The nuclear option: It’s not just for senators anymore

We all know the Bush administration delights in offending the world. That’s hardly news. It bullied and browbeat its unilateral way into an illegal war; turned a blind eye to mountains of global-warming evidence; nominated a personality-disordered megalomaniac as America’s international door-to-door salesman -- well, space prohibits a complete recital, and you don’t need one anyway. The administration’s global rudeness and thus contributions to crises are as familiar as its unmannered smirk.

Its latest offensive behavior rated the lead headline in the New York Times Saturday morning. Normally when the administration persists in doing everything it can to ensure troubles of crisis proportions -- like drunken-sailor spending coupled with whacking the revenue base, hence ultimate fiscal collapse -- it is deemed by the press so commonplace as to be un-newsworthy. One can easily picture mainstream editors yawning over the latest prediction of real impending doom coming out of some think tank’s press office. Yada, yada, yada. Yesterday’s news. How trite.

So I was a trifle surprised at seeing the headline, “Month of Talks Fails to Bolster Nuclear Treaty,” on the Times’ front page (notably absent from other “liberal” papers such as the Washington Post and Boston Globe). What’s this? I thought these days all we had were newspapers, not news-papers. Did the talks fail because of something we did? Though news, that nevertheless would be un-news.

But there it was, in the fifth, twelfth and twenty-first paragraphs -- the news that’s no longer news, making its inclusion as news rather perplexing.

I quote: “Though President Bush has repeatedly declared that nuclear proliferation … is the biggest single threat to the United States, the administration decided against sending Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to [the United Nations] conference” whose purpose was “to strengthen the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.”

Needless to say the conference was a total loss. It was so total that even usually slippery diplomats were straightforward in describing it: Namely, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency said that “‘absolutely nothing’ had come out of the meeting.” No honest exchanges, no productive dialogues, no frank discussions. Just “absolutely nothing.”

Of course Condi was on hand afterward and elsewhere to reassure the world that her boss regards the treaty as "an extremely important document."

Notice that the 1970 agreement engineered to plug the flood of nuclear weapons is now a “document,” not a treaty -- as in your mortgage agreement is merely a piece of paper, not a contractual obligation. It would seem that Frank Luntz, having pretty much vanquished the vile influence of forthright language in domestic affairs, has expanded his doublespeak operation to include foreign policy.

Also unsurprising was this reportage on the administration’s propensity to make awkward complications disappear like foreign detainees, to wit: “A history of milestones in countering proliferation published by the American delegation omitted references to [past] commitments the Bush administration has rejected.” Keep scrubbing reality, guys. Perhaps no one will notice.

And most un-newsworthy was that it took a foreigner to point out the obvious. Paul Meyer, the Canadian representative to the U.S.-torpedoed talks, said, "We have let the pursuit of short-term, parochial interest override the collective long-term interest in sustaining this treaty's authority and integrity."

Ah, there’s one of W.’s bugaboos -- “collective”; along with “we,” “long-term interest,” “treaty” and “integrity.”

Clearly in reference to the Bush administration -- not “apparently”, as the NYT reported -- Mr. Meyer added, "If governments simply ignore or discard commitments whenever they prove inconvenient, we will never be able to build an edifice of international cooperation." Now how many bugaboos can you find in that sentence?

Still, our own former U.S. senator and nuclear-namby-pamby Sam Nunn declared that "we can't accept this as the last word. The U.S. must take a post-conference leadership role in bringing the international community together on this critical agenda." Post-conference. As in 2009? The story failed to clarify.

OK, so I’ve ragged the NYT a bit for cheap-shot advantage. But if this paper can insist on occasionally reporting un-news as news, if routine items like nuclear proliferation and world vaporization can still get its attention, and if the administration’s intransigence on these things can become the stuff that front pages are made of, perhaps other papers can recall their reason for being as well.

By now most of us know Bush’s reason for being. But a few stragglers somehow keep missing the scoop, and they need all the un-news they can get.

