My senator, Jon Kyl, is holding up ratification of the new Start treaty ... despite calls for ratification by such Republican foreign policy heavies as Kissinger, Powell, and Baker. Today the subject was discussed on This Week. Four of the five panelists embraced sanity and called out the obstructionist Republicans and their sycophantic supporter George Will on their dangerous game. One panelist, Ed Luce of the Financial Times, summed up the argument.
The two countries that most hope to see Start go down are Iran and North Korea, he said. "If that argument doesn't work with the Republicans, that sort of basic elemental national security argument doesn't work, nothing is. There's -- there's a greater hatred of Obama than there is a love of American national security."
A video of the exchange via Crooks and Liars is below the fold.
Kyl says he's holding the treaty up because he wants a pledge of more money for new nukes. In other words, he's admitted holding national security hostage as a way to extort funds for his friends in the military-industrial complex. But it's worse even than that. He's out to delay the treaty to death, asking for more and more hearings and study, despite the pact's complete vetting by the Senate and the Republican foreign policy establishment. He's making this move only to hurt Obama. The Republicans have been willing to trash the economy, obstructing every attempt to improve it, in order to stymie the President. Now they're willing to gamble American security.
Among other things, the treaty will help contain loose nukes and materials that otherwise might be used against us by terrorists. Failure to ratify the treaty will also harm our relations with Russia and a number of other countries in general, placing many of our national security policies in jeopardy. But it's more important to the Republicans to stop the President in every way possible. Put Americans at risk? They don't care about that.
Here's the video and more info at C&L.