{"id":120966,"date":"2018-10-29T12:00:20","date_gmt":"2018-10-29T12:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=120966"},"modified":"2018-10-26T13:43:33","modified_gmt":"2018-10-26T12:43:33","slug":"presidential-nuclear-nonsense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/10\/presidential-nuclear-nonsense\/","title":{"rendered":"Presidential Nuclear Nonsense"},"content":{"rendered":"

24 Oct 2018 – <\/em>The Reagan Administration\u2019s 1980s crazy talk of \u201cwinning\u201d nuclear war with \u201conly\u201d 20 million US dead produced a lot of anti-nuclear activism \u2014 all over the world. In Europe, hundreds of thousands marched against the placement of US Cruise and Pershing II missiles in NATO countries.<\/p>\n

Fear of nuclear war and anger over presidential ignorance of it also produced the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, or INF. The treaty banned nuclear-armed missiles in Europe with a range of 270-to-2970 miles. About 2,700 missiles were destroyed by 1991, a deal that weapons salesmen like President !#&$! don\u2019t like.<\/p>\n

What the British, German, Dutch and Belgian marching masses were so alarmed about was NATO\u2019s plan to destroy Europe in order to save it. Former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt explained it this way: \u201cSo-called \u2018flexible response\u2019 \u2026. means that the West \u2026 says to the Soviet Union: \u2018We threaten you with a military defense strategy which foresees the early use of so-called tactical nuclear weapons.\u2019 That means for the Germans that the West in its self-defense would destroy Germany.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schmidt\u2019s description was no exaggeration. In an October 5, 2018 report by the Congressional Research Service, \u201cflexible response\u201d was explained similarly. \u201cNATO\u2019s strategy of \u2018flexible response\u2019\u2026 is designed,\u201d the C.R.S. wrote, \u201cto allow NATO to \u2026 be the first to use nuclear weapons in a conflict, with the intent of slowing or stopping [opponents] if they \u2026 advanced into Western Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, President !#&$! says he will withdraw from the INF treaty because he claims Russia is in violation of it. Russia denies this, noting that research and development is not banned, that its new land-based cruise missile \u201cfully complies\u201d with the treaty\u2019s requirements.<\/p>\n

These questions could all be settled with negotiations, but President !#&$! wants to get contracts for new missiles signed the and the gusher of military spending pumping, so that electoral votes are bought and paid for this year, and in 2020. Last Feb. 12, the Prez boasted, \u201cWe\u2019re increasing arsenals of virtually every weapon. If they\u2019re not going to stop, we\u2019re going to be so far ahead of anybody else in nuclear like you\u2019ve never seen before.\u201d Never mind that the president cannot speak English; he and Congress are handing hundreds of billions of your tax dollars to their friends.<\/p>\n