Correction:

Somehow the WP posted my second comment first and my first one second.

The comment with the quotes needs to be read second.

FYI:
India has had nukes for since the late 1960s or early 1970s, courtesy of Soviet Union. Right after India gained its independence from Britain, the self-described world's largest democracy crawled right up Stalin's arse.

Some days, I don't know what gets into me as evidenced in my previous posting.

I know some lib out there will think that I'm a real genius and adopt my ideas; simply because they don't understand sarcasm. I did forget to include that all security companies would be closed and that the use body guards would be banned since that type of thing seems to provoke violence in people.

My real philosphy is below:

"Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum".
-Flavius Vegetius Renatus, 4th Century AD

for John Kerry, and other elite libs, who only speaks perfect French, I'll provide a translation ...
"Let him who desires peace, prepare for war".

"History teaches us that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap".
- President Ronald Reagan

The US should take a strong stand on nuclear weapons. We should distribute all our nuclear weapons to deserving nations & deserving terrorist groups around the world. We could save them a great deal of time & money.
Since we would no longer be a nuclear threat to anyone, we could demobilize all our armed forces and then we could live in peace and if we lived in peace there would be world peace as we are comprise the only terrorist nation, terrorist super power, or warlike peoples in the history of human-kind(see no sexism either).

We could disband our law enforcement agencies also, since they are often seen as violating peoples' rights.
We could so our gratitude by having all our citizens drop their drawers, touch their toes and yell in unison, "Drive it home".

Then we would declare the US a nuclear waste dump and all the nuclear powers could send that stuff over here to store. On the tips of the missiles we just gave them.

However, if anyone attacks us; we should not retaliate as long as we have at least one city of 100,000 citizens remaining.

Just a quick comment. I wonder if clinton and obama got the message that pakistan has nukes and also I just don't think that pakistan is going to let the usa bomb their country

It is amazing that it is the US policy to increase the chances of
accidental nuclear war. This has been commented on in depth in my
blog. Why isn't anyone doing anything about this insanity? We should start a campaign to change the policy. I think the arguments in my blog can help. Or would you prefer that we all be annihilated? It is not only Bush, it is all those who can act, like you, but are not.

RM

--
click on

Science blog
impunv.wordpress.com
or
impunv.blogspot.com

Political blog
randomabsurdities.wordpress.com

Do not worry about the trillions of dollars required to do the Nuclear development work, the Bush administration has come up with a brilliant idea. After signing the Nuclear treaty with India we can outsource all the Nuclear development work to that country. It will save us a fortune.

To those among you inveighing against total nuclear disarmament-- even barring a 100% divestment of our nuclear arsenal, for goodness' sakes, do we really need 10,000 nuclear warheads as we currently do, thousands on hair-trigger alert!

This is ridiculous, wasteful, provocative and utterly imbecilic. The only possible "defensive" use of nukes would be to prevent an all-out invasion by a hostile opponent, and for that, no more than a couple hundred warheads tops would be needed-- i.e., something akin to the arsenal that the EU currently possesses (or in France alone).

Any more than that, and *especially* with 10,000 such devices, and it's just as Erich is arguing here-- it's essentially a military industrial complex-fueled extortion of taxpayer money, wedded to the desire for an arrogant offensive capability to "free us" to start idiotic wars like the fiasco in Iraq.

Which, of course, is another imbecilic line of reasoning, since-- if the United States wishes to be regarded as a member of human civilization-- we can never, ever use nukes in any offensive capacity. Our maintenance of so many hair-trigger nukes only invites a catastrophic accident. In 1983 and 1995, the world very nearly was blown to bits owing to sensor misreadings and clerical errors in Russia, and there have been many other brink-of-disaster blunders in the USA and Russia. Only some of these have been prevented by things like good training and cool heads-- on at least 3 of these "near-miss" occasions, it was dumb luck, i.e. a coin flip, that averted a nuclear holocaust, and you can't count on this indefinitely.

Folks, the USA is *going bankrupt here*! By standard accounting methods, our national debt is in the tens of trillions of dollars, and yet we continue to piss away still more trillions on nuclear weapons that do nothing more other than to threaten our very civilization with their continued hair-trigger status: http://www.antiwar.com/orig/ulm.php?articleid=8447

Both the US and Russia should bring our arsenals down to a couple hundred nukes, no more, and take them off hair-trigger firing capacity-- this ensures they won't be used offensively or launched accidentally.

