No matter how wise, moral, resolute, and independent of Bush a Republican candidate appears to be, when push comes to shove he/she is more likely than not to vote the party line. In the current Congress, as reported by the non-partisan Hill Monitor website, Republican senators voted for the White House position 92.57% of the time, Democratic senators only 54.56%. In the House, the respective numbers are 88.50% and 40.99%. On the October 2002 vote requested by the White House authorizing the Iraq attack, a single Republican senator opposed it, versus 21 Democrats; in the House, only 6 Republicans opposed it, versus 126 Democrats.
A US attack on Iran will lead to the US use of nuclear weapons and will be disastrous for America. It is the path that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, with the advice of Kissinger, are hell-bent on pursuing. A military takeover of government is not likely, and military refusal to carry out immoral orders is uncertain at best. Congress has a role to play, perhaps the most important one in its history, and a Republican Congress is likely to rubberstamp any White House plan on Iran. Voting Republican in November is voting to wage nuclear war.
-----------------------------------
[1] http://www.acq.osd.mil/ncbdp/nm/
[2] "LAST STAND, The military's problem with the President's Iran policy", by Seymour M. Hersh, New Yorker, Issue of 2006-07-10.
[3] (]http://www.geocities.com/jorgehirsch/nuclear/nuclearbill.html)
PROPOSED BILL
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE
This Act may be cited as the 'Nuclear Weapons Employment Act'
Sec. 2. FINDINGS; PURPOSE
(a) Findings - Congress finds the following
(1) Employment of nuclear weapons would be an act of extraordinarily high political consequences, and the belligerent that initiates nuclear warfare may find itself the target of world condemnation especially if the opponent is a non-nuclear-weapon state.
(2) The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) would be severely undermined and many non-nuclear nations that are signatories today are likely to withdraw from it if the United States uses a nuclear weapon against a non-nuclear weapon state.
(3) Abandonment of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by many nations is likely to lead to widespread nuclear proliferation. This would severely harm the safety of the world as well as the security interests of the United States.
(4) A clear declaration by the United States that it will not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states would strengthen the NPT, provide a clear incentive for non-nuclear-weapon states to remain non-nuclear, and for nuclear-weapon-states to become non-nuclear-weapon states.
(5) The Nuclear Posture of the United States adopted in 2001 contemplates the use of nuclear weapons against targets able to withstand non-nuclear attacks, and the integration of conventional and nuclear attacks to ensure the most efficient use of force. The National Security Strategy of 2006 envisions the preemptive use of force. These policies taken together allow for the preemptive use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states. Such action would be detrimental to the United States.
(6) The nuclear threshold is a line of no return, and crossing it, even with a low-yield nuclear weapon causing low casualties, represents erasing a 60-year-old taboo against the use of nuclear weapons, and would encourage the use of nuclear weapons by others.
(7) Nuclear weapons are a million times more powerful than other weapons and an escalating nuclear war could lead to the destruction of civilization.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
