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.
