Nuclear Proliferation in the United States

Did you know that the United States Armed Services committee voted last week to allow the research and development and possible use of Low Yield Nuclear weapons? How can any country honestly go and tell others that they can not build nuclear weapons and then proceed to do so themselves. That is one of the most hypocritical things that another country can do. If we produce a low-yield nuclear weapon and then use it against some terrorist group in say, Yemen, not only will it piss the rest of the world off, it will give India or Pakistan incentive to use nukes on each other and possibly produce a nuclear war that could escalate into World War 3. They'll figure "Hey, the US used them, why can't we." I know that George Bush and whomever else came up with this ridiculous national security strategy of his don't really intend on seeing that happen, but that is exactly what is going to happen if Bush and his Just War Doctrine continue. In the Taking Sides book, Issues 5, 6, 7 and all of Part 5 directly relate to this. From reading issue 5, I've come to the full realization that Putin has the "promise" of restarting the Cold war, given his past history with the very organization that tried to destroy us, the KGB. That could happen and then instead of a nuclear arms race, we would be in a race for some sort of new weapon. We both have enough nukes to wipe the world out 10 times over, so it is not like we need to build more nukes. Ariel Cohen even wrote "While abroad, Putin speaks about advancing economic reform and attracting foreign investment; at home, he talks about the dictatorship of law, and strengthening the Russian state." Cohen also mentions Russia violation of the UN sanctions by selling Iraq weapons in addition to the Russian leadership calling our country a threat to the Russian state, But, China is the most important country in the world right now, or at least they should be. They have the largest population, the largest army, and the fastest growing economy in the world. In 20 years, they could be a huge military threat to us, and given the recent events involving their secrecy with SARS, they could have an outbreak of Ebola and not bother to tell us until it is too late. They also have North Korea, which is to them like Israel is to the US. North Korea is openly antagonistic to us, and China acts like it backs us, but when push comes to shove, the Chinese government really doesn't want our presence on the Korean Peninsula, most likely sees us as a threat and would back North Korea unless North Korea used nuclear weapons in which case they'd probably get rid of that crazy dictator Kim Jong Il and his crazy propaganda.

To think that India truly needs nuclear warheads to protect itself from Islamic Fundamentalists in Pakistan and vice versa is absurd. They are always going to disagree on issues of their own national security and to have nuclear weapons involved isn't fair to the world. People know that in order for either country to maintain any sort of leverage in the International Community, both Pakistan and India believe that they need to have some sort of bargaining tool, and in this case it just so happens to be nuclear weapons. In the case of North Korea, they needed to be disarmed quickly no matter how you look at it. They will threaten everyone that disagrees with them with total war. North Korea is perhaps, the biggest threat to national security in any non-communist country within striking distance from them and in order to keep the peace in the area, Kim Jong Il needs to be removed from power soon. He is the 21^st century version of Hitler, complete with concentration camps, propaganda machines, and no tolerance for dissent.

The War on Terrorism on Al Queda is something that also needs to be addressed, but there isn't much to do in that. Our country could do what we should have done a long time ago and invade Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, because that is where 90% of the Al Queda operatives are trained and funded. This war isn't going to end anytime soon, especially with our current foreign policy and its pre-emptive ways. The more we go into other countries and invade them to dispose of leaders we don't like, especially in the Middle East where they think Bush is using religion as motivating factor in his wars, we will keep desensitizing more and more people to follow the ways of Bin Laden and in fact, we are acting as the primary Al Queda recruiters. So by exercising our supposed manifest destiny, we are in fact starting the cycle of problems that can be considered in a cause and effect scenario. Our best bet would just be more security at our nation's borders, an increased INS that isn't corrupt with racist republicans who want to phase out all of the Middle Eastern presence, and last, but not least, in order for the International community to respect us once again, we need to use the United Nations for peacekeeping like we used to. The world is going to continue to try and build nuclear weapons, because as I said above in the case of Pakistan and India, they think they need these weapons as a bargaining tool in case something happens.

If we as a country are going to change the entire International Circle around, we need to do it in a more diplomatic way other than saying "screw the UN, we can do what we want." I understand that Bush, Ashcroft and the rest of his imperialistic cronies would like to be in control of the world and all, but it is just pissing more people off, increasing the terrorist groups head counts every time Bush does something which pisses another country off, which is almost every day. There is really no good answer to the question of nuclear weapons, because if we make them all illegal, we will find something else to use that is just as dangerous and a 50 year standoff over those will occur.