[ADDENDUM: With my thanks reader GB has sent these Toronto Star clips regarding the nuclear talks ...

With the U.S. refusing to discuss its disarmament commitment, and Iran objecting to any direct mention of its suspect nuclear program, the pact's 189 members could agree on little, let alone a concrete plan of action.

"It was a debacle," says a weaponry-sounding Paul Meyer, Canada's disarmament ambassador, whose hope of getting the members to agree to meet annually, not every five years, came to naught.

"A squandered opportunity," says Daryl Kimball, head of the Arms Control Association, the major U.S., anti-nuclear lobby group.

"A complete disaster," snaps Joe Cirinclione, a proliferation expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

"There was no shortage of good ideas coming in , but none was advanced because of the active obstructionism by the U.S. and Iran," he says. "There was no political will."

Cirinclione says the U.S.'s own delegation was deeply divided, with the professionals "seething" over their instructions to keep the agenda focused on the non-compliance of other states, not on Washington's failures.

"Bolton had his dead hand all over the policy," he says, referring to U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control, John Bolton, who is also U.S. President George W. Bush's highly controversial nominee for ambassador to the U.N.

In short, the U.S. policy is that, as the world's only superpower and in the thick of a war against terror, it wants no constraints on its nuclear program.

Analysts say that in the past, treaty members have deferred to the U.S. out of friendship, or fear, or dangerous complacency, but some are starting to balk at its hypocritical approach.

The longer the U.S. clings to a large nuclear arsenal and actively works on new atomic weapons - both in contravention of treaty obligations - the harder it will find it to get others to walk away from the nuclear option, they say.

The U.S. argument that the terrorist threat requires it to retain a nuclear capability is ludicrous, say observers.

Or, as Polanyi puts it: "Far from being a response to terrorism, nuclear weapons are an invitation."

The idea of holding on to more than 5,000 nuclear weapons 15 years after the end of the Cold War appals Robert McNamara, the former U.S. defence secretary who helped John F. Kennedy steer clear of nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

He told a conference this week that Washington's nuclear policies "are immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary, very, very, dangerous in terms of the risk of inadvertent or accidental launch and destructive of a treaty that has served us so well."

"The whole situation seems so bizarre as to be beyond belief ... to declare war requires an act of Congress, but to launch a nuclear holocaust requires 20 minutes deliberation by the president and his advisers."

I guess when an anti-administration opinion is held by six-billion others and there's no way to equally "balance" that opinion with pro-administration spin, American papers, including the NYT, just don't run it. So mine wasn't such a cheap shot after all.

GB signed off with this bewildered question: "What were Americans thinking when they re-elected this corrupt gang?"

Oh, probably who the next "American Idol" will be.]

Comments

[Blackdog]

It's simple, shrub and it's cohorts suck.

[gmmonko]

Hiroshima - Nagasaki. Iraq war. Announcement to go on war with Iran and also using nuclear force.
Which country is a real rogue state?

Or pure and simple: it's not crime if we do it!

[Russ Nichols]

You said it all, pm carpenter, when you wrote, "The whole situation seems so bizarre as to be beyond belief ..."

Here we have enough US nukes to destroy all life on earth, probably several times over. And developing new battlefield nukes. This is just insane. Plus we have a Christian Taliban wild-eyed fundamentalist bunch in government who essentially believe that the End Times are at hand, according to the way they read Bible prophesy. Plus GWB is threatening every developing country he doesn't like unless they get rid of THEIR nukes. Oh, it's OK for Britain, France Russia, India, Israel and Pakistan to have nukes. So there is one major threat. A major threat, and this administration is paying more attention to a woman in Florida with a tube in her stomach and the voteres in the US, as you correctly hinted, are staring at the lint in their navels.

Meanwhile, the crucial issue of global warming is not addressed at all.

There's a health care crisis in this country.

This administration is doing a reverse Robin Hood, taking away from the poor and the middle class and giving to the rich.

