A month long conference on Nuclear Arms recently ended in New York. Unfortunately it proved to be incredibly unfruitful. In my opinion, a lot of the conference’s failure is due to the lack of willingness by the USA to cooperate with the rest of the world and the lack of a desire to hold up our end of the bargain.
When the Nuclear Arms Treaty was created and signed some 30 years ago, here were the two big stipulations:
- Nations that didn’t have Nuclear Arms would agree not to pursue them by creation or other means
- Nuclear Nations would disarm
Of course the treaty hasn’t been exactly adhered to by the vast majority of participating nations. My problem is that the United States has yet another opportunity to set the correct precedent worldwide, but we would much rather point fingers at other nations. While we are creating a fuss about countries that have either backed out of the treaty, or who were never a part of the treaty, pursuing Nuclear Weapons, we ourselves have not fulfilled our commitment to the treaty.
Any legitimate agreement concerning nuclear weapons disarmament fell through at the conference when the US wanted to focus all the attention on the “axis of evil,” and their apparent pursuit of nuclear arms. Many of the other nations that attended wanted to discuss the overall treaty, compromises, and the fulfillment of disarmament by nuclear nations like the United States. But as our arrogance, which continues to permeate all levels of diplomacy, dictates, none of this was possible.
So, help me out for a few minutes and do something that our current government and much or our society can’t seem to do: Imagine you are from another country and have watched ALL the actions that the United States has taken toward other countries over the last 60 years. Imagine what you’d think of our credibility on topics such as War and Nuclear Arms. Now ask yourself, “what right do we have to tell other countries not to arm or to disarm?”
Here’s some specific perspective:
We’re afraid that nations like Iran, North Korea, or terrorists might use Nuclear Weapons on us, but in the 60+ years that the technology has been available, the only country to use Nuclear Weapons on another is the United States of America (when we unnecessarily decimated hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians to end WWII in Hiroshima and Nagasaki).
We still have the 2nd highest stockpile of Nuclear Weapons in the World (after Russia) and we haven’t disarmed. So who’s to say that we won’t use them on someone? I know it sounds kind of silly to assert (“we aren’t crazy, we aren’t the terrorists, we wouldn’t use Nukes on another country”), but consider, 5 years ago, no one would’ve believed that we would pre-empt a War either (and a War that we definitely now know was based on either faulty intelligence or false pretenses). So how can we tell other countries we won’t use a nuke and have them believe it?
We have no credibility from an international perspective. And that’s a reality that our arrogance won’t allow us to see or accept.
So here’s my opinion: If we think that nuclear weapons are so bad, and that all nations having them should disarm while nations that don’t have them shouldn’t pursue them, we should lead the way and actually disarm. I mean, if it is so completely absurd to think that we would ever use Nuclear Weapons, then why don’t we just do away with our nukes. That might send the message to nations like Iran or North Korea that we aren’t just out to tell them what to do, but that we truly have pristine reasoning behind not wanting them to pursue nukes. And internationally, it would increase our credibility concerning the topic (even though I know we don’t feel like we need to pass a “global test”), and other nations would be more willing to support us in our push to have rogue States not pursue arms.
And really, why do we need nukes if we aren’t going to use them? Of course the answer is because we can bully other countries around simply because they know we have nukes and the greatest military in the World. The irony is, best I can tell, nations such as Iran and North Korea want nukes for the same reason we still have them: they want the assurance that they can protect themselves from countries that they perceive as a threat.
Ironically, if the Bush Administration used the same logic for nukes as they do for US citizens being able to have guns (as is supported by the NRA), then they’d be bargaining for States like Iran and North Korea to actually have nuclear arms. Then again, since when has there been any consistent stream of logic coming out of the Bush camp (they love to have their cake and eat it too)?!!!
In any case, though I think terrorists with nuclear weapons would be tragic (although I wonder where they would launch them from), I don’t really perceive North Korea or Iran with nukes as a major issue. I don’t think any nation is crazy enough to use them haphazardly or without some major provocation. Consider that there have been some very serious wars between States with nuclear capabilities since we dropped the bombs on Japan, but still no one else has used them; not even when nations have invaded other nations.
Maybe all the talk of getting North Korea and Iran to disarm is just another Weapon of Mass Distraction that the Bush administration has implemented. Because honestly, what is it accomplishing, and where is it going?
And if we really wanted to show the World that we mean business about nukes, we’d be best served to get rid of ours first!
-Maelstrom
No comments:
Post a Comment