To STARTor to Stop?

"I call on the scientific community in our country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace: to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete."
I can already hear Rush Limbaugh's derisive rant. This is obviously something said by a starry-eyed, naive liberal, right? It isn't, unless you believe President Ronald Reagan was an idealistic leftist.


Some nay-sayers, hell-bent on denouncing anything President Obama does, are now crying out "Weak!" and even "Treason!" about our president and President Medvedev of Russia signing a new nuclear arms reduction treaty this past week. Does no one else find it odd that Republicans, who laud Ronald Reagan at every opportunity, have suddenly forgotten Reagan's great cause: to rid the world of nuclear weapons? Do they not remember the cause celebre when President Reagan and Gorbachev signed the initial START agreement?

Well, I do remember. I admired President Reagan for his work to cool down the Cold War. I am old enough to remember the Red Scare days of my childhood when people built bomb shelters, when air raid drills were held more frequently than fire drills at my elementary school in Alameda, California. I have not forgotten the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 when everyone in Jewell Hall at UK thought we were standing on the precipice of World War III. It should come as no surprise that when President Reagan began efforts to engage the Soviet Union with efforts toward detente and later, with Gorbachev, to work toward a reduction of nuclear arms, I felt grateful.

Regan was quite clear in his feelings. In is Second Inaugural Address, January 21, 1985, Ronald Reagan said: "There is only one way safely and legitimately to reduce the cost of national security and that is to reduce the need for it. And this we are trying to do in negotiations with the Soviet Union. We are not just discussing a limit on a further increase of nuclear weapons. We seek, instead, to reduce their number. We seek the total elimination one day of nuclear weapons from the face of the earth."

Reagan made it clear, on numerous occasions, how he felt, once saying: "The ultimate determinant in the struggle now going on for the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas--a trial of spiritual resolve--the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish, and the ideals to which we are dedicated." I still believe this with all my heart, even more so after 9/11. No one and no security system can stop every single mad person bent on killing, but we must keep those fanatics from causing us to be like them. We must pass the test of our own will to remain true to the ideals on which our country was founded.

Has every Republican in Congress today forgotten what their hero said and believed? It would certainly seem so to hear those taking the mike at this time. Now, a
treaty--yet to be ratified or apparently even read--signed by Presidents Obama and Mededev in Prague is a travesty, at least according to the some of the same people who regard Reagan as the greatest president in our history.

I've read this treaty. It is not difficult or obtuse. This Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) begins efforts to keep loose nukes from the hands of terrorists and rogue states because the spirit of Reagan's START--the 1991 START-I--expired December 2009. What are some of the treaty's components?

1). Both Russia and the U. S. will cut their nuclear stockpiles to 1550 (rather than the 30,000 each had at the beginning of the conference). Who thinks 15,000 nukes makes us weak? In some cases, one would do the trick.

2). The treaty has a clear verification process. If we do as Reagan said--"Trust but verify"--as the treaty specifies, why was it good when Reagan did this and treason when Barack Obama does it?

3). President Medvedev of Russia said: "What matters most is that this is a win-win situation. No one stands to lose from this agreement." How is it that the Russian President sounds more reasonable than some in Congress? I grew up with Khrushchev pounding his shoe on the lectern at the UN, telling us the the USSR would "bury" us. Now it is congress people shouting that this treaty is doom and destruction.


Recently, the Obama administration released the Nuclear Posture Review,articulating its policy on nuclear weapons. It is here that the President declared:

1). The U. S. will not use nuclear arms against countries in compliance with the Nonproliferation Treaty.

2). The purpose of the U. S. is to deter attacks against this nation.

3). Washington's nuclear policy now concerns nuclear terrorism and proliferation, rather than potential wars between nations, as its first priority.

4). The president can re-evaluate the withholding of nuclear action should he or she feel it is warranted.

5). The Nuclear Posture Review does not rule out the use of nuclear weapons against those rogue states that will not sign the treaty and comply with it by allowing inspections--nations like Iran and North Korea.

The responses from Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, and Sean Hannity have been predictable and virulent. Hannity supports using nuclear weapons even against non-nuclear nations and has said so on Fox News many times. He wants "all options open," even in the case of a cyber attack. What then do we say when Iran gives the same excuse for their building up nuclear capability? Palin threw in the usual sound bites that show her lack of knowledge about the topic, and Gingrich went on and on about Obama's being a socialist and leading the worst "regime" since 1865. (I must say, some of this rhetoric is akin the hyperbolic speech leading up to the Civil War.) Glenn Beck cried, again, and worried that the treaty would cause the end of the world. Spare me.

Some Republicans no longer in power and no longer seeking power--George Shultz, Reagan's Secretary of State, for example--see things more sanely and without an eye to besting Obama and winning in 2010. People like Henry Kissinger say that our failure to articulate a willingness to reduce our nuclear arms makes us impotent to tell nations like Iran and others not to develop their own.

How liberal can a policy be when people like Shultz and Kissinger agree with it?

It was Ronald Regan who said:
"Above all, we must realize that no arsenal or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have." When President Obama expresses those exact sentiments, many call him naive. How about a little perspective, people? How about a little less hypocrisy?

Everything is not about elections. Everything is about finding a way to work together to protect, defend, and maintain this country and what it has been and can be. Our goal should be to keep fro being blown to smithereens, shouldn't it?