You know things are bad when Lindsey Graham is the voice of reason:
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) lashed out at fellow Republicans Tuesday for a “capitulation … of dramatic proportions” to Democrats and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in the lame-duck Congress.
Graham said Republicans have no one to blame but themselves for allowing ratification of the New START Treaty and other legislation in the period before new lawmakers are sworn in in January.
“When it’s all going to be said and done, Harry Reid has eaten our lunch,” Graham said on Fox News radio. “This has been a capitulation in two weeks of dramatic proportions of policies that wouldn’t have passed in the new Congress.”
He voted no on DREAM, no on DADT,and no on START.
Is this an alternative universe we are living in? To quote Carl Showalter….”whoa daddy.”
In the end does anyone really think that a “better” START treaty was going to make America safer ? Really ??? Does anyone with a single brain cell think the Russians wern’t going to cheat ?
Does anyone think that Obama wasn’t going to gut our ABM capabilities no matter what is in the START treaty ?
They are going to cheat and Obama is going to gut the ABM programs … this was never a hill to die on …
We need him to go ahead and do it so we can run that against him in 2012 … the sooner we get him out of office the safer America will be no matter what in a START treaty …
SALT II that is all I have to say on the matter.
Lindsey Graham is either putting partisan politics ahead of the good of the nation or sadly out of touch with reality. Or possibly a bit of both.
Do we want more or fewer Russian ICBMs online and pointed at targets in the continental United States?
Do we want U.S. inspectors on the ground at Russian facilities to ensure compliance, or not?
Do we want our own remaining, treaty-compliant nuclear weapons to be as effective and reliable as possible, or not?
Blocking START ratification this long for no logical reason other than it might be seen as a credit to Barack Obama was total bullsh-t. Apparently enough responsible people have realized that.
He votes the way his constituents want 3 times and he comes off with this holy than thou attitude.
Another perfect example to show your children of a straw man argument by Mr. Greg.
@ Tom in CA, #5:
The arguments against START ratification appear to be stuffed with nothing but straw to begin with.
A reduction to 1,675 nuclear warheads each wouldn’t allow us to do enough damage to one other? We’re worried that radioactive fallout might prove insufficient to reach isolated populations? That there might still be a city left standing somewhere?
Greg, let’s be honest — the reflexive con reaction to anything Obama proposes is to oppose even if they don’t know what they are opposing. If he supports their own proposals, they oppose him — witness the DREAM Act and the deficit reduction commission votes! So the idea that they would oppose as “appeasement and unilateral disarmament” a GOPer con president’s (Bush) strategic arms reduction treaty that is supported by every living GOPer secretary of state — this should not shock you. Mitch McConnell noted that his main goal is to defeat Obama, NOT to help manage the country and make it better. So rather than let Obama do ANYTHING that might improve things, they will oppose and delay and obstruct to the best of their ability. Obama was quite naive to think that he could work with these people; I think he now knows where they are coming from and will act accordingly.
There was NO reason to limit our defensive weapon capabilities in order to keep inspecting antiquated Russian nuke facilities we already know about. Russia is not our main threat any longer. The limitations we’ve accepted with this clownish treaty hamper our defense against ALL threats including Iranian and Chinese for no real gain.
Greg, do they pay you to hang around here, or are you just a foolish zealot?
@ DaNang67, #8:
How many U.S. nuclear warheads and delivery systems would it take to counter an attack from Iran or North Korea? We have more than enough to obliterate both nations without significantly reducing our total stockpile. China is thought to have an arsenal of around 240 warheads. Under START we would still have far more than necessary to destroy their entire infrastructure and to reduce the entire nation to radioactive ruin. When you’ve already got more than enough to totally destroy any conceivable enemy–and most likely yourself in the process–what’s the sense of having even more?
Beyond a certain point, continuing to add to the total global destructive potential begins to look suspiciously like the symptom of some sort of seriously dangerous psychiatric disorder. It’s as if we all feel safer at a card table when everyone is wearing a suicide vest, and safest only if our own has the biggest load of explosives. START is a small step in the direction of sanity.
Greg:
Aside from a tremednous ignorance one concludes you never graduated from grade school. Thge last time the world went through these kind of arms limitations treaties in the twenties we set the stage for WWII. Your kindred cretins produced the kELLOG-bRIAND outlawing war.
Perhaps you can point out exactly when the reduction of arms produced peace?
History demonstrates that nations prepared for war never fight one. It is always the case that a nation that “can destroy” another nation finds itself fighting for its survival.
Get an education.
@Ellie
What you are describing is this:
Si vis pacem, para bellum
Which is a latin adage and simply translated means “If you wish for peace, prepare for war”.
Reagan understood this well and the buildup of military forces and nuclear weapons under his presidencies followed this way of thinking.
The liberals and progressives always come back with ” when is enough, enough”, or something similar regarding the totality of military might. This is dangerous thinking at best, and allows for enemy advantages to gain and overshadow ones own abilities at worst. It also completely disregards history and what people have done despite their words to the contrary.
@Ellie Light, #10:
The very real threat of a global thermonuclear exchange is unlike anything we’ve had to deal with before. In the past, global-scale warfare–no matter how widespread and terrible it became–generally had winners and losers. At least it had survivors. Nukes change that. They’ve created a situation where a rapid sequence of actions, responses, and counter-responses could bring an end to everything over the course of a few hours or days. The cascading sequence of events could happen more quickly than anyone would have time to think about them.
The logic of the past logic simply isn’t adequate to the problem of nuclear weapons. It comes with some extremely dangerous illusions.
History demonstrates that nations prepared for war never fight one.
You’ve apparently read the history of a planet other than the one that I’ve been living on.
1) The treatys missile reduction is insignificent since either country has more then 10 times the bombs need to sterilize either continent.
2) What the treaty does is reduce our ability to DEFEND ourselves. Defense against harm is more important then retaliation, or have less Americans die.
3) Gramnesty a few months ago expressed contempt for the TP movement as a temporary event. Now what is the cause of this move to the right? I suspect the self promontion through committee appointment is the cause that might be effected by those “temporary” voters.
4) The several “sleepers” comenting against reason indicate the shallowness of the Kommiecrats…rant over rational thought.
@serfer62, #13:
How does it do that?
Greg I feel responding to you is like taking to a voluntary idiot. Perhaps if you the read the bill you might have noticed that there would be NO defense expansion or deployment.
So heres the deal…when defense missles are knocked out prior to destruction rather then wipe out a few cities but glory in the mutual destruction in retalation
I will not respond to any more of your blather. I see your name and skip to someone with something to say instead so I won’t even know what you babbled