{"id":3372,"date":"2010-11-15T01:15:13","date_gmt":"2010-11-15T09:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=3372"},"modified":"2010-11-15T01:15:13","modified_gmt":"2010-11-15T09:15:13","slug":"will-republicans-block-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2010\/11\/15\/will-republicans-block-start\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Republicans Block START?"},"content":{"rendered":"

America\u2019s strategic nuclear arsenal is a holdover from Cold War.  Since the demise of the Soviet Union, our need for them has greatly diminished, so reducing their numbers by treaty is a win for everyone except for the military contractors who maintain and replace them and the states with military bases where the silos are located.  Sadly, those are mostly red states.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"15minuteman\"President Obama has made ratification of the New START nuclear arms treaty with Russia a top priority<\/a> for the upcoming lame duck session of Congress, saying the treaty is \u201cessential to the country\u2019s national security.\u201d An extension of the original treaty negotiatied by President Ronald Reagan<\/a>, the START treaty responsibly reduces<\/a> U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals by one-fourth. It has secured the \u201cunanimous support<\/a> of America\u2019s military leadership,\u201d thirty<\/a> former Republican and Democratic national security officials, and almost all of the 67 votes needed for ratification in the Senate.<\/p>\n

Despite the overwhelming support, a \u201ctiny fringe\u201d of right-wing \u201cexperts\u201d are ginning up myths about the treaty<\/strong>. One such mouthpiece is Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Claiming to be \u201copen-minded\u201d on the treaty, Graham told host Christine Amanpour on ABC\u2019s This Week today that he could not support the treaty \u201cin its current condition\u201d because of \u201ctwo obstacles\u201d \u2014 nuclear modernization and missile defense\u2026<\/p>\n

…Watch it:<\/p>\n

 <\/param><\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

The only problem with Graham\u2019s \u201cstumbling blocks\u201d is that they don\u2019t actually exist<\/strong>. While \u201csecurity experts\u201d like Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), and former Bush administration Ambassador John Bolton insist that Obama is \u201crisking our security\u201d by supposedly not focusing on modernization of America\u2019s nuclear arsenal, the actual rocket scientists<\/a> of an independent defense advisory panel determined that not only are the weapons completely reliable, but that our current \u201cnuclear warheads could be extended for decades, with no anticipated loss in effectiveness<\/strong>.\u201d To make sure this remains the case, the Obama administration devoted $7 billion [Murdoch delinked] to maintain the nuclear-weapons stockpile \u2014 $600 million more than Congress approved last year and 10 percent more than what the Bush administration spent… [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Think Progress<\/a>><\/p>\n

Obama is already going too far in the deal he negotiated with Republicans to approve the treaty.  Republicans do not keep their word, and are trying to extort more perques for their corporate cronies and red state coffers.  Once again Republicans care nothing for national security.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

America\u2019s strategic nuclear arsenal is a holdover from Cold War.  Since the demise of the Soviet Union, our need for them has greatly diminished, so reducing their numbers by treaty is a win for everyone except for the military contractors who maintain and replace them and the states with military bases where the silos are […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-thread","category-personal","category-35-id","category-3-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3372\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}