Nuclear agenda draws scrutiny

[babsbunny]

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2009/02/22/nuclear_agenda_draws_scrutiny/

WASHINGTON - President Obama is preparing to move ahead with the most ambitious arms-control agenda in decades, calling for dramatic cuts in US and Russian arsenals, a halt to the Bush administration's plan for a more advanced nuclear warhead, and the ratification of a global treaty banning underground nuclear tests.

Obama's agenda, posted on the White House website shortly after his inauguration and outlined by several top officials, also includes a worldwide ban on the production of nuclear weapons material - leading to what the administration calls "a world without nuclear weapons."

The new administration's goal of starting down what it calls the "long road" toward total elimination of nuclear weapons represents perhaps its most striking foreign-policy departure from the Bush administration, which expressed widespread skepticism about arms-control treaties and pulled out of the anti-ballistic missile pact with Russia.

[Kdillard]

1. I am very happy with this development.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

2. Me too

-but it seems like a lot of national security "experts" are *worried* How many more years/decades/centuries(?) do they think we need to maintain/enhance our nuclear arsenal out a fear that we may *need* to actually use them sometime? Building MORE nuclear weapons isn't going to make other countries less likely to acquire them for themselves- at least for deterrent purposes- on the contrary, it it may make nuclear proliferation MORE likely, particularly considering how our previous (P)resident invaded a country (on false premises no less) and then went around threatening WW3 if Iran ever got nuclear weapons. We need to resume our leadership role in arms control and reduction efforts- by demonstrating that we don't need them- and, more importantly we need to make sure that there aren't any "loose nukes" floating around out there ripe for the picking by Al-Queda or other terrorist organizations.

[wuushew]

3. The Senate more or less defeated the ban on party lines the first time

51-48. We have 10 more seats than we did in 1999. I am cautiously optimistic.