Regarding Apushev's Hyde Park, the following bears mentioning.
While it's great
to give credit to grassroots movements for their efforts to
eliminate nuclear weapons, it is misleading to punctuate the severity of the
nuclear risks we face by singling out India's and Pakistan's failure to ratify
the CTBT.
There is one country
out of the ~190 on this planet that has a nuclear arsenal
outnumbering that of all the other countries combined. This same country is
the only one to ever deploy a nuclear bomb as an act of war, on civilians,
and
not once but twice. This same country, while dictating arms policy to "evil
doers," refuses to ratify not only the CTBT but almost all international
treaties which limit arms proliferation. It does this because it is the
foremost maker of arms, and has the most to lose by limiting their
manufacture, trade, and use. It is the same country that recently withdrew
from the ABM treaty in order to escalate its openly-stated goal of "full
spectrum dominance" of space.
With the exception
of those individuals suffering from a condition known as
head-stuck-in-ass, everyone knows which country I'm referring to. We need
to
stop scapegoating the "Axis of Evil" / "unlawful combatants"
/ "Pakis," etc.,
and realize that the greatest threat to the security of billions of people
is
America's goal of military, political, and economic dominance. This goal is
backed up by the world's largest nuclear arsenal, conventional arms arsenal,
and military budget.
Concerns about India,
Pakistan, Iraq, etc., while legitimate and necessary,
must always come second to concerns about the U.S.. They have the power to
act unilaterally against all the treaties we can throw at them. This situation
must be the prime target of our criticisms, protests, and movements for change.
Any demands we make
of "rogue states" to not build weapons of mass destruction
will be hypocritical until we work to eliminate the threat posed by "the
brightest beacon of democracy."
Martin Bielecki
U3 Psychology and Linguistics
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