NUCLEAR HYPOCRISY AND WORSE

MER - Washington -
The Americans are "outraged". A country of some 1 billion people, flanked by China on the East, Pakistan and Iran on the West, and Russian to the North has tested a few of its small arsenal of nuclear weapons. Threats, Sanctions, Embargoes, are in the air. India, how dare you?!

The big problem with all this is that it is the Americans who have the grandest arms arsenal in the world; the Americans who sell the most arms in the world; the Americans who in recent years have actually threatened to use their nuclear weapons, not just test them!

And the even bigger problem with all this is that it is the Americans who helped the Israelis develop their rather sizeable arsenal of nuclear weapons -- 50% as large as that of China and by far the greatest arsenal of mass destruction outside the control of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

True enough. The proliferation of nuclear weapons is dangerous, unwelcome, and should be of extremely serious concern to us all.

But the way to deal with it is not through hypocrisy and bluster. The way to deal with it is to cut to the chase: all countries are going to have to seriously cut back and eventually eliminate these awful weapons...including the U.S. Furthermore the U.S. has got to stop threatening to use them, as was done in 1991 and 1998. And when it comes to Israel, this renegade situation may have had understandable origins, but if we are to deal successfully with the world's increasingly serious nuclear proliferation problem Israel can no longer be excepted.

And while we're at it, let's take the opportunity to mention that the Arab client regimes aren't always wrong about everything. Last year Egyptian Foreign Minister, Amr Musa, began a crusade to plead that the Middle East must be nuclear free, meaning that in the context of a true regional peace Israel had to sign the non-proliferation treaty, open itself to international inspection, and agree to dismantle its nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, after abit of pressure from the U.S. and Israel, Musa has gone quiet.

MAB

The following from Professor Francis Boyle, an International Law specialist at the University of Illinois in Champlain:

Dear Friends:
Today we hear everyone in Washington asking for sanctions against India because of these tests. Yet, it is well known that Israel has tested a nuclear device and currently has an inventory of at least 200+ nuclear weapons and an IRBM delivery capability. But no one will even mention that matter in the American news media.

Remember what happened during the Carter administration. Israel and the apartheid Afrikaner regime in South Africa tested a nuclear device near the Indian Ocean. The Carter administration immediately orchestrated a flimsy cover-up, publicly claiming that it was a meteorite hitting the satellite, in order to avoid the triggering of sanctions against Israel. Of course, the news media in the United States dutifully accepted the cover-up and the matter disappeared
down the Orwellian memory hole. What we see now in Washington are crocodile tears being shed over the Indian tests. The United States has done absolutely nothing to stop Israel's rapidly escalating nuclear weapons program despite more than enough leverage to do so. Some are more equal than others.

--Francis A. Boyle
Professor of International Law
Champaign, Ill.

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