George Monbiot (Guardian Utd): The treaty wreckers

[Jack Rabbit]

From the Guardian Unlimited (UK)
Dated Tuesday August 2

The treaty wreckers
In just a few months, Bush and Blair have destroyed global restraint on the development of nuclear weapons
By George Monbiot

Saturday is the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. The nuclear powers are commemorating it in their own special way: by seeking to ensure that the experiment is repeated.

As Robin Cook showed in his column last week, the British government appears to have decided to replace our Trident nuclear weapons, without consulting parliament or informing the public. It could be worse than he thinks. He pointed out that the atomic weapons establishment at Aldermaston has been re-equipped to build a new generation of bombs. But when this news was first leaked in 2002 a spokesman for the plant insisted the equipment was being installed not to replace Trident but to build either mini-nukes or warheads that could be used on cruise missiles.

If this is true it means the government is replacing Trident and developing a new category of boil-in-the-bag weapons. As if to ensure we got the point, Geoff Hoon, then the defence secretary, announced before the leak that Britain would be prepared to use small nukes in a pre-emptive strike against a non-nuclear state. This put us in the hallowed company of North Korea . . . .

The world of George Bush's imagination comes into being by government decree. As a result of his tail-chasing paranoia, assisted by Tony Blair's cowardice and Manmohan Singh's opportunism, the global restraint on the development of nuclear weapons has, in effect, been destroyed in a few months. The world could now be more vulnerable to the consequences of proliferation than it has been for 35 years. Thanks to Bush and Blair, we might not go out with a whimper after all.

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[Gyre]

1. I personally would welcome Blair's head on a pike

almost as much as chimpy's. :) He's a greasy as B.Clinton but with an English accent, and is so smart his English party opponents can't out-talk him even if they've got facts and truth on their side. It's truly pathetic that the English are slaves to this lunatic as much as we're held hostage by the chimp and his evil cabal.

Gyre

[OneBlueSky]

2. Monbiot is a perceptive commentator . . . love his stuff . . . n/t

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