I try hard to be a non-partisan blogger hack, but the Right sometimes make it too easy. Are they taunting me? Do they want me to fail and reveal myself as the leftist I am? Anyway, leave it Indiana’s own Richard Lugar to give me something positive to talk about when the subject of genuine progressive Republican deeds rises. Yesterday, Lugar announced that U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction program deactivated 244 nuclear warheads in Russia last year.
The extent to which we will arm ourselves and face down the point of no return will never cease to baffle me. Lugar’s initiative alone has destroyed enough nuclear weaponry to make me assume the fetal position with a stiff drink in hand. I couldn’t believe this when I read it.
Since being established in 1991 to secure and eliminate weapons of mass destruction in the former Soviet Union, the initiative has deactivated 7,504 strategic nuclear warheads and destroyed 742 ICBMs, 496 ICBM silos, 143 mobile ICBM launchers, 633 submarine-launched ballistic missiles, 476 SLBM launchers, 31 ballistic missile-capable submarines, 155 strategic bombers, 906 nuclear air-to-surface missiles and 194 nuclear test tunnels.
And these are just the arms Russia is willing to destroy. And this is just from one nuclear armed nation. Likely the biggest behind the U.S., but still. The program has also put 58,000 weapons (i.e. mad) scientists into civilian jobs. Good job, Senator.
