START Treaty now or later?

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Forums > All Posts > START Treaty now or later?

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2010-11-18 08:29 PM

LLBarry
Beverly, MA
Posts: 299

Obama is pushing forward the START treaty. It was quoted in this article, that "failure to pass the New START Treaty this year would endanger our national security. Without ratification of this Treaty, we will have no Americans on the ground to inspect Russia’s nuclear activities, no verification regime to track Russia’s strategic nuclear arsenal, less cooperation between the two nations that account for 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons, and no verified nuclear reductions.”

With today's economy every bit of money spent is being accounted for. Do you think that the money, about 4 billion, should be spent on this treaty? Will the jobs it creates counter the money spent? Would not pass START really endanger our national security?

Personally, I believe that this is a great treaty. But I question whether is must be done now?

2010-11-19 02:45 PM

Schmidt
Colorado Springs, CO
Posts: 1058

I don't know what the cost of administering the START treaty is, but I can tell you it is not $4 billion. That amount is what I would descibe as a "gigantic $4 billion earmark" attached to the bill for "missle modernization." There is no question that the essence of START is a good treaty worthy of both Democratic and Republican support. But the military-industrial complex is cashing in their chips from the massive campaign donations made to our elected officials, and knowing how bad Obama wants this, he will COMPROMISE and give the militarists what they want to get the treaty signed.

If you want to know more about the military modernization program, see the Arms Control Association website. Taxpayers currently spend $30 billion to maintain and upgrade our arsenal of 2000 strategic nuclear warheads. For Fiscal Year (FY) 2011, the Obama administration is requesting $7 billion, a 10 percent increase, in funding for weapons activities in the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).

I don't know how the $4 billion attached to the START treaty relates to the $7 billion. Maybe it's additional. I haven't done the research to find out. But this much I am fairly sure of: The military-industrial complex always extracts their share first, and it isn't always a question of military need but rather the need to keep the military contractors emplyed on lucrative government contracts. The contractors get rich and circulate some of that money back to their favorite Congressmen to ensure the gravy train is always rolling.

My cynical response...

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