what gives the U.S. the right to say who can, or cannot have nukes?

[mopaul]

why do we, the only nation to ever cause megadeaths with an atomic bomb, decide which nations can have nuclear bombs? we invaded iraq supposedly because saddam was building a nuke to bomb cleveland, ohio or some such shit, which was a damned lie. why aren't we invading other nations who have nukes, like france, or russia, or israel, or iran, or great britain, or north korea? why iraq, which didn't even have them?

what gives us the right to threaten any nation which has a nuclear program? what if some other nation decided that WE should not be allowed to have nukes? like china maybe? what gives, earth people?

[lachattefolle]

1. Beats the hell outta me

I hate the hypocrisy of our government

[TexasSissy]

2. I believe there's some sort of global agreement.

[msturgis524]

3. Don't forget testing, building and keeping our old ones

We get to do that too, and no else can.

[Kierkegaard]

4. Because we have the big brass pair to stand up and demand it,

and we have the most powerful military in the world to threaten those who would oppose our will.

Our moral compass is spinning around like a damned weathervane in a wind storm, but few are wont to admit we are as dangerous as some of the nations we have openly despised for much of the last century.

Reality is we have a thinly veiled dictator at the helm and he is only distinguished from so many others by the amount of power he has at his disposal.

[drunkdriver-in-chief]

5. America and israel both have nukes, of course

But we say no arab state can have any!!!!

[Surf Cowboy]

35. Are you saying that Iran having nukes would be good for the world?

Are you kidding me? There are 100s of Arabs out there right now trying to find one so that they can set it off in NYC.

WTF are you talking about?

Do you really understand what would happen to the world if they ever did set one off over here?

[John BigBootay]

36. Pakistan is a Muslim nation and we "premit" them n/t

[Hubert Flottz]

6. If the GOPers lied about Iraq how can they be trusted on Iran or

NK? We know now, that they lied about Saddam!

[BeaverFever]

7. UN Treaty

http://www.un.org/Depts/dda/WMD/treaty/
It has some broken links, but it might provide some of the underlying rationale limiting nuclear proliferation.
We are currently engaged in talks with North Korea over their nuclear weapons, and we're trying something vaguely diplomatic with Iran. The other nations are liberal democracies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_democracy). Historically, liberal democracies do not go to war with one another.
You can disagree with the nature of various threats and the action taken regarding them, but as a sovereign nation, the U.S. has a right to protect itself. We don't threaten any nation with a nuclear program (e.g. U.K.), only those that we believe (rightly or wrongly) pose a threat.

[wuushew]

8. Several countries are not signatories of the NPT

Israel, formerly South Africa, North Korea, India, Pakistan.

Countries that are not signatories can not be in violation of treaty.

[oneighty]

11. Treaties

are so yesterday. It is a new world since 9/11. Get with the program.

Sarcasm intended.

180

[Ms. Clio]

18. So hasn't the U.S. just decided unilaterally to pull out of some treaties

recently? I'm sure someone here knows more about that than I do.

[BeaverFever]

23. not exactly

I think we pulled out of the ABM treaty, but that was because the country we signed it with no longer exists, so we figured it was no longer valid (sort of like when your spouse dies and you're free to remarry).

[amjsjc]

25. This may not matter...

While my memory of international law class is a little vague, certain international treaties, if they are signed by enough countries or originate in the UN, are considered binding to all countries wether they've signed the treaty or not. (Any lawyer who might happen to be stumbling around is free to correct me if I'm wrong...)

[htuttle]

9. Pakistan is a liberal democracy?

Been asleep for the last 10 years?

And speaking of posing a threat: Pakistan was caught dead to rights last year selling nuclear technology to the highest bidder. Doesn't that pose a threat?

There simply isn't any logical rationale to all this -- it's all about deal making and power brokering.

[BeaverFever]

16. of course it's inconsistent

Of course Pakistan poses a threat. However, at the moment, Pakistan is being fairly cooperative with the Administration's goals vis-a-vis the war on terror, so we let them off with a slap on the wrist.
While any administration has general principles about foreign diplomacy, each nation is unique and gets dealt with uniquely. Our government has been cozy with a very oppressive regime Saudi Arabia for nearly a quarter of a century because the Mid-East is a place where we don't have many friends, so we haven't been able to be very picky about them. We have limited resources (though larger than those of any other nation), and the world is a big place, so we have to pick our battles.
I didn't intend to provide a justification for every U.S. policy. The poster asked what right we had, and I was trying to give the general principle.

[K-W]

24. Thanks Mr. Rumsfeld, what a refereshing view on foriegn policy.

There is a basic assumption behind your logic, that the United States should control the world. Most of the world and most americans disagree.

