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Friday 22 December 2006

Former President Jimmy Carter says by "rejecting or evading almost all nuclear arms control agreements negotiated during the past 50 years, the United States has now become the prime culprit in global nuclear proliferation."

In his book Our Endangered Values (Simon & Schuster), Carter leaves no doubt he has that Great Proliferator, George W. Bush, in mind -even though he doesn't call him that or mention him by name. Just as damning, though, Carter quotes an article by ex-defense secretary Robert McNamara in last year's May/June Foreign Policy: "I would characterize current US nuclear weapons policy as immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary and dreadfully dangerous." And that indictment can be laid at the feet of only one hombre.

President Bush voiced his "preventive war" doctrine in September 2002, and then gave the world a glimpse of first-strike by invading Iraq. He also poured billions into America's ugly germ-warfare labs, morphing them into aggressive postures. And he's the first man in Rome when it comes to renewing the dread nuclear arms race. You wonder where the outcry was from stalwart Republicans when Bush decided to resume nuclear arms development. After all, it was President Reagan's noblest achievement to strike a deal with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to rid the planet of thousands of nukes.

....Read the rest of this Truthout.org Guest Contribution here.