Robert Scheer: Hillary Pushes the Button (Nukes)

[marmar]

from Truthdig:


Hillary Pushes the Button


Posted on Aug 14, 2007


By Robert Scheer

What in the world was Sen. Hillary Clinton thinking when she attacked Sen. Barack Obama for ruling out the use of nuclear weapons in going after Osama bin Laden? And why aren’t her supporters more concerned about yet another egregious example of Clinton’s consistent backing for the mindless militarism that is dragging this nation to ruin? So what that she is pro-choice and a woman if the price of proving her capacity to be commander in chief is that we end up with an American version of Margaret Thatcher?

In response to the 9/11 hijackers, armed with weapons no more sophisticated than $3 box cutters, American military spending, with Senate Armed Services Committee member Clinton’s enthusiastic support, has catapulted beyond Cold War levels. Sen. Clinton has treated the military budget as primarily a pork-barrel target of opportunity for jobs and profit in New York state, supports increased money for missile defense and every other racket the military-industrial complex comes up with, and still feels no obligation to repudiate her vote for the disastrous Iraq war.

Given her sorry record of cheerleading the irrational post-Cold War military buildup, do we not have a right, indeed an obligation, to question Clinton’s whether Clinton is committed to creating a more peaceful world? Don’t say that we weren’t warned if a President Hillary Clinton further imperils our world, as she has clearly positioned herself as the leading hawk in the Democratic field. What other reason was there for first blasting Obama for daring to state that he would meet with foreign leaders whom Bush has branded as sworn enemies, and then for the attack on Obama’s very sensible statement that it would be “a profound mistake” to use nuclear weapons in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the attempt to eliminate bin Laden?

Isn’t that a no-brainer—or can Clinton conceive of an occasion where even the threat, let alone the actuality, of a nuclear attack in the immediate neighborhood of nuclear-armed Pakistan and India would send the right message? And what about the dangerous message of Clinton’s assault on Obama; “I don’t believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or non-use of nuclear weapons.” Huh? Just exactly how does one make a compelling case to other nations against the proliferation of nuclear weapons when members of the nuke club, particularly the president of the one nation that has killed hundreds of thousands of people with two of these ungodly weapons, will not, at the very least, promise to abstain from first use of a weapon that could quite easily eliminate most life on this planet? ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070814_hillary_pushes_the_button/

[Captain Hilts]

1. She was following the official policy of the US Govt. since 1945. nt

[Dhalgren]

4. Actually the policy of this government since WWII has been

no first strike. Mutually assured destruction requires a "no first strike" policy to even make sense.

[Tesha]

5. I'll bet you can't find a citation to that claim (about "no first use). (NT)

[Dhalgren]

7. I bet you can't find one that claims first strike, either.

The whole point of MAD was that "first strike" was suicide. It is meaningless in a MAD scenario for anyone to claim that a first strike was "on the table"...

[Tesha]

8. Actually, I can.

> I bet you can't find one that claims first strike, either.

Actually, I can:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/10/AR2005091001053.html

Our policy has *NEVER* ruled out first-srike, especially if, for
example, the then-Warsaw Pact were running rampant over
our NATO allies.

You may also want to read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_first_use

Tesha

[Captain Hilts]

10. The Soviets always said "no first strike" to emphasize that we had already used nukes...nt

[leveymg]

13. I recall that in the mid-1990s, the first-strike option was publicly ruled-out

That was during the hayday of the "Peace Divident" after the collapse of the Soviet Union. As a stabilizing measure, the Clinton Administration stated the First-strike option was off the table with regard to Russia (and by implication, the rest of the world).

One of the first things the Bushies did was to change strategic doctrine again, and embrace first-use and even tactical first-use against any country or group that threatened to use WMDs.

[Tesha]

14. As I say, while it's been discussed, I don't think it's ever been formally "ruled out".

But I'd welcome citations to prove me wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Integrated_Operational_Plan

SIOP-63 seems to suggest "no first use" but I don't think we
ever made NFU thepolicy of the civilian government.

Tesha

[Captain Hilts]

9. That is compatible with not ruling out the use of nukes. nt

[Dhalgren]

15. Explain how MAD works if we state that first strike is a possibility?

MAD only works if all agree that first strikes are off the table. If the US now has a policy of first strike, then every nation on earth not only has the right to nuclear arms, but an obligation to the citizens to acquire nukes and fast! As long as the current nuclear powers all have no first strike policies, then non-proliferation can succeed, but if the US is a first strike threat, then everyone is behooved to arm...

[Dhalgren]

2. K&R. He is absolutely right. Any candidate who will not take the

"no first strike" pledge should never, never be President. Vowing to never strike first isn't a sign of weakness, it is a sign of strength and, conversely, not vowing no first strike is a glaring sign of weakness.

Again, any candidate who will not pledge "no first strike" must never become President. The whole concept of first strike is ugly and inhuman and I want no part of it...

[leftchick]

3. he is right

<snip>

Great, so forget the hope that a woman president might prove to be more enlightened than macho men in the matter of peacemaking, and instead rest assured that Hillary would have the cojones to “push the button” that would kill us all. Once again, the old Clintonian tactic of triangulation: positioning oneself politically instead of taking a position of integrity.

[marmar]

6. Good snip....

Be on all sides of an issue all the time.

[leftchick]

12. we go from slick willie

to slick hillie. We are fucked.

[Individualist]

11. Another example of the Clintonian tactic

April 8, 1995:
President Clinton said today that the United States owed Japan no apology for dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, and that President Harry S. Truman had made the right decision to use the bombs.

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/t/harry_s_truman/index.html?offset=60&