Thanks to Caroline Glick for bringing this article by then-Columbia undergrad Barack Obama to my attention in her Jerusalem Post article of July 6, 2009.
Obama writes, "...one is forced to wonder whether disarmament or arms control issues, severed from economic and political issues, might be another instance of focusing on the symptoms of a problem instead of the disease itself." In other words, the problem is weapons, and other military materiel, not the producers and owners of such items. It is the same as saying, "The problem in the inner city is that there are too many weapons. We need to disarm." No, the problem is not that there are too many weapons; it is that the criminals have weapons. The solution is not to ask law enforcement to unilaterally disarm. As any thinking person knows, if the police were to announce a unilateral disarmament, the criminals would not be close behind. They would be laughing uncontrolably, waiting for their moment to continue exploiting the now-undefended populace.
Globally, the problem is not that the United States, Britain, France, Israel et al have nuclear weapons. The problem is that a regime which keeps its own citizens in a massve concentration camp (North Korea), a regime which supports a terrorist organization against a neighboring state (Syria), and a regime which has threatened the complete anihilation of a sovereign state (Iran) are all pursuing weapons of tremendous destructive power. Destructive weapons in the hands of responsible players are not a threat. Destructive weapons in the hands of war-mongering players are. As I have said for a long time now, if I were on a plane of Mormons, Evangelicals, Quakers, Jews, Hindus, Miami Beach grandmothers et al who were all carrying a semi-automatic weapon, I would rest very easily on that flight.
What Student Obama did not understand then, and what President Obama does not understand now, is that once the nuclear genie is out of his bottle, you cannot put him back. Advocating for no nuclear weapons before the nuclear weapons age came about would have been noble; advocating for it during the nuclear weapons age is naive and self-destructive. Does anyone honestly think that Iran, North Korea, and Syria are looking at the United States' race to disarm and thinking, "What a great country, that American imperialist nation! I guess they're not so bad after all! If they can disarm, I guess we'll stop developing nuclear weapons, too."
Naivete, thy name is liberal.
Obama writes, "...one is forced to wonder whether disarmament or arms control issues, severed from economic and political issues, might be another instance of focusing on the symptoms of a problem instead of the disease itself." In other words, the problem is weapons, and other military materiel, not the producers and owners of such items. It is the same as saying, "The problem in the inner city is that there are too many weapons. We need to disarm." No, the problem is not that there are too many weapons; it is that the criminals have weapons. The solution is not to ask law enforcement to unilaterally disarm. As any thinking person knows, if the police were to announce a unilateral disarmament, the criminals would not be close behind. They would be laughing uncontrolably, waiting for their moment to continue exploiting the now-undefended populace.
Globally, the problem is not that the United States, Britain, France, Israel et al have nuclear weapons. The problem is that a regime which keeps its own citizens in a massve concentration camp (North Korea), a regime which supports a terrorist organization against a neighboring state (Syria), and a regime which has threatened the complete anihilation of a sovereign state (Iran) are all pursuing weapons of tremendous destructive power. Destructive weapons in the hands of responsible players are not a threat. Destructive weapons in the hands of war-mongering players are. As I have said for a long time now, if I were on a plane of Mormons, Evangelicals, Quakers, Jews, Hindus, Miami Beach grandmothers et al who were all carrying a semi-automatic weapon, I would rest very easily on that flight.
What Student Obama did not understand then, and what President Obama does not understand now, is that once the nuclear genie is out of his bottle, you cannot put him back. Advocating for no nuclear weapons before the nuclear weapons age came about would have been noble; advocating for it during the nuclear weapons age is naive and self-destructive. Does anyone honestly think that Iran, North Korea, and Syria are looking at the United States' race to disarm and thinking, "What a great country, that American imperialist nation! I guess they're not so bad after all! If they can disarm, I guess we'll stop developing nuclear weapons, too."
Naivete, thy name is liberal.
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