If any nation wants to attack the United States with chemical, biological or electromagnetic pulse weapons, it need not fear nuclear retaliation as long as it has no nuclear weapons and abides by the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Obama has announced.
So, as New Yorkers are coughing their lungs out from mustard gas or dying in the streets of biological weapons, they will know that their government will not use nuclear weapons to retaliate against their murderers.
In effect, Obama has said if you are a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and do not have nuclear weapons, we will not hit you with nuclear bombs even if you unleash poison gas or biological microbes in crowed American cities or cripple our economy by a massive electromagnetic pulse.
His incredible announcement amounts to a green light for anti-American nations to hit our cities with gas or poisons, resting secure in the knowledge that we will not use our nuclear arsenal to reply.
The Nuclear Policy Review, issued by the Pentagon yesterday, said that "the U.S. does not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states party to the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) and (who are) meeting their obligations." Defense Secretary Robert Gates went on to say that "there is a limited range of contingencies in which U.S. nuclear weapons may have a role to stop an attack with conventional or chemical or biological weapons."
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He said that these contingencies only included countries "that possess nuclear weapons or that do not comply with their nonproliferation obligations." In other words, if Iran, India, Pakistan or North Korea hits us with chemical weapons, we will reply with nuclear retaliation. But if any other nation (like a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan) does so, we will only use conventional weapons to retaliate.
Republicans should reply by introducing a bill in the Senate committing the United States to a nuclear response should any nation attack us with biological, chemical or electromagnetic pulse weapons. Let the Democrats vote against it. Let them filibuster it. Let them explain why we will not use our strongest weapons to deter an attack that could kill millions of our citizens or immobilize our entire economy!
Obama's motivations for this absurd policy are plain enough. He wants to up the ante for Iran and make it clear that the Islamic Republic can develop crippling weapons for use against the United States without going nuclear. He wants to invest chemical, biological and electromagnetic pulse weaponry with an impunity that can only be obtained at the price of nuclear virginity.
But think about the consequences of his policy! Are we really going to overlook so horrendous an attack and confine our response to cruise missiles with conventional warheads or a few divisions of American soldiers? Is it really material to our nation whether millions of our fellow citizens die of a nuclear bomb or are slain by chemical or biological weaponry?
Obama has violated the Ronald Reagan rule that a president must "never say never." He has eliminated the ambiguity that has kept us safe for decades and made it clear that our nation will not use its full resources to defend its citizenry even if millions are obliterated by heinous biological or chemical weaponry.
He has made a big mistake, and the Republicans must pounce on it.
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