Dennis Kucinich, of course, holds the same position, but Edwards actually has a chance of getting the nomination. He may have gotten my vote with this statement.John Edwards: “What America should do, and what I would do as president, is to actually lead an international effort to eliminate nuclear weapons from the planet. That’s the way to make the planet more secure.”
While the other candidates are talking about under what circumstances the use of nuclear weapons should be “on the table,” Edwards and Kucinich are willing to stick their necks out and confront the patent immorality of continuing to possess weapons which could annihilate the entire world in the span of an hour.
Setting aside the moral arguments (as if that could be done), the pursuit of the elimination of nuclear weapons would also set our nation on more solid ground when arguing that countries such as Iran should abide by the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and verifiably stop development of those weapons. If we as a nation are not willing to abide by our commitments under the treaty (to disarm), then why should we expect other nations to abide by theirs?
The bottom line is that the world’s primary existential threat is not from terrorism, as bad as that is. It is from the existence of nuclear weapons which may one day lead to the destruction of human civiliation and the loss of billions of lives.
This is starting to become a pattern. The Democratic congress is showing that it is just as willing to do the administration’s bidding as the Republicans were:
First it was their caving in to continue to fund the immoral war in Iraq, and now they have basically said to any American who calls overseas: you will be monitored. Whether you are suspected of talking to terrorists or not.Bush is getting practically everything he asked for. Indeed, under Bush’s warrantless-search program launched in 2001, the administration could conduct oversight-free surveillance only if it suspected someone on the call was a terrorist. Under the bill passed by the Senate yesterday, that condition no longer exists.
And for those who would say “the only people who have to worry are those who are doing something wrong”: has this administration done anything to make us believe that it will NOT use the law in unethical ways? The same administration which has ignored the Geneva convention, implemented illegal wiretapping programs without Congressional or court authorization, and used executive privilege to obstruct Congressional oversight investigations?
These people cannot be trusted, and yet the Democrats in Congress have done just that. Yeah, that’s why we elected you.
Hillary Clinton: “I think that presidents should be very careful at all times in discussing the use or non-use of nuclear weapons… I don’t believe that any presidents should make any blanket statements with respect to use or non-use of nuclear weapons.”
Mrs. Clinton’s comments were in response to Barak Obama’s statement that he would not use nuclear weapons to fight terrorism in Afghanistan or Pakistan.
Let me be plain about this. The use of nuclear weapons is immoral in every single circumstance. Presidential candidates most certainly SHOULD make blanket statements condemning their use. The closer a candidate is to renouncing their use (I suspect that Kucinich is the only one who would actually take that position), the more likely they are to get my vote.
Hillary’s position is the same immoral position of every President since Roosevelt. She is wrong, and it is her hawkishness on this and other matters of foreign policy which leave me concerned that a Clinton II Presidency, while an improvement over the debacle that is the Bush II Presidency, would only move us slightly away from our current path.
It is far past time for us to have a Presidential candidate with a reasonable chance of victory come out in favor of fulfilling our obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty - to work with the other world powers to destroy ALL remaining nuclear weapons. Keeping them “on the table” as an option is simply not acceptable, considering the fact that they remain the primary means of wiping out all of human civilization.
UPDATE: As I expected, Kucinich has the right position on nuclear weapons. Score one for Kucinich.
