I am not a weapons of mass destruction expert. But, like many of those who frequent this blog, I know that ketchup is not vegetable.
There are probably some others here that know that the Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism or GSAVE–formerly know as the War On Terror–is not about preventing the spread of extremism, nor limiting the reach of terror. Nor does it seem to be about stopping the spread of WMD.
What is the President’s solution to stopping the spread of WMD? More specifically, what does he plan on doing about nuclear weapons proliferation? Because as I know that ketchup is not a vegetable, I also know that WMD are not something exclusive to Iraq.
For reasons too numerous to list in plain text on my 150 GB hard drive, I don’t trust the President’s word. I can only attempt to understand him by looking at his deeds, and it looks to me that what the Bush administration is engaged in should be known as WARGASM or We Are Reality: Global Arms Trade Metastasizing.
Let’s look at nuclear weapons in Pakistan.
–World Nuclear Association, “Nuclear Power in India and Pakistan,” March 2005
When in late 2001?
11 days after 9/11.
Here is the Presidential Determination authorized by Bush,
September 22, 2001.
President Clinton implemented these sanctions in 1998. In response to the eleven nuclear tests carried out in May of 1998 by India and Pakistan, confirming their long-suspected potential in this area.
Why did Bush do this?
I have no happy thoughts.
The World is Flat.
World to be Flattened Further by WMD.
Just last Thursday, Pakistan tested their first cruise missile.
Pakistani cruise missile tested, August 11, 2005
Also diaried by MN camera here
But Pakistani officials assured us,
Isn’t that lovely?
CNN actually covered it. Thoughtful of them, isn’t it?
I’m surprised because this is “old news.”
We sold Pakistan 28 conventional warhead cruise missiles( AGM-84 Harpoons), and the 3 antisurface/antisubmarine planes that carry them(P-3C Orion Update 2.5s)in 1996. Eight more are on order from 2004.
The sale and delivery of these are documented by SIPRI here
About the missiles
About the aircraft
These weapons systems were at one time embargoed by the Pressler Amendment, a provision that prohibits military aid or arms sales to Pakistan unless the President can certify that Pakistan does not have a nuclear bomb. But aggressive lobbying by the Pakistani government and US arms manufacturers resulted in the temporary lifting of the embargo on these weapons between ’95 and ’98.
There’s a good reason why conventionally armed Harpoon cruise missiles were embargoed. Because they have the potential to be armed with nuclear warheads. A potential that may have already been realized by Israel.
To fit a nuclear weapon on a Harpoon, Israeli engineers would have had to reduce the warhead’s size and alter the missile’s guidance system to attack land targets, said Robert Norris, a nuclear historian at the Natural Resources Defense Council. He added that both modifications would be relatively simple to accomplish for a country with a sophisticated nuclear weapons program.
–Global Security Newswire, Oct. 14, 2003
The day after the Los Angeles Times broke this story, Israel made some very clumsy attempts to deny the existence of the Harpoon nuclear modifications.
The senior Israeli official said way too much. He should have simply said the story was phony and left it at that. Instead, he goes on to attempt to spread some truly half-baked disinformation that clearly calls into question his own credibility.
How can I believe this desperate official?
Wikipedia makes it…so very difficult.
First, there’s the interestingly acronymed SADM or Special Atomic Demolition Munition
Then, there’s the Davy Crockett nuclear device successfully tested in 1962. It weighed only 76 lbs. And that’s over 40 years ago.
And for movie trivia fans:
A classified WMD, exposed on film with men in rubber suits wrestling for world domination. Something definitely here for another diary.
But lets move on because it gets worse.
Regardless of the truth or fiction of the Israeli Harpoon modifications and their implications for Pakistan, the Bush administration and their Defense Department cronies seem determined to hold the door wide open for their new Pakistani arms clients. This is abundantly evident in this Asia Times article on August 4th which covers a recent report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) on US-Pakistan relations.
On top of all this, the Defense Department throws in a freebee.
It would seem the Fletcher, a Spruance-class vessel, is not a piece of junk
Why is Bush so eager to facilitate the loosening of nukes? Obviously, arms manufactures stand to gain big time profits by selling to both sides in the India/Pakistan conflict. A truly sociopathic and potentially disastrous profiteering scheme. But even in terms of simpleminded US interests, hadn’t 911 taught them anything about the necessity of stopping the spread of WMD? Especially in countries that harbor terrorists of the Islamic extremist kind? Countries with military dictatorships? Countries where 51% of the surveyed population have “a lot” or “some confidence in Osama bin Laden to do the right thing regarding world affairs” according to Pew?
No good will come of this.
Bush has no plan for winning the peace in ANY global struggle. The view within the administration bubble is that there is no struggle; 9/11 changed NOTHING. They are just moving on with their lies and their lives. The Iraq example is part of a broad, deeply flawed world view. Policy formulated in isolation and ignorance resulting in impulsive and incompetent military intervention is the President’s job. The rotten fruit of his hard work is US troops sent on a lost mission, under equipped and under supported, while big ticket arms sales continue unimpeded to a country with nukes, a dictator, and a significant population hostile to the US and our allies.
The Bush administration is hell-bent on spearheading the most expensive and devastating display of bungled “strategery” in American history. And I fear what we have in this country is a defense bureaucracy overrun by arms lobbyists. People not unlike Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, who:
A man described by General Tommy Franks, as “the f—ing stupidest guy on the face of the Earth,”
Makes one wonder if the ultimate goal of God’s “Intelligent Design” is to get us all killed by the f—ing stupidest guy on the face of the Earth.
Cross-posted at dailykos.