Response to American Digest on Nuclear Terrorism Thursday, Mar 6 2008
American Digest, a conservative blog, re-posted the nuclear attack image I posted yesterday, with the title “2008 Election Stakes”, and the subtext “Just in case you thought your taxes were the most important issue”, and the additional comment “HT Accelerating Future, where they seem to believe that donating to the Lifeboat Foundation and the Nuclear Threat Initiative is going to make it all go away.” Here is my response:
Hi,
The Nuclear Threat Initiative is co-chaired by Sam Nunn, an ex-senator who is also on McCain’s shortlist for VP. NTI’s fundraising requests are signed by Nunn.
If Nunn is the choice for VP, you can bet that stopping nuclear terrorism (by securing nuclear materials, not necessarily waging constant wars in the Middle East) will be on the top of the agenda.
In your post here, you dismissingly insinuate that donating to NTI won’t make nuclear terrorism go away. But NTI is the cause championed by Nunn, and the goals (with respect to nuclear terorrism) of NTI and a McCain-Nunn Administration would be quite similar. So you are pooh-poohing a cause that you would enthusiastically support if the very same suggestions were a public part of the McCain campaign.
Maybe you are slightly clouded by overfocusing on Republican-Democrat binary politics? Non-partisan non-profits get things done, too, you know. And the causes of non-profits can become the causes of Presidents, if the non-profits have enough influence. Donating to the NTI could help influence the President — yes, even a Democrat President — to take nuclear risks more seriously.
If you think withdrawing from Iraq automatically means we’re going to get nuked, you’re full of it. Being in Iraq is only boosting terrorist recruitment and shoving a stick into the hornet’s nest.
I am a supporter of fighting against terrorism, but I advocate a more targeted, considerate, and less expensive approach.
I suppose you think Democrats would be soft on terror. Why, then, does Hillary have a hawkish record on foreign policy as a senator, and why did Obama say he’d be willing to order a unilateral strike on terrorists in Pakistan?
I could be wrong in any of my assertions. My point is that you shouldn’t blindly assume, in a political/partisan fashion, that picking the conservative is the safest choice for America. Or that staying in Iraq is essential to stopping nuclear terrorism. All these things have to be continuously debated with an open mind. And it never hurts to donate to an organization with a history of major accomplishments in non-proliferation.
Using an image of a nuclear attack on Manhattan merely to scare up votes is making a complex issue one-dimensional.
