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DC COLUMNISTS DEBATE: Nuclear disarmament
Gabe Kovacs and Saad Rizvi
Issue date: 4/10/09 Section: Commentary
The U.S. should get rid of its nukes
Saad Rizvi
• I don't think Obama said that we should eliminate all the nuclear weapons, but that we should have a reduction in nuclear arms.
• Since 1976, the U.S. has built 67,500 nuclear missiles and 4,680 nuclear bombers. One-third of that number would be enough to destroy the entire world so reduction would not be a bad thing.
• As far as the ending of WWII was concerned, thousands of people were killed. The entire point of not having a war is to lessen casualties and those cities are still fields of destruction because of radioactive debris. They still have children that are born with deformities.
• Secondly, $104 million metric tons of highly radioactive waste is being dumped in general but there are 239 radioactive waste places in Washington, Idaho and South Carolina. In general, the money spent on making or maintaining nuclear weapons could be spent on building infrastructure to defend the U.S.
• $225 million was spent on compensation for people who got hurt as a result of radioactivity.
• The latest test done by North Korea regarding the nuclear test failed, so it raises the question of how much of a threat they are on the U.S and the world in general.
• To ask the country to reduce nuclear weapons the U.S. has to show some initiative on its own and even if that were the case, the U.S. wouldn't be affected.
The U.S. should get rid of its nukes
Gabe Kovacs
• Nuclear weapons aren't naturally good or evil; it's the countries that hold them that could be good or evil.
• If we get rid of nuclear weapons, we would be open for attack.
• So far, out of the many nuclear weapons we have, we've only use two. Those were used with good reason: to end World War II.
• What would keep an evil dictator from using nuclear weapons?
• Also, on the money issue, it is money well spent because it is spent on defense and survival. The priority should be American lives.
• Maybe if we had a defense system that made it impossible for nuclear weapons to detonate on American soil, then we could live without nuclear weapons. But right now, we don't have that, so we need them for defense.
Saad Rizvi
• I don't think Obama said that we should eliminate all the nuclear weapons, but that we should have a reduction in nuclear arms.
• Since 1976, the U.S. has built 67,500 nuclear missiles and 4,680 nuclear bombers. One-third of that number would be enough to destroy the entire world so reduction would not be a bad thing.
• As far as the ending of WWII was concerned, thousands of people were killed. The entire point of not having a war is to lessen casualties and those cities are still fields of destruction because of radioactive debris. They still have children that are born with deformities.
• Secondly, $104 million metric tons of highly radioactive waste is being dumped in general but there are 239 radioactive waste places in Washington, Idaho and South Carolina. In general, the money spent on making or maintaining nuclear weapons could be spent on building infrastructure to defend the U.S.
• $225 million was spent on compensation for people who got hurt as a result of radioactivity.
• The latest test done by North Korea regarding the nuclear test failed, so it raises the question of how much of a threat they are on the U.S and the world in general.
• To ask the country to reduce nuclear weapons the U.S. has to show some initiative on its own and even if that were the case, the U.S. wouldn't be affected.
The U.S. should get rid of its nukes
Gabe Kovacs
• Nuclear weapons aren't naturally good or evil; it's the countries that hold them that could be good or evil.
• If we get rid of nuclear weapons, we would be open for attack.
• So far, out of the many nuclear weapons we have, we've only use two. Those were used with good reason: to end World War II.
• What would keep an evil dictator from using nuclear weapons?
• Also, on the money issue, it is money well spent because it is spent on defense and survival. The priority should be American lives.
• Maybe if we had a defense system that made it impossible for nuclear weapons to detonate on American soil, then we could live without nuclear weapons. But right now, we don't have that, so we need them for defense.
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Frogamander
posted 4/10/09 @ 9:14 AM EST
Pursuit of a new nuclear weapon, the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW), by the US military is a provocative act that sends a dangerous signal to the rest of the world. (Continued…)
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