Pierce: This Combination of Ambition and Idiocy Has to Be John Bolton's Work

[babylonsister]

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a24070087/president-trump-russia-nuclear-treaty/

This Combination of Ambition and Idiocy Has to Be John Bolton's Work
President Trump nixes a nuclear treaty with Russia, because America First.
By Charles P. Pierce
Oct 22, 2018


Good morning! What's terrifying you today?

From The Guardian:

“We’ll have to develop those weapons,” the president told reporters in Nevada after a rally. “We’re going to terminate the agreement and we’re going to pull out.” Trump was referring to the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty (INF), which banned ground-launch nuclear missiles with ranges from 500km to 5,500km. Signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, it led to nearly 2,700 short- and medium-range missiles being eliminated, and an end to a dangerous standoff between US Pershing and cruise missiles and Soviet SS-20 missiles in Europe.

This has to be Bolton. Or Pompeo. Or both. Kelly's too smart for this reckless nonsense and the president* doesn't know a Pershing missile from a wombat. In any case, it's a profoundly perilous and stupid thing for the United States to do, injecting the old Cold War into whatever it is we have for an international order these days. Like I said, this combination of ambition and idiocy has to be Bolton.

And there are other people who are worried about this as well. From The New York Times:

President Trump’s announcement that the United States would withdraw from a nuclear disarmament treaty with Russia drew sharp criticism Sunday from one of the men who signed it, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who called the decision reckless and not the work of “a great mind.”

I'd forgotten what a gift for understatement Gorbachev had.

In an interview with the Interfax news agency, Mr. Gorbachev called Mr. Trump’s rollback of the disarmament agreement “very strange.” He added: “Do they really not understand in Washington what this can lead to?” The last Soviet leader, who is perceived more warmly in the West than inside Russia, has already watched his domestic reform agendas supporting democracy and greater freedom of the press unravel in recent years. Nuclear disarmament also defined his legacy.

The administration* claims that Russia is in violation of the treaty by developing a truck-born missile with a longer range than the Russians say it has. This may or may not be plausible, but the fact remains that there is a treaty in place that provides a mechanism for solving the dispute short of pulling out of the treaty entirely and stuffing Central Europe full of our next generation of nukes. But, because the president* is a simpleton surrounded by fantasists, any minor breakdown—real or imagined—in a treaty is an excuse for the United States to withdraw entirely because America First, or something.

This treaty is a living monument to what Gorbachev wrought in Russia and to Ronald Reagan's presidency—if you're into something like that. (It was at the signing of this INF treaty that Reagan famously first used the Russian proverb, "Trust, but verify." ) It was a shock when Gorbachev agreed to it, and it was one of the first indications that the USSR was coming apart at the seams. At the time, there were massive anti-nuclear demonstrations here and in Europe; it was the issue over which a government in West Germany fell in 1983. It is argued that the INF treaty has become obsolete as weaponry has become more sophisticated, but, again, simply abrogating our part in it is hardly an answer.

The relationship between this administration* and Russia is utterly incoherent at the moment, and central Europe hasn't been a nuclear volleyball court for decades. There is no reason to trust this administration*, and that's pretty much verified at this point.

[Achilleaze]

1. The five-time republican Draft-Dodger-in-Chief is a dangerous man to have command

of our sons and daughters in uniform, and the nuclear codes.

republicans should be ashamed of themselves for putting a casino hustler, draft-dodging serial liar in such a critical position. Tells you all you need to know about republicans and their slavish, submissive loyalty - not to the USA, but to their draft dodger and his specious ties to the russian mob.

[magicarpet]

2. With the Rethugs,... It all comes down to...

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[SharonAnn]

3. Bolton. Big hawk!