Unilateral Disarming is still a BAD Idea

In today’s Politico Playbook written by Mike Allen we learn that the Senator from Illinois hasn’t learned his history (story from Politico in italics):

‘Window of opportunity’

By: Mike Allen

Oct 02, 2007 06:42 AM EST

Good Tuesday morning. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) gives his defining Iraq speech at 11:30 a.m. Eastern in the student activities center at DePaul University in Chicago. Jeff Zeleny of The New York Times has the scoop in ‘Obama to Urge Elimination of World’s Nuclear Weapons’:

‘Senator Barack Obama will propose on Tuesday setting a goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons in the world, saying the United States should greatly reduce its stockpiles to lower the threat of nuclear terrorism, aides say. … Mr. Obama will add his voice to a plan endorsed earlier this year by a bipartisan group of former government officials from the cold war era who say the United States must begin building a global consensus to reverse a reliance on nuclear weapons that have become ‘increasingly hazardous and decreasingly effective.’ Mr. Obama, according to details provided by his campaign Monday, also will call for pursuing vigorous diplomatic efforts aimed at a global ban on the development, production and deployment of intermediate-range missiles. … If elected, Mr. Obama plans to say, he will lead a global effort to secure nuclear weapons and material at vulnerable sites within four years. He also will pledge to end production of fissile material for weapons, agree not to build new weapons and remove any remaining nuclear weapons from hair-trigger alert.’

Why would it be a good idea to disarm? I guess if you’re a liberal you don’t think anybody is a risk to you because you love and fight for everyone who has been trodden on by the United States and it’s corporate raider leaders. But let’s get something straight, our nuclear capabilities proved to be the greatest deterrent ever. As Ronald Reagan said: “Peace Through Strength.”

Naiveté is not something that is going to get a junior senator elected as president. First, there’s no way he can ever assure any serious person that there are no more nukes in the world. Unfortunately, if you have the technology it’s just a hop, a skip, and a jump away from weaponizing fissile nuclear material. So, short of some international body taking over all the production of nuclear power in the world how are we going to make sure no one is making nukes? The honor system maybe?

Second, how are we going to account for every existing nuclear weapon out there? Well, it’s impossible. Russia was unable to keep track of all its suitcase nukes after the Soviet Union fell apart. And we really don’t know about every nuclear weapon that has ever been made.

Third, how are we going to stop a country from manufacturing nuclear weapons? Sanctions are largely ineffective in these matters as they are in all matters. And what happens when a rogue nation who didn’t get the peace and love memo creates its own nuke? “Please, President Proliferator, could you maybe just give up your weapon because it makes me so very nervous. Please?” Yeah, I’m sure he’ll acquiesce.

Fourth, history marches on. Maybe you don’t like it, I sure as heck don’t like the fact that at any given moment someone with the press of a button can end a hundred thousand lives, but the truth is the truth. Instead of being arms Luddites we should be redoubling our efforts to protect ourselves from attacks. SDI, “Star Wars,” is a great idea that would protect people from a medium to long-range missile attack. We have had some successes in testing the program recently and this is our best protection of last resort from a nuclear missile.

We also need to prevent rogue nations and nations that are unstable from getting their hands the requisite technology to build these WMDs. Frankly, we’ve already failed. Pakistan and India have these weapons. Iran and Syria are trying to get them with help from the North Koreans. And I lay this defeat squarely at the feet of leftists who see no difference between a nuclear Iran and a nuclear United States.

This astonishing moral relativism has been dealt with elsewhere and I will doubtlessly deal with it at some point during the lifetime of this blog, so a brief synopsis of the issue shall suffice here. If you cannot will yourself to see a difference between the United States having nuclear weapons and a nation (Iran) that has made its policy the destruction of a people then you are willfully ignoring basic logic. Just because it is alright for us to have nukes (because I think we’ve proved that we will use them judiciously) does not make it alright for Iran to have the same power.

Obama’s star is not going to rise any higher then VP during this current election cycle. Plus, I seriously doubt he would have the ability to implement any of his middle school-like Conflict Manager foreign policy program even if he did become president. Unfortunately, nukes are here to stay and there will probably be more horrific weapons that get developed in the future. Disarmament is not an option if we want to continue to be the world’s superpower. BigT