Treaty

I was starting to think that I'd picked up an old paper, then I remembered: I was reading a web site. My bad. Still, I had to check the date. No, it's today, that's fine.

"US Proposes New Disarmament Treaty."


I had to do one of those exaggerated Jon Stewart eye rubs on that one. The Junta is proposing a treaty? When has this bunch ever signed a treaty? We haven't signed a treaty with our puppet government in Baghdad, for crying out loud.

Oh, we break treaties. And not just Kyoto. Our former State Department guy for non-proliferation was John "Treaty Breakin" Bolton. He never met a non-proliferation treaty he couldn't break.

The NeoCon philosophy is this: treaties are all bad. Treaties prevent the US from doing any old thing that pops into our heads, and other countries don't feel bound by their treaty obligations so they're free to do whatever they want to do. This is true on an elementary school playground, so it must be true in life. After all, the system of treaties that American statesmen negotiated over 60 years has only prevented major wars and grown our economy - how can they be any good?

So what's changed? If they believe that - and jammed Bolton into the UN job as a recess appointment because the Senate would not confirm him - why negotiate a non-proliferation treaty at all?

The answer, as always, is politics. As the cry of: "war on terror" grows hollow, people are less fearful, and therefore less willing to go along with the rightist plunder of our nation's wealth. What other foreign policy initiative can these idiots point to? Nothing has been done with the UN because of Bolton. Our allies hate us. Our enemies hate us all the more.

So the treasonously mis-managed 'war on terror' is the only thing the Junta can hang its hat on. The world of today is far less safe and orderly than the one the Junta took from Bubba in 2000.

So why not look like we're negotiating a non-proliferation treaty? The chances that these guys will actually accomplish anything is about zilch. But politically, they'll look like they're doing something. So what if it goes against everything they say they believe in? That's certainly nothing new.

But if there was a real American government in place, treaties could have stopped North Korea and Iran from going nuclear. Or maybe not - but they'd at least have had a chance. That's more of a chance than the complete disengagement we've suffered through for the past six years.

Politics is all. Politics is everything. No policy or principle is bigger than politics.