There is no principle by which we have the right to interfere in other nations that have done nothing wrong just because they lie outside our sphere of influence. That is imperialism.

There is only one valid principle behind limiting proliferation and that is removing the threat of a thermonuclear war destroying the entire planet by keeping the weapons as limited as possible. The problem with this is that it also means we should be doing what we can to get current powers to disarm, and we should be looking to disarm ourselves to some extent.

Clearly that isn the Bush administrations plans. The fact is that they have no principles or just rationality. They are simply using the politics of counter proliferation as an excuse to wage war on nations because we aspire to become a permanant power in the oil rich region of the middle east, because saudi arabia just wasnt cutting it anymore, and having our troops there was causing some problems.

[Ms. Clio]

15. Oh, what a load of crap

Historically, "liberal democracies" have existed for less than 100 years.

I don't know what you think Mexico was when it was attacked by the U.S. in 1846, either.

Anyone who gets their history from wikipedia deserves less than serious consideration.

[BeaverFever]

19. au contraire

The U.S. has existed since 1776. Even if I use your timeframe, when was the last time we went to war with the U.K., or France, or Canada?
Granted, we provoked them, but Mexico attacked first.
Wikipedia was used strictly for the definition of "liberal democracy," not history.

[Ms. Clio]

22. Uh, we invaded Canada during the war of 1812

And Mexico did not attack first--the U.S. sent troops across the border.

[BeaverFever]

26. we appear to have a communication problem

I said that if we use your timeframe . . . 1812 was more than 100 years ago.
As I recall, the basic point of the U.S.-Mexico war was that the border wasn't clear. When the U.S. annexed Texas, Texas claimed that the southern border of Texas was the Rio Grande, and Mexico claimed it was the Nueces.

[Ms. Clio]

28. I guess we do--if we use your timeframe of 1776

then 1812 applies. I would certainly argue, however, that liberal democracies as they are usually understood are a twentieth-century phenomenon.

The basic point of the U.S.-Mexico War was that the U.S. wanted California and New Mexico, and sent John Slidell to buy them. When Mexico refused to sell, the U.S. decided to conquer approximately half of what was Mexico at the time.

[RapidCreek]

41. The point of the SPANISH American war

was that a fascist propagandist named William Randolph Hearst started and promoted it to enable his US government/business cronies to replace Spain as the colonial power in the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico, and to devise a special status for Cuba.

It was crafted as a demonstration of our countries military and economic power and was our first step down the road of world domination.

RC

[K-W]

27. How about latin america?

We have overthrown democratically elected governments in latin america.

[Darranar]

31. In 1776 the US wasn't a liberal democracy...

there was that nasty thing called slavery....

[CrispyQ]

10. Because God told W it was ok.

[One World]

12. It's called money

Questions like that are going to get you into trouble. Keep ii up! :)

[BootinUp]

13. So you think we went into Iraq because of nukes?

Come'on mopaul, you know better than that!

:spank:

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

14. It's copyright

We INVENTED the idea of frying whole urban populations using the miracle of modern physics.

As Too $hort says: "It is written on the scripture in the book of rhyme that bitin' on a line is considered a crime."

[geek tragedy]

17. Non-proliferation is not just a US concern.

The US supports it, but that does not mean that only the US supports it.

Ask the people of Japan if they think keeping North Korea from having a nuke is such a horrible idea.

[Skittles]

20. but MOPAUL, we are BETTER THAN THEY ARE!!!!

Don't you understand that? WHY do you hate America???? :o

[Karenina]

29. BIN-GO-BOOM!!!!!!!

GET WIT DA PRO, MO!!!

[markomalley]

21. Countries we've threatened have the perfect right

to defend themselves against us. Since we have nukes, they need nukes. It's just that simple. If we stopped our imperialistic policies and unilaterally disarmed, it is obvious, at least to me, that they would follow suit.

But just tell me when that will happen???

[Disturbed]

30. The USA is...

is working on creating new type of nukes right now.

If Saddam would've had a nuke or two does anyone think that the Neo Fascists would have invaded?

[The Straight Story]

32. Because we can

We have the ability and the power to do such things, there is no moral authority which trumps power. One philosophy or ideal can be better than another, but if those who hold the worse of the two have the power to enforce theirs than their ideals will be the ones adopted.

Why shouldn't the US do so? It is in their best interests to keep others from having and using them, they have the power to make their ideals the 'right' ones, and so what reason should we tell them not to?

It is like DU in a sense - it is up to the owner, who has the power, to make decisions he thinks is best, and those transcend those ideas which others think are right and best. It does not matter if what you think is best for the board really is best for it (based on what baseline I am not sure, as that opens a whole 'nother can of worms) the one with the power does not have to listen.

