(Updated: Originally posted December 5, 2006)
Here's the lieutenant of the AC, Tony Bliar. Such a sad history, sad ending:
"Blair Urges Keeping Nuclear Arms Program Alive" byALAN COWELL
LONDON, Dec. 4 — Citing a potential nuclear threat from nations like North Korea and Iran, Prime Minister Tony Blair urged legislators on Monday to extend the life of Britain’s nuclear arms program with a new generation of submarines costing as much as $40 billion.
Mr. Blair proposed a plan to replace four Vanguard nuclear-powered submarines, equipped with Trident D5 missiles manufactured in the United States, that he said were the nation’s only nuclear deterrent. The vessels will begin to go out of service in 2022, he said, and it will take 17 years to design and build replacements.
Nuclear weapons are a sensitive issue for the governing Labor Party since many of its supporters — including at one time Mr. Blair himself — have traditionally opposed nuclear weapons. Indeed, until the late 1980s, the party was formally committed to unilateral nuclear disarmament.
That last sentence so commendable, so noble.
So sad that they have abandoned the position under Bliar, and fallen so far!
Imagine the tremendous signal it would send to the world:
We are scaling back on violence and aggressive warfare.
But, nooooooooooo!
Mr. Blair insisted Monday, in Parliament, that Britain should not dispense with its nuclear capacity:
“The risk of giving up something that has been one of the mainstays of our security since the war, and moreover doing so when the one certain thing about our world today is its uncertainty, is not a risk I feel we can responsibly take. Our independent nuclear deterrent is the ultimate insurance.
So then why the hassling of Iran, asshole?
The new dimension is undoubtedly the desire by states, highly dubious in their intentions, like North Korea and Iran, to pursue nuclear weapons capability. The notion of unstable, usually deeply repressive and anti-democratic states, in some cases profoundly inimical to our way of life, having a nuclear capability is a distinct and novel reason for Britain not to give up its capacity to deter.
Oh, so it's o.k. for us to have them (and have used them, in the US' case) and it is o.k. for Israel to develop them secretly and by subterfuge, but when it comes to Iran or others, they can't have a "deterrent."
Limey hypocrite!
It is not utterly fanciful either to imagine states sponsoring nuclear terrorism from their soil. We know this global terrorism seeks chemical, biological and nuclear devices. It is not impossible to contemplate a rogue government help such an acquisition.”
Rogue governments? You mean like Israel and the United States?
Yeah, states that DON'T have those weapons have dubious intentions; however, those who have already dropped two atomic fryers on a sovereign nation (and threaten to do the same to Iran -- nothing off table) is to be trusted.
Uh-huh!
Never mind the chem- and biocrap we've spread around the globe (Agent Orange, Depleted Uranium and White Phosphorous, to name three).
In addition to Britain, nations with nuclear weapons include the other four permanent members of the United Nations Security Council — the United States, Russia, China and France — and India and Pakistan.
Western nations like the United States and Britain accuse Iran of seeking a nuclear weapons capacity, which it denies. North Korea conducted a nuclear test in October. Israel has not commented on claims that it has nuclear weapons capacity.
Sort of quietly lays out the hypocrisy, doesn't it?
Some opponents of nuclear weapons said that Britain should spend its money on the environment, not on weapons. But labor unions representing shipyard and engineering workers said thousands of skilled jobs would be secured by a new nuclear submarine program."
That last part disappointing and a real problem!
Those groups -- environmental and industrial labor unions -- need to come together and see the way forward.
Understand their feelings, but we need to think of the greater good.
Service to the Planet rather than War Destruction, and a fair and just world in which to live in!