European countries especially Continental ones like Germany and Denmark, should permanently shut down and remove their (US-based) nuclear weapons silos.

That this isn't common sense already, is just mind-boggling sometimes.

Another person keeping on top of the Great Game, especially from the Russian and Chinese perspective, and writing about it prolifically, is M K Bhadrakumar,a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings including India's ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).

The USA is obsessed with nuclear primacy. The psychopaths with their finger on the trigger are an existential threat to mankind. William Engdahl, a student oil,war, and geopolitics, has a lot to say about the USA attempt to reach first strike primacy over Russia and Putin's counter moves in the Great Game. The following link will be of interest to the more thoughtful of Arkin's readers.
http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/Geopolitics___Eurasia/Putin/putin.html

Ultimately that means a commitment to deeper reductions and a further marginalizing of the role nuclear weapons play in U.S. foreign policy.

Amen Rev. Arkin (smile)
Otherwise, we stimulate the need for other nations to obtain, or develop nuclear arsenals in order to defend themselves and to further their own foreign policy objectives.

Also, we increase the likelihood of impending nuclear isolation, as we become the catalyst for the need for and spread of nuclear weapons!

Cannot we remember that we are meant to be an intelligent species of life?
Cannot we learn to co-exist, in peace? If our neighbour is belligerent, do we buy an axe or shotgun? Of course not! Apart from all else violence is not allowed. The usual consequence being that we do not threaten our neighbour and he -possessing a brain- does not feel threatened! The US may still be in love with the idea of some nuclear OK Corral shoot-out, in which we must all be involved, but the vast majority of human beings just want a normal peaceful life. If one guy is a different colour or has a different religion, or is a socialist as opposed to a US Republican!, so what. It does not mean we have to keep living in fear of, or readiness for, violence!
If the US Administration, the CIA, and the Oil magnates would only PLEASE stop poking sticks into wasp nests maybe we could ALL live in peace. PLEASE!

I think erichwwk has it right, mostly

Nukes are all about business, money and supporting capitalist enterprises, primarily. But, it's also about prestige and power.

Nothing will change fundamentally until that nexus changes.

But, get ready for some extremist nutter somewhere using a small nuke to make his day, but not ours...

For uncensored news please bookmark:

www.wsws.org
www.takingaimradio.info
otherside123.blogspot.com
www.onlinejournal.com
www.globalresearch.ca

Kissinger's secret meeting with Putin

By Mike Whitney
Online Journal Contributing Writer

Jul 24, 2007, 00:41

"RAF fighter jets were scrambled to intercept two Russian strategic bombers heading for British airspace yesterday, as the spirit of the Cold War returned to the North Atlantic once again. The incident, described as rare by the RAF, served as a telling metaphor for the stand-off between London and Moscow over the murder of Alexander Litvinenko." (Times Online, Richard Beeston; "RAF scrambles to intercept Russian bombers, 7-18-07)

"Men are always wicked at bottom unless they are made good by some compulsion." -- Niccoló Macchiavelli

When a political heavyweight, like Henry Kissinger, jets-off on a secret mission to Moscow; it usually shows up in the news.

Not this time.

This time the media completely ignored -- or should we say censored -- Kissinger's trip to Russia and his meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In fact, apart from a few short blurps in the Moscow Times and one measly article in the UK Guardian, no major news organization even covered the story. There hasn't been as much as a peep out of anyone in the American media.

Nothing. That means the meetings were probably arranged by Dick Cheney. The secretive Veep doesn't like anyone knowing what he's up to.

Kissinger was accompanied on his junket by a delegation of high-powered political and corporate bigwigs, including former Secretary of State George Schultz, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, former Special Representative for Arms Control, Nonproliferation and Disarmament Ambassador Thomas Graham, Jr., former Senator Sam Nunn and Chevron Chairman and Chief Executive Officer David O'Reilly.

Wow. Now, there's an impressive line up.

The group was (presumably) sent to carry out official government business as discreetly as possible. The media obviously complied with White House requests and kept their mouths shut.

