that has people worried.
It’s unclear exactly what President Bush intends to do about the defiance by North Korea and Iran of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Some say that it will be necessary to go to war against North Korea or Iran 0 or both.
But, before we all get hyped up for yet another war against a country on Bush’s list of international evildoers, we ought to consider that there is an even greater threat to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. There is another country breaking the terms of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and this country admits to having tens of thousands of nuclear weapons placed on missiles capable of striking any nation on Earth.
Yes, I’m talking about the United States.
People like to forget about it, but the provisions forbidding non-nuclear nations from developing nuclear weapons are only half of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The other half of the treaty is that the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China promised to get rid of all their own nuclear weapons.
George W. Bush has already launched one war and sacrificed over 1500 American lives on the premise of Iraq violating the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (which, it turns out, Iraq was not doing at all). But what is Bush’s own record on the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty?
Well, Bush waves his arms in panic about Iran developing nuclear weapons. But, Bush himself, far from eliminating America’s arsenal of nuclear of weapons, Bush is pushing to expand it. Bush has developed a plan for building an entire new category of nuclear weapons that he calls “bunker busters”. Bush says that he could use these nuclear weapons on the battlefield “safely”. The Pentagon says that using just one of the new kinds of nuclear weapons Bush is seeking would cause one million civilian deaths, even if detonated underground. That’s Bush’s definition of the “safe” use of nuclear weapons.
When it comes to nuclear weapons testing, Bush blasts the North Korean government for threatening to test one nuclear weapon. However, Bush has himself unilaterally withdrawn the United States from the nuclear test-ban treaty, and has declared that he has the right to order as many nuclear weapons tests as he wants.
The terms of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty are clear. Nations like Iran and North Korea do not have the right to develop nuclear weapons. However, nations like the United States have no right to keep their nuclear weapons arsenals.
Not only is Bush failing to live up to America’s obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. He is actively moving backwards against the requirements of the treaty. This puts the Bush Administration in the same category as the governments of Iran and North Korea. So, before we use the treaty as a pretext to launch a war against either of those nations, we would do well to eliminate the shameful nuclear weapon arsenal and testing program in our own country first.
Wish someone would remind him about the whole bits and bobs here and there that mention trivial things like, say, how people shouldn’t go around starting illegal wars, or torturing people, or breaking treaties…
Of course, HareTrinity, that goes for your Tony Blair too… hint hint.
Well, we’re all against torture over here, and Blair went in for the EU, not for Bush… The part of Iraq under British protection’s had a lot less bombings and such, at least.
Blair’ll probably get replaced because of the war soon, anyway. At least he did a lot for the poor people in England.
Seems to me that all these countries that want or have nukes rather resemble the recovering drug addicts that I work with…particularly the ones that want to hang on to a particular piece of paraphenalia specific to their drug(s) of preference…Kinda like a recovering pothead who hangs onto his favorite bong,”just in case”…Even the reasoning is the same, in most cases…Now Kim Jong Il is a REAL nutcase, and allowing the NK’s to develop nuclear weapons is like giving a machine gun and an unlimited amount of ammo to a Schizophrenic in the midst of a psychotic break…not a good idea. The best bet is to get rid of all nukes, but we all know that there are countries out there that would agree…with their fingers crossed behind their backs. Being 52 years old, I’ve lived through the worst of the Cold War and have become accustomed to living in the heritege of a mushroom cloud. I don’t like it any more than the rest of us, but, quite frankly, I don’t see any realistic way out of the situation…the genie got let out of the bottle 60 years back, with the end of WWII, and it would appear we’re stuck with it. I can only pray to whatever God or Goddess, Higher Power, the Force, whatever you want to call it; that these Supply-Side Republinazis don’t get the bright idea of “exercising the nuclear option”…If that happens, do like we were all taught to do in the 60′s: Bend over, put your head firmly between your legs, then kiss your ass goodbye.
Mike, I understand where you’re coming from, but to be honest, your reaction strikes me as a little too passive, given the threat.
The genie did not just passively get out of the bottle. The United States government invented the genie, and then broke the bottle to get it out. Now, Bush is seeking to feed the genie to make it bigger and stronger.
Praying and hoping that gods will take care of the trouble has never worked.
It will be humankind’s greatest challenge to destroy nuclear weapons and keep them off the face of the earth, but it is a challenge worth taking up. I prefer not to give up on humanity. After all, if we can harness the power of lightning to create the Internet so that you and I can communicate here, we may yet be capable of more positive surprises.
I think using electricity is a tad different from “harnessing the power of lightning”; lightning’s still HIGHLY dangerous and causes a lot of damage every year.
But, yeah… There is NO way of justifying the use of nuclear weapons; they cause mass devastation with long term effects. NO ONE should have them.
Peregrin, Hare, I have been presenting the same argument as you for more years than I care to think about, and have been active in the anti-war movement for very nearly as long. Perhaps I’m not so much passive as getting old and tired. I do know that the Idea, once formulated, can be passed on, and, in that small way, I might not be able to change the world, but I might be able to clean up my small corner, and maybe get the person beside me to do the same with his. You both sound quite a bit younger than I, and filled with wonderful ideals… and that gives me a great deal of encouragement for the future. As we said back in the sixties,”Keep on keepin’ on!”