Nuclear Newbees, Wanabees and others.

The sovereignty of Nations has to be respected. There is no way around this, if peace is to be preserved in our time. India and Pakistan already have nukes, others are not far behind. There is nothing we can do to prevent them. The best approach is to integrate these nations into the family of nations as far as possible. Inflammatory rhetoric, and heavy handed name calling is not going to help. Radical is in the eye of the beholder. Having stockpiled thousands of nukes, and having dropped two of them on the Japanese, we need to tread sensitively on these issues. Having invaded and occupied a Nation on false pretenses; lately; does not help either. These nations already know the devastating consequences of their probable use of nukes. This should be re-reinforced, along with the advantages joining the international community. this is the Obama approach and it is the sensible approach. The Bush doctrine of preemptive strike neither works nor was it thought up by Bush. It is the oldest scam in the history of mankind. Hitler attacked his neighbors because he felt threatened by them, Napoleon did the same. Both came to a sticky end. While the personal destruction of these individuals is of little interest, the sad fact is that they dragged their fine upstanding Nations into the gutter with them. We all love our country and hate to see it get damaged. Last year I presented an engineering paper at the CERN physics laboratory in Europe. Cold shivers of horror ran down my spine when these people said “All Americans are aggressive, amoral hypocrites like their Rush Limbaugh. Their rules apply only to others not to themselves”” When I told them I spoke fluent French & German, and that I had understood their remarks and was chagrined and devastated, they apologized profusely and told me that they did not expect an American to speak a foreign language, (more salt on wound) and if they had known, they would not have been so insensitive. However all my efforts to convince them that Limbaugh speaks for less than 1% of our Nation, and the rest of the 99% treat him as a bad joke, was met with sarcastic grins and skeptical sidelong glances at each other. I knew I had not changed any minds. The most devastating part is that these folks were not the European versions of our monkey wrench wielding good ole boys. These were Engineers, Scientists, and high Administrators from the very best echelons of academia, business, science in Western Europe. Cultures older than our redwoods. I shudder to think what the average person in the street thinks. Republicans or Democrats: we are Americans first and foremost. More importantly, I have 3 small kids, and I feel obligated to leave this land to them in a morally, financially and socially good shape. I don’t want them to be laboring under a $67 trillion debt nor adrift in a sea of enemies.