Isn't the First Amendment great?

The array of talent in Kissinger's delegation suggests that the US and Russia are engaged in sensitive, high-level talks on issues ranging from nonproliferation and missile defense to energy exploration and development, to the Iranian "enrichment" program and partitioning of Serbia (Kosovo) to the falling dollar and the massive US current account deficit. The US and Russia are at loggerheads on many of these issues and relations between the two countries have steadily deteriorated.

No one really knows what took place at the meetings, but judging by Kissinger's parting remarks; things did not go smoothly. He said to one reporter, "We appreciate the time that President Putin gave us and the frank manner in which he explained his point of view."

In diplomatic phraseology, "frank" usually means that there were many areas of strong disagreement. Presumably, the main "bone of contention" is Putin's insistence on a "multi-polar" world in which the sovereign rights of other nations are safeguarded under international law. Putin is ferociously nationalistic and he will not compromise Russia's independence to be integrated into Kissinger & Co.'s wacky the New World Order.

The empire strikes back

Less than 48 hours after the "Russia-USA: A View on the Future" conference had ended, British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband announced that the British government "would expel four diplomats from the Russian Embassy in London in response to Russia's refusal to extradite Andrei K. Lugovoi, whom British prosecutors accused of using radioactive polonium 210 to poison a Kremlin critic and former KGB agent, Alexander Litvinenko, last fall." (New York Times)

The expulsion of the diplomats is a clear indication that Bush ordered his "new poodle," Gordon Brown, to begin a campaign of harassment against Russia.

The British action is unprecedented and outlandish. The Russian Foreign Ministry was evidently thunderstruck by the move. After all, Britain has refused to honor 21 requests from Russia to extradite gangster-oligarch Boris Berezovsky and the Chechen rebel leader Akhmed Zakayev, who currently live in London. As Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander V. Grushko said, "If Russia used the same formula, the British embassy would be short about 80 diplomats now." The hypocrisy is shocking to say the least.

For the rest please go to:

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2222.shtml

Hmmmm. I thought that the NPT was supposed to solve this problem. Silly me thinking that countries live up to treaties they sign. So if we were to get rid of our nukes, we would rely on the IAEA and Mohamed ElBaradei to verify the other 188 countries that have signed are living up to the agreement? I feel safer already.

Britain, the tactical arm of the US nuclear policy, is relying on the RRWs to fit their missiles. Has anybody asked Gordon Brown about this?

The first to disarm in the current world is an idiot. It makes virtually no difference how many weapons the U.S. and Russia have. It is the wannabes that are the problem. Nation states with international asperations of greatness are to be watched very closely.

The first to disarm in the current world is an idiot. It makes virtually no difference how many weapons the U.S. and Russia have. It is the wannabes that are the problem. Nation states with international asperations of greatness are to be watched very closely.

Nukes aren't for defense. Their number one use is to enable the military contractors and their political partners in crime to siphon off taxpayer contributions- $7 TRILLION to date. In this sense they are best seen as a mob protection racket to extort funds from the American public. Number two purpose is as an offensive weapon. It allows both reckless adventuring such as in Iraq,allows bullying of the EU and UN Security Council. Nukes have been seen by Andrew Marshal (installed in the WH by Rumsfeld, but advocating nuclear primacy since 1945) Wohlstetter, and his neocon American Nazi Youth (Yes, Perle and Wolfowitz were recruited as teenagers) believing that a nuclear war is winnable, and we MUST fight that nuclear war BEFORE China and Russia rise to challenge US hegemony. To believe that MORE nukes have some role against terrorists, whether as embedded individuals, or as rogue states, is to miss the point entirely.

It is only against major challengers to US power, such as Russia and China, that nukes have any use. And that is were we are headed. For the record, Germany had a greater edge on military hardware (stealth bomber, guided missiles launched from subs- my late father designed the electronic heart of the Hitler's V-2 guidance system). But as 5 star General Marshall said,"Military power wins battles, but spiritual power wins wars". He also said: "There simply are limits to the stupidity any one can prevent."