And on and on and on. What a disaster Bush has been for this country and the world.

[Russ Nichols]

You said it all, pm carpenter, when you wrote, "The whole situation seems so bizarre as to be beyond belief ..."

Here we have enough US nukes to destroy all life on earth, probably several times over. And developing new battlefield nukes. This is just insane. Plus we have a Christian Taliban wild-eyed fundamentalist bunch in government who essentially believe that the End Times are at hand, according to the way they read Bible prophesy. Plus GWB is threatening every developing country he doesn't like unless they get rid of THEIR nukes. Oh, it's OK for Britain, France Russia, India, Israel and Pakistan to have nukes. So there is one major threat. A major threat, and this administration is paying more attention to a woman in Florida with a tube in her stomach and the voteres in the US, as you correctly hinted, are staring at the lint in their navels.

Meanwhile, the crucial issue of global warming is not addressed at all.

There's a health care crisis in this country.

This administration is doing a reverse Robin Hood, taking away from the poor and the middle class and giving to the rich.

And on and on and on. What a disaster Bush has been for this country and the world.

[Russ Nichols]

You said it all, pm carpenter, when you wrote, "The whole situation seems so bizarre as to be beyond belief ..."

Here we have enough US nukes to destroy all life on earth, probably several times over. And developing new battlefield nukes. This is just insane. Plus we have a Christian Taliban wild-eyed fundamentalist bunch in government who essentially believe that the End Times are at hand, according to the way they read Bible prophesy. Plus GWB is threatening every developing country he doesn't like unless they get rid of THEIR nukes. Oh, it's OK for Britain, France Russia, India, Israel and Pakistan to have nukes. So there is one major threat. A major threat, and this administration is paying more attention to a woman in Florida with a tube in her stomach and the voteres in the US, as you correctly hinted, are staring at the lint in their navels.

Meanwhile, the crucial issue of global warming is not addressed at all.

There's a health care crisis in this country.

This administration is doing a reverse Robin Hood, taking away from the poor and the middle class and giving to the rich.

And on and on and on. What a disaster Bush has been for this country and the world.

[Reverend X]

We voted for him? Well, I wouldn't even go that far. Another bit of News unworthy info that was too unimportant for print brings a rather large shadow over the peaoples mandate. With voting machines set to Bush, Exit polls jumping percentage points well after everyone stopped counting and Neocon brownshirts armed AND impersonating police officers blocking anyone with George Hamilton and above pigmentation, you'd think someone would be investigating... too bad the fourth estate is pleading the fifth instead of the first amendment. It's prolly gonna take a good dose of the second to get any of them back. We have the technology... we can rebuild.... make it better, faster, stronger. we just have to change a few rules...

-X

[The Oracle]

Death Wish V: Soon coming to a local theater near you.

Yep, for being such big "culture of life" people, the Bush administration and all their lackeys seem to actually have a Death Wish.

Death Wish I: Bush and his gang can't seem to bother with escalating reports in 2001 about a bunch of religious thugs determined to attack inside the United States. So the "culture of life" propagandists didn't fully mobilize our intelligence and law enforcement branches and 9/11 happened, thus fulfilling their ?conscious/subconscious? Death Wish.

Death Wish II: A tyrant ruling a foreign country half-way around the world and who likes to write romance novels in his declining old-age is deemed a major threat to United States national security. But George "death-Wish" Bush has a hankering to remove this dictator. Okay, maybe it's more of an obsession. Or maybe we should call it an addiction, since Bush is a recovering alcoholic. Anyway, the Bushites fix the "intelligence" around their goal of invading Iraq. Yeah, I know, it sounds dumb and hardly "intelligent," but when one is dealing with people with a terminal "Death Wish" complex, who said sanity is important?

