Recently I attended an address by the Deputy Secretary of Energy who was asked a general question about U.S. policy regarding other nations trying to develop nuclear weapons technology of their own. Her answer was that our national policy is to portray countries going down such a path as "pariahs". Our approach toward such nations is to first shame them in the international community and then if that does not work, to hit them with economic and political sanctions until they come to heel. However, this approach seems to me to be wholly disingenous when the United States has a nearly infinite nuclear arsenal that can blow our planet into space nuggets within a few hours. What makes a country with the same goals as our pariahs? Why don't our policy
makers think that this label applies equally to us?
Since the development of nuclear weapons in the 1940s, only one country has ever used a nuclear weapon against a foe. Want to guess what country that was? Not only did we deploy a nuclear weapon on August 6, 1945 on Hiroshima in Japan, but we used a second one just three days later on Nagasaki. The number of people killed in the blasts was estimated at 200,000.
What gives us the right to try to appear to take the moral high road, wagging our fingers and getting all self-righteous when another country wants to develop the same offensive weaponry that we already own? You might think that this is all just political flim-flam and our policy makers and leaders are just trying to remain king of the international hill of power. However, listening to frank conversations of politicians when their guard is down, they actually believe the rhetoric that they are spinning. Our words don't match our lifestyle.
