As CBS reports, “President Obama signs a major pact with Russian President Medvedev, cutting the number of nuclear weapons by a third.” Most of us are thrilled about this, I’m fairly certain. But not the boys and girls over at Faux “News” (“unfair and unbalanced”)! For instance, check out this post, aptly titled, “Teh Stupidz! It Burnz!” Apparently, the right-wingnuts at Faux think we’re all DOOOOOOOMED!!!! because President Obama and President Medvedev have just signed a New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. So, what’s so horrible in this treaty to make us all DOOOOOOOMED? As nuclear expert Page van der Linden points out, absolutely nothing. For instance:
MYTH: President Obama does not have the support of top military brass on his nuclear weapons plans.
Not true. I’ll just point you to comments from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen and the Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Cartwright upon the release of the Nuclear Posture Review. That other important (former military) guy, Secretary of Defense Gates, also has good things to say about the Nuclear Posture Review as well as the New START treaty.
As Page van der Linden, aka “Plutonium Page,” notes, the lying isn’t just laughable, “but it’s also sinister, because people start to believe it.” Of course, that never stopped Faux and the rest of the right-wing noise machine before. Fortunately, there are smart people out there like Page van der Linden, who earned her nickname “working with the nuclear waste at the Hanford Nuclear Site in Washington State,” to set the record straight.
P.S. My own expertise on nuclear weapons is limited to graduate-level work on U.S. National Security Policy at GWU. I also have a modest degree of experience on nuclear power from my 17 years at the US Energy Information Administration.
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