Death Wish III: At the same time we are conducting a global campaign against right-wing religious fundamentalist terrorists and waging a highly expensive war in a foreign country (which never attacked us), George "death-Wish" Bush calls for more tax cuts for his wealthy patrons amid advocating huge service cuts for everyone else, which drives up huge budget deficits and actually threatens the fiscal health of our nation. Yep, definitely a "Death Wish" at work behind the scenes.

Death Wish IV: Where to begin? John Bolton, the real "nuclear option," being nominated U.N. ambassador so he can go set off a neo-con bomb in the world organization if confirmed, but only after he has "nuked" a Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty conference. The "culture of life" Bushites treating confirmed evidence of Global Warming like they treated the state-side threat of Al Qaeda before 9/11. The "culture of life" Bushites trying to parse the word "genocide" to excuse their complete lack of interest in stopping the mass killings in Darfur. The "culture of life" Bushites adopting a "moral" stance against condoms, even while hundreds of thousands of people (both heterosexual and homosexual) die around the world from AIDS. The "culture of life" Bushites taking another "moral" stance against stem-cell research, even while other countries are making medical advances to ease the suffering and even save the lives of living, breathing human beings...who are not itsy-bitsy cells. The "culture of life" Bushites who see nothing "morally" wrong with their trying to export their pre-emptive "Death Wish Culture" around the world, in hopes, I believe, of triggering the ultimate Death Wish Event, Armageddon. And, the "culture of life" Bushites having no qualms about killing our Constitution and our First Amendment rights, killing the independence of our federal judiciary, killing the ideal of keeping church and state separate, killing confidence in our electoral process, killing federal and state fiscal health, killing the checks and balances between branches of our government, killing the independence of our publicly-owned airwaves, killing wantonly prisoners in our care, killing our reputation around the world as a nation embodying liberty and justice for all. In essence, the "culture of life" Bushites appear to be Death Wish people who really wish our Democracy and all our Democratic institutions would die, so they can perform nation-building in America based on their own warped and twisted totalitarian mindset.

Where's Charles Bronson when our society really needs him?

[Gloria]

For anyone wanting to find out what's really going on in the world, I recommend a simple shortwave radio. I haven't listened to American radio for over 3 years. In the morning I wake up to the BBC, Radio Canada, Radio Australia, and Radio Sweden. Later, it's Radio Netherlands (superlative), Radio Havana, and many others.

Seriously--for a few bucks you can hear serious, intelligent reporting and analysis. It's a miracle.

[Brian Oddi]

Bush and his war criminal buddies won't be happy until everything everywhere is dead, and he and his pals will be sitting atop a big pile of OUR money. We need to dismantle this criminal administration. IMPEACH

[Neil H.]

Bush isn't about treaties; it should be abundantly clear to everyone by now that he finds treaties and the rule of law to be a hindrance to his twisted ideology, which is simply "do as I damn well please". His disdain for the Geneva and Hague Conventions, the Kyoto Accords, and the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty is clear and well documented as they all impede his goal to fulfill the mad neocon visions of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

Bush chooses to ignore the NPT for one basic reason; he wants nuclear weapons, both new and old, because he intends to USE THEM, not only in some token strike against terrorism, but to project U.S. force and hegemony worldwide through his own cache of WMD's. He's also committed to breaking the 1967 Outer Space Treaty which prohibits the weaponization of space, but that soon will be downgraded from the status of a binding agreement to that of an "interesting document", just as Con-game Rice and Bush regard the NPT. Soon Dubya will be able to target any point on Earth he chooses with weapons, both nuclear and non, from platforms in orbit, and no one, neither friend nor foe, will be safe.

And while Bush and his neocon cabal masturbate over the idea of pushing the button, they continue to rape and pillage the U.S. economy on behalf of the ultra-rich, and push Americans, and the rest of us by extension, closer towards an economic collapse of unprecedented proportions.

Bush isn't merely a bad president, he is a criminal without peer or parallel in American history, and he should be tried and punished as such -- that is, if we can survive his apocalyptic megalomania long enough to bring him and his treasonous band to justice.

Neil H.
Whitby, Ontario