A Voice in the Wilderness In Defense of "Mere Conservatism"

Spreading The Nuclear Wealth Around

President Obama, the Feel-Good-In-Chief, has recently signed a meaningless "reduce your nukes" agreement with a corrupt regime in Russia.  But that hope-filled gesture to the Russians was just the political face to the bigger change the Obama administration announced last week.  The Nuclear Posture Review, or NPR for short, states that the United States will no longer even threaten countries with nuclear retaliation if they don't have nukes themselves.

There are two voices of reason and sanity that you must hear on this issue.

The first is from Charles Krauthammer.

Under President Obama's new policy, however, if the state that has just attacked us with biological or chemical weapons is "in compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)," explained Gates, then "the U.S. pledges not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against it."

Imagine the scenario: Hundreds of thousands are lying dead in the streets of Boston after a massive anthrax or nerve gas attack. The president immediately calls in the lawyers to determine whether the attacking state is in compliance with the NPT. If it turns out that the attacker is up-to-date with its latest IAEA inspections, well, it gets immunity from nuclear retaliation. (Our response is then restricted to bullets, bombs and other conventional munitions.)

However, if the lawyers tell the president that the attacking state is NPT noncompliant, we are free to blow the bastards to nuclear kingdom come.

This is quite insane. It's like saying that if a terrorist deliberately uses his car to mow down a hundred people waiting at a bus stop, the decision as to whether he gets (a) hanged or (b) 100 hours of community service hinges entirely on whether his car had passed emissions inspections.

The other is from Chuck Colson's daily "Breakpoint" commentary that can be heard on radio stations all across the nation every day.  Listen to it here.

An excerpt from Colson:

The administration’s new Nuclear Posture Review states that the United States will not use nuclear weapons against countries that do not have nuclear weapons and that comply with the UN treaty on non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Now, that may sound good on paper, but what would happen if a country, or terrorist organization based in a certain country, launched a massive attack on the United States with biological or chemical weapons? Or even a cyber attack that could paralyze America for weeks or months, leading to massive starvation?

Well, astonishingly enough, the Nuclear Posture Review specifically renounces a U.S. nuclear response to a mass biological or chemical attack.  The administration took this position as a “carrot” approach to convince non-nuclear nations to give up their dreams of obtaining nukes.

But folks, you can offer a rat a carrot, and he’ll eat it. The problem is, he remains a rat.

As you’ve heard me say before, the role of government is to preserve order, do justice, and restrain evil. Well, this of course presupposes that there is such a thing as evil, and that humans do evil things. Obviously, we Christians know the root of this evil is original sin; it’s part of our fallen human nature. And we see it displayed on our TV screens every single night.

Any nuclear policy that fails to recognize the human propensity for evil endangers the country and flies in the face of a biblical worldview—not to mention common sense.  It is, plain and simple, utopian thinking. And Christianity, recognizing man’s fallenness, always rejects utopianism—the idea that mankind can build a paradise on earth. It inevitably leads to tyranny.

I don't want to be someone who only sees the negative in what President Obama does, but he's making it very hard on those of us who care about the safety, security, and stability of the country more than what sounds good in a University of Chicago faculty meeting.