While the full report promises to address these concerns and lay out the data and methodology, the three page intro is discouraging. Rather than define the problem in broad terms (the costs, benefits, and alternatives) the report is full of "needs" and "requirements", precisely the type of methodology we teach our intro economic students are useful only when selling a product that can't compete in an open and informed market, but not the methodology one uses if one wishes to explain what is preferred or optimal on logical grounds, and thus the methodology that ensures repeat sales to an informed consumer. But then, they could hardely be truthful now, could they?

As Paul Nitze, a former arms control negotiator under president Reagan said in a NYT oped "I see no compelling reason why we should not unilaterally get rid of nuclear weapons. To maintain them is costly and adds nothing to our security." Recently, he was joined by former Secretaries of State George Schultz and Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of Defense William Perry, and former Georgia Senator Sam Nunn who wrote that, after the cold war, "reliance on nuclear weapons for [deterrence] is becoming increasingly hazardous and decreasingly effective."

The real question is how to stop the "new crazies", that, as do all successful dictators, have the army, navy, AF, NG answering to the leader (Fuhrer, in German). Please don't think that the Germans did not try, or that the task Americans have before them is any different. Why the latest executive order allows the leader to seize ALL my assets without any judicial or legislative oversight. Hitler never had it THAT easy.

Bush is right. We need all the nukes that we can ferret away, after all look at the world. They hate us out there. It's a nasty, stinking, dangerous alley that Bush is taking us down. Those people out there just don't understand that we're torturing and maiming their kin and neighbors for their own good. It's like a training exercise, no pain, no gain . . .Right! Of course, we also need to continue to explain it to them in the right way, you know with some of those flashy slogans and it would also help if we could just, some how, find a new enemy for them to dislike more than U.S.. We really need our nukes.

Bush is right. We need all the nukes that we can ferret away, after all look at the world. They hate us out there. It's a nasty, stinking, dangerous alley that Bush is taking us down. Those people out there just don't understand that we're torturing and maiming their kin and neighbors for their own good. It's like a training exercise, no pain, no gain . . .Right! Of course, we also need to continue to explain it to them in the right way, you know with some of those flashy slogans and it would also help if we could just, some how, find a new enemy for them to dislike more than U.S.. We really need our nukes.

==I'm a believer in "...speak softly (but) carry a big stick!"==

We already have a humongous stick. And we don't really speak softly either. Do we really need a bigger sticka and a larger megaphone?

"The persuasive powers of a nation, that spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined, are in decline"

It is high time the US and all other countries possessing nuclear weapons to dismantle them. With what face can the US that continues to stockpile nuclear weapons, ask other countries not to manufacture nuclear weapons? And how can the US that proclaims day and night that "all options are on the table" be trusted with nuclear weapons? "All options" do not exclude nuclear attack. And does the US think that only this country has the right to defend itself? I repeat, it is high time all countries possessing nuclear weapons dismantle them as India suggested at the UN long back.
V.M.Mohanraj,
India.

Bill,

Are you suggesting a reduction in strategic nuclear capability or an increase in tactical nuclear weapons? The bad guys don't care about commitment...they recognize and respect somebody who has a bigger stick! I know...I have study these scoundrels for sometime...they're not nice people.

But their real forte is lopping off people's heads when they can get some media coverage, or how about in the case of North Korea, extortion at the expense of starving their own citizens. I'm a believer in "...speak softly (but) carry a big stick!" Cheers! http://asmba.typepad.com/veterans/

PJ, It wasn't pre-emptive war, which would have been the case if ANY of the administrations lies had a grain of truth to them.

The correct terminology is 'Volitional War'.

That is also the plan for a nuclear strike on Iran using 'cooked' intel... volitional, not preempting anything except a government which, for very apparent, legitimate reasons, won't cooperate with the U.S. domination playbook.

GWB used the term al Qaeda 95 times in his speech yesterday as a rationale for not giving the Iraqis their country back, as demolished as it is, and Iran IS next.

That's going to be the Democrat's bogus war, and it WILL be nuclear, and televised, and an irrevocable, INTENTIONAL-ON-THE-PART-OF-OUR-ELECTED-OFFICIALS death sentence for anything resembling a 'normal' America.

I have no objections to having a deterrent capacity, however I favor a return to all the treaties on reducing nuclear arms and against testing that the Bush Administration has abrogated. I also reject the preemptive use of Nuclear weapons, along with preemptive war.