[Peace-discuss] Democrats and nuclear weapons

[n.dahlheim at mchsi.com]

if Obama's unwillingness to employ nuclear weapons represents some kind of enlightened viewpoint, he is 
far from being a legitimate peace candidate.  As far as I can see, only Kucinich and Paul seem to be legit.  
But, they will never be allowed to win.  The corporations want more war, and war they shall hav e.


----------------------  Original Message:  ---------------------
From:    "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu>
To:      Peace Discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Subject: [Peace-discuss] Democrats and nuclear weapons
Date:    Mon, 6 Aug 2007 02:52:43 +0000

> [Obama seems, perhaps inadvertently, to have blurted out something 
> right, regarding nuclear weapons, and in the process exposed the 
> horrible conventional assumptions of the usual political scum, notably 
> Hillary Clinton.  --CGE]
> 
> 	Obama Renounces Use of Nuclear Weapons --
> 	Hillary Counters: That's Not the American Way!
> 	By SHERWOOD ROSS
> 
> Just in time for the 62nd annual observance of the Hiroshima massacre 
> August 6th, Sen. Hillary Clinton(D-N.Y.) has scolded Sen. Barack Obama 
> (D.-Ill.) for stating he would not drop nuclear weapons on civilians. 
> What a wuss that guy is!
> 
> However, the executive director and publisher of the Bulletin of The 
> Atomic Scientists, an organization that works to stop nuclear 
> proliferation, praised Obama for his stand.
> 
> Asked for comment, Kennett Benedict, of The Bulletin of The Atomic 
> Scientists, of Chicago, said, “I think if he (Obama) would stick to that 
> position it would be a great step forward.”
> 
> “We would have, like other countries such as China and the Soviet Union 
> before the breakup, a policy that renounces first use of nuclear 
> weapons,” Benedict said. She noted “The U.S. has never had an explicit 
> no first-use policy and it was made explicit under the Bush 
> administration that we would use nuclear weapons first even if not 
> attacked with nuclear weapons.”
> 
> Sen. Clinton earlier had lectured Obama in a way to suggest he is too 
> inexperienced to handle foreign policy issues. “I don’t believe that any 
> president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or 
> non-use of nuclear weapons,” Sen. Clinton said. Her position is not 
> likely to draw fire from the Bush White House, as Condoleezza Rice has 
> already threatened to nuke Iran for allegedly thinking about making 
> A-bomb No. 1. Bush, of course, has 10,000 nukes.
> 
> Obama made his considered reply when asked if he would use nuclear 
> weapons to go after terrorists in Afghanistan or Pakistan. “I think it 
> would be a profound mistake for us to use nuclear weapons in any 
> circumstance,” he said, pausing to add, “involving civilians.” Of 
> course, there will never be any use of the “nuclear option” that will 
> not kill civilians.
> 
> This was made clear by nuclear expert Dr. Helen Caldicott, who noted the 
> accidental nuclear meltdown at the Ukrainian Chernobyl nuclear plant on 
> April 26, 1986, has sent more than 5,000 Europeans to an early grave. 
> She predicts if the U.S. or Israel attacked Iranian nuclear facilities 
> “huge amount of radioactive material will be lifted into the air to 
> contaminate the people of Iran and surrounding countries.”
> 
> To put this spat in context, we might recall that President Truman used 
> atomic weapons to wipe out between 200,000 and 350,000 Japanese 
> civilians. In Hiroshima, a city of 310,000, approximately 140,000 
> people, nearly all civilians, were killed, including ten thousand 
> Christians who, had they lived, might have wondered what church Truman 
> attended.
> 
> Like his role model Genghis Khan, Truman did not scruple to wipe out 
> cities --- including women, children, and elderly non-combatants---if 
> their leaders refused to surrender. The Mongol warlord, of course, did 
> not have the Geneva Convention to guide him, a document which forbids 
> the bombardment of civilian populations. Truman did, only he ignored it. 
> He also established a precedent for the terrifying nuclear arms race 
> whose “testing” has resulted in thousands of deaths from fallout, while 
> sucking $7 trillion out of the pockets of U.S. taxpayers.
> 
> Also just in time for the Hiroshima Day observance, is the U.S.-Indian 
> nuclear deal. By this pact, the administration “agreed to virtually all 
> of India’s demands at the cost of U.S. national security and 
> nonproliferation interests.”
> 
> That’s according to Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Washington, 
> D.C.-based non-profit Arms Control Association, and Fred McGoldrick, a 
> former State Department official. They note India refused to sign the 
> nuclear weapons non-proliferation treaty but the Bush administration is 
> giving it “preferential treatment” it does not afford even to signatory 
> nations that live up to the treaty.
> 
> India previously violated its peaceful use pledges by using U.S. 
> American and Canadian nuclear aid to conduct its 1974 nuclear bomb test. 
> President Bush has compounded the nuke sell-out by agreeing to deal F-16 
> fighter jets to both India and Pakistan. The F-16 is capable of carrying 
> a nuclear bomb so the two enemies will become only more fearful of each 
> other than ever. Former Sen. Larry Pressler(R.-S.D.) sponsor of a law in 
> 1985 to stop the proposed F-16 sale to Pakistan, called the Bush policy 
> reversal “an atrocity.”
> 
> As another Hiroshima Day is upon us, President Bush and Senator Clinton, 
> reveal they have learned nothing from that catastrophe. Both cling to 
> the lunacy they can use the nuclear war club to unilaterally intimidate 
> and destroy countries that “threaten” them. That’s the Bush stance on 
> Iran, a nation that operates on a military budget of $4 billion a year, 
> compared to Bush’s staggering $600 billion. The last thing America needs 
> is another Genghis Khan in the White House. At least Obama exhibits some 
> fresh thinking.
> 
> Sherwood Ross is a Miami, Fla.-based writer who covers political and 
> military subjects. Reach him at sherwoodr1 at yahoo.com
> 
> 	###
> 
> 
> 
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