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President Obama is pushing hard for the Senate to ratify the treaty called New START, which he signed with Russia in Prague on April 8. This bilateral arms control agreement has nothing good in it for the United States and reads like it was written by the Russians. New START allows the United States to have only as many nuclear warheads as Russia can afford to build. The treaty allows Russia to build new and modern weapons to reach New START limits, whereas the United States is locked into reducing our current number. That means Russia will have new and tested weapons, but the U.S. will be stuck with its current, out-of-date, untested warheads. New START bars the U.S. and Russia from deploying more than 1,550 strategic warheads and 700 launchers. To achieve that goal, we will have to destroy some of our missiles and not modernize the ones we keep because the treaty locks us into a permanent comprehensive nuclear test ban. Obama and the globalists dream of a nuclear-zero world. But any world without nuclear weapons would be a world where the United States is a sitting duck for nukes fired by a rogue nation. We live in a dangerous world in which bad guys respect strength and disdain weakness and disarmament. Equal ceilings on warheads are ridiculous anyway because, while Russia only has to defend its own people, our allies all over the world count on us for protection. The fantasy that our abandonment of nuclear weapons will inspire other nations to follow our example is incredibly foolish. When the Cold War thawed, and the U.S. and the old U.S.S.R. dramatically reduced their nuclear warheads, that encouraged proliferation, with India, Pakistan, North Korea, Syria and Iran eager to join the nuclear club. Ever since President Reagan announced his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) in 1983, the Kremlin has tried to ban all U.S. missile defenses. The Russians brag that they achieved this goal in New START and are salivating at the thought that New START proclaims their victory in their long-running battle to kill U.S. missile defenses. New START gives Russia a veto over all U.S. defenses against incoming missiles. New START gives up verification, on-site inspections and monitoring of production that were all requirements of previous treaties. Russia has consistently cheated on all its arms-control treaties including the 1991 START I treaty right up until it expired last December. Whatever happened to Ronald Reagan's maxim, "Trust but verify"? The New START treaty is a big victory for Russia and defeat for the United States. The treaty provision in our Constitution that requires a two-thirds vote for ratification can save us from New START if 34 Senators will stand up for America. The Senate should refuse to ratify New START and keep improving our anti-missile defenses. |