The real world sucks sometimes, but hard to argue with someone who has a nuke when all you have is a stick :)

Not saying I agree morally of course, just tossing out some ideas...

[wuushew]

33. If that is the true reason then the government should come out and say it

Instead of inventing fake cover stories about rampaging throughout the Middle East.

Such a starkly rational reason for imperialism in my opinion is not justified as the great expense,difficulty and destruction WMDs deliver minimizes the odds such weapons will be used by nation states that nominally seek survival.

In a ten year period of enmity with a foe of the United States might result in a 1 in 1,000,000 chance of a large city being destroyed, but the Bush doctrine outcome would result in a 100% chance of thousands of civilian casualties and corresponding American deaths and economic damages to international trade. From the purely actuarial standpoint I believe the world is better off promoting stability even if such stability results in many nuclear armed nations.

[seemslikeadream]

34. Admiral Bobby Ray Inman?

ADMIRAL BOBBY RAY INMAN – SPOOKS-R-US
Tipped off by a journalist in Washington DC, my investigation of Admiral Bobby Ray Inman revealed that he was THE Admiral at the center of the spider web. A look at his social network (see Namebase.org
opens in new window) helped put the ‘puzzle palace’ together, and I discovered he was National Security Advisor to five Presidents, Director of the NSA, Deputy Director of the CIA under William Casey, Vice Director of the DIA, Director of Naval Intelligence, President of SAIC, Chair of the 1985 Congressional ‘Inman Commission’ on Terrorism, affiliated with the Carlyle Group, on the advisory boards of Tufts and the University of Texas, represents SBC Communications Corporation at Cal Tech, Chairman Dallas Federal Reserve Bank, and a member of both the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. And, Admiral Bobby Ray Inman is a member of the University of Texas faculty. One could say he is a dangerous man.

.......

In 1995 dollars, according to the Department of Energy (DOE) the US spent approximately 300 billion dollars on nuclear weapons research, production, and testing. Today in the nuclear weapons complex there are 10,500 contaminated sites, 2.3 million acres under DOE ownership, and 120 million square feet of buildings. The 1995 high base cost, estimated by the DOE Environmental Management program, to clean up the environmental legacy is $350 billion. That excludes the Nevada Test Site, Hanford, the Savannah and Clinch rivers, and the Columbia river which are considered to be "national sacrifice zones" because the technology does not exist to clean them up.

.........

Admiral Brooks also informed the Board of Regents that "we’re back in the bomb business" because Los Alamos had just produced the first plutonium "pit" since Rocky Flats closed down. He indicated that they would be making "mini-nukes" only, and nuclear weapons testing would start at the Nevada Test Site in 2005. An hour later, and 45 miles away, he announced to Livermore employees that "we’re back in the bomb business" and they would be making big ones, little ones, and more. By this time it seemed to me that Admiral Brooks was a slippery character and I began to wonder why an Admiral was involved.

.......

As Admiral George P. Nanos, Director of the Los Alamos lab (appointed Jan. 2003), and Admiral S. Robert Foley Jr., UC vice president for laboratory management (appointed Nov. 2003), sat down at the table where the Regents waited, I began to wonder how many more Admirals were involved and why. It did not take long to find out. Admiral Foley informed the Regents about the missing CREM, computer storage devices with classified data, and acknowledged that the security lapse damaged the university’s chances of retaining its Los Alamos contract. "This erodes your position, without any question at all. It’s about as bad as it could be when you’re trying to prepare for a re-competition". He announced that Jack Killeen had been appointed to the UC Presidents Office as special assistant for Los Alamos security: "Jack’s our guy, he was with Wackenhut and he’s our guy…". Among lab employees Wackenhut was better known for ‘wacking’ lab whistleblowers like Karen Silkwood, attempting to run people like Dr. Rosalie Bertell off the road, and has a well-deserved reputation for being a nasty outfit. President Bush and his brother, Governor Jeb Bush, are known to spend time together hanging out with cronies at the Wackenhut "country club" in Florida. Admiral Nanos continued and complained that employees would not follow the security and safety rules. When Foley chimed in that there were going to be more security incidents and lapses at the lab in the future before they got it straightened out, it began to look like a setup. Regents Blum, Parsky, Connerly and a few more leaned forward and demanded to know how it was possible, and stated it was unacceptable, that there would be more security lapses. Foley should have been fired on the spot for falling down on the job. It was obvious that Nanos and Foley were there to blame the employees, justify the management change, and discourage the Regents from competing for the contract. And justification for "cleaning house" and removing the "old guard" who would stand in the way of a takeover and for what is planned for ramping up the program.

......

