Posted by Tina
Obama announced a new agreement with Russia this weekend with the media touting the it as “the most comprehensive…in nearly two decades”. The question is, is it? Washington Post thinks so: “President Obama’s first victory in his ambitious agenda to move toward a nuclear-free world.”
Good grief they do go on about this man! Lets try a smidgeon of background. Long ago, and out on a drug induced plane too far out for the average person to experience, a group of young and not so young left wing crazies went nuts about nukes. They protested and rallied all over the country in VW buses painted with flowers and peace signs as part of the general rebellion against the war and anyone over thirty.
Protests continued through the nineteen eighties when the hated Ronald Reagan was in the White House. His landmark agreement with the Russians to begin to eliminate nuclear weapons went uncelebrated. You’d think those protesting peaceniks would have at least used this happy news as an excuse to party hearty but noooooo, hating Reagan was much too important even when he accomplished what protesters (and media) had been screaming about for over a decade. Instead protest madness continued. Events in front of the gates of the Livermore Lab were frequent with a few celebrities joining in to give the act some sparkle. During George Bush’s presidency they were still active in Livermore managing quite number of arrests, 64 in 2007 and 80 in 2008. The following is from a call to hit the Livermore streets for peace:
LIVERMORE, CA— In a sign of mounting resistance to the Bush administration’s aggressive nuclear weapons policies and its proposed development of new “more usable” nuclear weapons, organizers expect this Sunday’s nonviolent rally and protest march at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to be the largest event at the nuclear weapons lab in over a decade. “American troops are dying every day in the name of disarmament, while our taxes are being spent to build new nuclear weapons here in the U.S.,” said Nathan Britton, Northern California Political Director of California Peace Action. “We need to be clear, U.S. nuclear policy is leading the world in exactly the wrong direction. Global disarmament starts at home.” (Bold italics emphasis mine)
Bush was a war mongering, nuke making evil man according to the nuke nuts! How relieved they must be now that Obama has rushed in to rescue us from the evil nuclear build up under Bush! There was a build up..right? Right?
Aaaahnt! Turns out the Bush administration did quite a lot to rid the world of nukes during his term:
“START All Over again,” by Gabriel Schoenfeld – Weekly Standard
One central development largely airbrushed out of the picture is the 2002 Moscow Treaty negotiated by President Bush and ratified 95 to 0 by the Senate seven years ago this month. The Moscow Treaty required each side to reduce its operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads to a level of between 1,700 and 2,200 by the year 2012. At the time the treaty was signed, the United States had roughly 6,000 of such warheads. In May of last year, before the Obama administration had gotten even a toe wet in the nuclear realm, the number had already been cut to 2,126.
The Bush administration had brought about a radical decrease of more than 60 percent–retiring 4,000 warheads from operational service–from the 2002 level, achieved nearly four years ahead of the Moscow agreement’s schedule. ** By contrast, President Obama’s START agreement cuts American warheads from the current 2,100 to a level of 1,550. The United States will thus be making, thanks to Obama’s negotiating prowess, a reduction of, at most, a mere 550 warheads.
You will excuse me, pleeeease, if I don’t break out the party hats and balloons over the newest media celebrations of the current Obama nuclear arms reduction spectacle…miracle…. agreement.