The EMO-tings of a First Year Law Student!

"There are no permanent allies, no permanent enemies, only permanent interests." --Chinese proverb

We've all learned by now of the seismic activity that was recently recorded in the waters of the North Pacific, that undoubtedly was a nuclear test by North Korea. And a success even if it wasn't the biggest possible explosion. Clearly no good can come of this, because even if Kim Jong Il can make nuclear weapons, he can sell nuclear weapons. Smart people were more than just speculating five years ago in the immediate wake of 9/11 and concluded that the single greatest threat to world peace, not just here but anywhere was found at the intersection of weapons of mass destruction and Islamo-terrorism. This is eerily closer to becoming reality.

And one thing supporters and critics of President Bush, Operation Iraqi Freedom and the Global War on Terror should be able to agree on.

"We are, at present, at the unravelling of the nonproliferation regime and the global nuclear order that we've taken for granted . . . This is a huge event whose importance may only become evident in five years" says Graham Allison, former assistant secretary of Defense under President Clinton.

from the same article in the Sunday Times "The only early-warning system to detect countries that are going down the nuclear weapons road appears unable to do its job. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has failed to detect cheating by countries at an early stage in part because it lacks the authority to do necessary investigations. It also has no enforcement power to stop what it discovers and can only report to the Security Council, which has had trouble agreeing on appropriate punishments."

Comforting isn't it. If the UN was unable, because it is incapable, of preventing North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons what confidence in the world does anybody have that they will be successful in deterring Iran?

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-nukes15oct15,1,7325444.story

"FAS (Federation of American Scientists) members warned the American people in stark and simple terms . . . the whole world would soon be nuclear-armed. There is no secret here, they said, and there is also no defense. The Nuclear Age is upon us, and it cannot be undone."

"Nuclear proliferation did proceed, but for 50 years it was slowed (in some cases stopped) by diplomacy and, more fundamentally, by the Cold War itself, with the guarantees it offered to nonnuclear nations of surrogate nuclear strength under the U.S. and Soviet retaliatory 'umbrellas'."

" . . . the umbrellas have frayed, and the world has become a more fractured and complicated place, no longer bound by the old alliances, where independent nuclearl arsenals have greater meaning than before." As the Soviet Union dissolved, the world in terms of security has gone from a stable bipolar contest between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. to a less stable one defined by multipolar contests for power and security, despite the fact that the U.S. still reigns supreme. That's not how the "end of history" and the "peace dividend" was supposed to go back in 1989.

"Nuclear weapons technology has become a useful tool, especially for the weak. It allows them to satisfy their ambitions without much expense. If they want to intimidate others, to be respected by others, this is not the easiest way to do it. Once a country decides to become a nuclear weapons power, it will do so regardless of international sanctions or incentives. . . It is not a question of what is fair, or right or wrong."

Perhaps most depressing is in the conclusion; "it is important to recognize that the spread of nuclear weapons is a condition over which we do not have control and for which there is no solution. It does no good to bemoan the folly of it all or to belabor the fact that we are the ones who ushered in the Nuclear Age. The world is an unsafe place and we have no choice but to live in it. Pretending otherwise, or imagining that we can impose order when we lack the power to do so, is the surest recipe for self-destruction and disaster."

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-op-langewiesche15oct15,0,1492721.story?coll=la-sunday-commentary

Sobering.

If there truly is nothing that can be done about the fact that North Korea in addition to Pakistan and India have now developed nuclear weapons and that Iran will be next but not last and that the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is a fact of life then it seems to me that we have two choices; neither of them attractive, but necessary. One, we call off the pretense that the nuclear non-proliferation treaty is a crowning success and the doctrine that will disarm the planet and usher in world peace and dump it by maintaining our stock and superiority of such weapons for its deterrent value on would be users and detonators. And two, begin to take seriously the idea of a nuclear missile defense system that would intercept and destroy inbound nukes providing a second deterrent to would be users and providing the actual defense to such a hellish holocaust nobody wants to see happen.

Oh, and one last thing . . . before you cast your vote this November; for Congress and Senate, with the balance of power up for grabs remember what would be Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said regarding just such a defense system just a few short years ago; "The United States does not need a multi-billion-dollar national missile defense against the possibility of a nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile." Oh really, Madam Congresswoman?? And just what is the United States to do when less than democratic and stable regimes begin to acquire nuclear weapoms? Disarm? Spend the better part of a decade trying to talk them out of it like the Clinton Administration did with North Korea back in the 1990's?? Close our eyes and hope for the best???

http://democraticleader.house.gov/press/releases.cfm?pressReleaseID=103

Remember what is truly at stake in this election, in every election in the post 9/11, post Cold War world, and how truly dangerous it is, and remember which party is the stupid party, and which party is the dangerous party.

Any vote for any Democrat is a vote against victory and a vote for vulnerability. I'm voting for the stupid party.