Tuesday, January 6, 2015

omg, we're surrounded by humans with nukes

Ahead of August’s 70th anniversaries of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, some experts are calling on Japan to play a greater role in the effort toward global nuclear disarmament.
Did you just die laughing? Sorry, friend, I should have warned you. Did I mention the experts cited, all two of them, are American establishment members? OK, now you're really dead and I'm sorrier.
The Japanese government could be more supportive of reductions (of nuclear arms) than it is,” said Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, a U.S. group aiming to create a nuclear-free world.
Cirincione, also a member of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s International Security Advisory Board, said U.S. government officials often stress that President Barack Obama needs support from U.S. allies in pushing his agenda of nuclear disarmament.
Obama has an agenda of nuclear disarmament. But he needs help. He also has a drinking problem. And it's up to the family of Jesse, who he killed when driving drunk, to make sure he doesn't do it again.
Daryl Kimball, executive director at the Arms Control Association, a U.S. think tank, said that Japan and other U.S. allies “should be more vocal” about encouraging the U.S. and Russia to promote nuclear disarmament.
Let me amend what I said back there. Obama thinks there's a chance he might get in a drunk street race with a rival and he needs Jesse's family to keep it from happening.

Even acknowledging that Japanese politicians, acting of course on bullshit political motives, could, in a reasonable hypothetical, play some role in reducing the risk of nuclear war between the U.S. and whoever, that this is meant as a serious article is why the apes above are so OMG. Cirincione and Kimball are highly visible, serious, respected people who had all the time they needed to craft their statements. They didn't see the need to lead into it with "This is awkward and embarrassing, absurd really, and of course the fact that we pose an existential threat to humanity is actually our responsibility, 100%, but if you could just help a little we might have a better chance, and of course what happened in 1945 was criminal, we're in the process of changing the textbooks to reflect that..." No, they just said, if I might paraphrase: "Japan [the only country ever to be victimized by nuclear attack, a country that doesn't have a nuclear weapons program but which has in the past few years been in the process of beefing up its regular military capabilities while reinterpreting article 9 of it's Constitution (the peace article) to read 'no war except when desired' with significant U.S. (Obama!) encouragement] should be doing more to get [the most prolifically violent group of humans on the planet,] us [, the only country to have used nuclear weapons on humans (them, as it happens)] to give up our nuclear weapons."

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