Right after the Regents meeting I contacted a group of students and a Texas State Representative Lon Burnam, opposed to the Univ. of Texas bid for the nuclear weapons management contract. A student told me about FIAT PAX, a website put together by UC Santa Cruz students listing the top 50 University recipients of defense funding for research (see below), and their ties to corporations (see below). The UC Regents with ties to the defense industry were listed with detailed bios. Parsky, the Chair, was the top fundraiser for Bush (after Ken Lay) in both Presidential election bids, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Vice Chair Blum was tied to the Carlyle Group, invested in URS Corporation (leading contractor with DOD), Korea First Bank , and sits on the Board of Northwest Airlines. Regent Lansing was a trustee of the RAND Graduate School, a branch of the RAND Corporation which had been involved in war-gaming nuclear wars between the US and the USSR, and acts as a bridge between US universities and the military. I also learned that the Carlyle Group managed large amounts of endowment funds for the University of Texas, and that CALPers, the State of California workers pension fund which is the largest in the nation owns 5.2% of Carlyle. FIAT PAX sums it up:

.......

His comments made the link for me between the nuclear weapons program, the Navy, NASA, and other types of directed energy weapons developed in nuclear weapons labs intended for space. Marion Fulk, a former Manhattan Project scientist and retired Livermore nuclear physical chemist told me that nuclear weapons cannot be used in space without contaminating the atmosphere, and laser weapons will not work because there is too much space trash already up there which will impede the effectiveness of the lasers. Wars in space will create more space trash until it is impossible to leave the earth, which already according to Astronaut Edgar Mitchell, is very dangerous now since a paint chip nearly took out the windshield of the space shuttle. The US plans to weaponize space are a violation of the United Nations 1967 Outer Space Treaty: Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies. The intent was "to promote international co-operation in the peaceful exploration and use of outer space" and specifically prohibited the weaponization of space with ANY weapons, including nuclear weapons.

........

under his leadership. SAIC is one of the largest private employee-owned corporations, and like the Carlyle Group, escapes scrutiny (because it is privately owned) despite annual revenues of more than $5.9 billion. In 1990 it was indicted and pled guilty to ten felony counts of fraud on a Superfund site, called "one of the largest of environmental fraud…" in Los Angeles history. DOE contracted SAIC to manage and operate the Yucca Mountain Program, which I worked on as a scientist at the Livermore Lab. I became a whistleblower at Livermore in 1991 because of my knowledge of the extent of science fraud on the most important public works project in US history. SAIC’s control over internet domain names, gained when they purchased Network Solutions Inc., caused a furor and identified the ties in SAIC to "the shadow ruling-class within the Pentagon". Basically SAIC is a private spook corporation, involved in voting machines (SEQUOIA etc.), controlling the internet (Network Solutions), training foreign militaries, and the contractor that set up global communications for the US military. The internet is being changed from a public resource to a lucrative operation influenced by spooks and former Pentagon officials. The internet was a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) project to begin with.


http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=3323

[John BigBootay]

37. I don't want any non-democracy to have them--

preferably no one would have them, but that's not going to happen anytime soon.

I don't have any problem with the US, the UN and/or the EU putting pressure on the likes of Iran or N. Korea to give up their nuke programs. None at all.

You can call it hypocritical-- that's fine, and it makes a fun jab at the "man," but the reality is that such countries possessing such weapons is a thought that is almost too horrible to contemplate.

[chiburb]

38. Should we take them away from China?

If so, how?

"I don't want any non-democracy to have them"

[John BigBootay]

40. Yeah-- let's go get them... Sheeesh...

You have a problem with my overall philosophy as stated in the above post or are you just being argumentative?

[chiburb]

42. Both.

#1. There is arrogance in saying only democracies can have nukes. It implies that "our" system is better than any other, and ignores the fact that Russia and China are already nuked up.

#2. Why shouldn't Iran or Syria have them if Israel does? Isn't the point of nukes that they're a deterrent? Doesn't Israel's possession of them imply a threat that Iran and Syria can't answer? Or, do you think that Muslim nations can't be trusted?

[sweetheart]

39. no right except the rule of force.

The US has used nuclear terrorism, and started many wars with
aggressive warmaking as its basis for intervention since WW2, with
not a single "war"/bombing making the nation safer. Now with a
record of state terrorism, and a lot of retribution coming our way,
we want none of the respondents to have nukes.

Bullys want to beat people up without them being able to fight back
of course. If we were really a warrior nation of heroes and the
home of the brave and all that, we would lead the world to disarm
and to forever put a nuclear arsenal beyond use.

Until the white barbarians do it, all other nations on earth should
seek them to protect themselves from american attack and subversion
of democracy.

Nuclear weapons are, in the end, the bane of the taxpayer who must
pay, (god willing they are never used), to clean up the mega-mess of
toxic waste left over from decades of irresponsible state terrorism.