I'd written a few days ago under the Topic "Iran and Beyond" about my concerns in part regarding Nuclear Arms proliferation and keeping this type of weaponry out of the hands of the mad mullahs (
http://www.tigersx.com/forum/index.php?topic=5956.0).
Today I read this very
alarming article about the reluctance and even complete opposition of The ONE to update and maintain our nuclear arms in this age where we are going to be needing them as a deterrence more than ever since the end of the Cold War. To put it bluntly this fucking idiot and his peacenik, socialist friends want to do everything they can to disarm the good ole' USA of our Nuclear Weapons (while we've got North Korea threatening us and our allies in addition to the real danger of nuclear weapons in the hands of the mad mullahs who won't think twice about using them). And while The ONE's 2010, 1.3 TRILLION Dollar budget has a lot of spending for social schemes; there's apparently no spending for nuclear maintenance.
At any rate, Jon Kyl and Richard Pearle posted this commentary (see excerpts following) on The Wall Street Journal today, a bit timely and worrisome (as if we didn't have enough to concern us...Cap and 'Tax', Nationalized Healthcare, Bailouts, Inflation, Jobs, Russkies threatening Georgia again, ...), all emphasis is my own:
Our Decaying Nuclear Deterrent
The less credible the U.S. deterrent, the more likely other states are to seek weapons.
[29 June 2009]
By JON KYL and RICHARD PERLE
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.
Consider the president's declaration, in a major speech this spring in Prague, of "America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons." Will such a world be peaceful and secure? It is far from self-evident.
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.
Consider also that while the administration accepts the urgency of halting the spread of nuclear weapons, the policies it has embraced to reach that goal are likely to make matters worse.
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.
Which countries does it have in mind? Iran? North Korea? Syria? Countries alarmed by the nuclear ambitions of their enemies? Allies who may one day lose confidence in our nuclear umbrella?
...
Robert Gates, who is now Mr. Obama's own secretary of defense, warned in a speech last October that in the absence of a nuclear modernization program, even the most modest of which Congress has repeatedly declined to fund, "[a]t a certain point, it will become impossible to keep extending the life of our arsenal, especially in light of our testing moratorium." Suppose future problems in our nuclear arsenal emerge that cannot be solved without testing? Would our predicament discourage nuclear proliferation -- or stimulate it?
...
For the foreseeable future, the U.S. and many of our allies rely on our nuclear deterrent. And as long as the U.S. possesses nuclear weapons, they must be -- as Mr. Obama recognized in Prague -- "safe, secure and effective." Yet his proposed 2010 budget fails to take the necessary steps to do that.
...
There are some who believe that failing to invest adequately in our nuclear deterrent will move us closer to a nuclear free world. In fact, blocking crucial modernization means unilateral disarmament by unilateral obsolescence. This unilateral disarmament will only encourage nuclear proliferation, since our allies will see the danger and our adversaries the opportunity.
By neglecting -- and in some cases even opposing -- essential modernization programs, arms-control proponents are actually undermining the prospect for further reductions of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. As our nuclear weapons stockpile ages and concern about its reliability increases, we will have to compensate by retaining more nuclear weapons than would otherwise be the case. This reality will necessarily influence future arms-control negotiations, beginning with the upcoming Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty follow-on.
For these negotiations, the Russians are insisting on a false linkage between nuclear weapons and missile defenses. They are demanding that we abandon defenses against North Korean or Iranian missiles as a condition for mutual reductions in American and Russian strategic forces.
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If we were to approach zero nuclear weapons today, others would almost certainly try even harder to catapult to superpower status by acquiring a bomb or two. A robust American nuclear force is an essential discouragement to nuclear proliferators
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Please read the entire article if you have the time:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124623202363966157.html#printMode
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