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This Week on the Right
The Return of the Nuclear Warriors
When Stephen
Hadley was nominated to succeed Condoleezza
Rice as National Security Adviser last November, it marked the
latest in a string of appointments by President Bush of hawks who
have long promoted a high profile role for nuclear weapons in U.S.
policy. Many of these figures cut their teeth during the heady days
of the Cold War, promoting the notion that a first strike against
the Evil Empire was indeed possible and that nuclear war was “winnable.” Now,
with the Cold War over and the “peace dividend” dead,
buried, and forgotten, these nuclear warriors are poised to rejuvenate
U.S. efforts to build a new breed of “usable” bombs.
Like many of Bush’s other appointees—including Keith
Payne, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense, Linton
Brooks, the head the National Nuclear Security Administration,
and Stephen
Cambone, a long-standing Rumsfeld side-kick
and the first ever undersecretary of defense for intelligence—Hadley
was a member of a team of “experts” who, working under
the auspices of the National
Institute for Public Policy (NIPP), produced an influential study
in 2000-2001 advocating a number of hawkish nuclear weapons policies.
The study, called “Rationale and Requirements for Nuclear Forces
and Arms Control,” went on to serve as a blueprint for the
Bush administration’s Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), which among
other things called for developing usable, “low-yield” nuclear
weapons. Many of those who served on the NIPP study subsequently
got tapped to serve on the Deterrence
Concepts Advisory Panel, a specialized Pentagon panel that was
charged with implementing the policies outlined in the NPR.
More recently, in mid-2005, Bush further bolstered this contingent
of unreformed nuclear warriors when he nominated Robert
Joseph to replace John
Bolton in the State Department. Like Payne, Hadley, Brooks, and
Cambone, Joseph participated on the NIPP study and has been a long-standing
supporter of a number of other hardline policy institutes, including
the Center for
Security Policy.
In this issue of Right Web News, we present a passel of profiles
of figures and institutions involved in efforts to make nuclear weapons
a central U.S. policy tool in the post-Cold War world. (For more on the
growing clique of nuclear warriors in the Bush administration, see “ The
Counterproliferationist” by Tom Barry.)
Featured Profiles
Nuclear Warrior Replaces Bolton
Arms control chief Robert Joseph
is a new breed of militarist who believes that in a world where weapons
of mass destruction may be proliferating the United States should bolster
its own WMD arsenal and then threaten to use it against proliferators.
Right
Web Profile Robert
Joseph
Rumsfeld's Henchman
Stephen Cambone, the first-ever undersecretary
of defense for intelligence and a Rumsfeld sidekick, is a key figure
in the right's web of militarists, with ties to the neoconservative Project
for the New American Century, the Strangelovian National Institute
for Public Policy, and the missile defense and space weapons lobbies.
Right
Web Profile Stephen
Cambone
Bunker Busting Brain
Linton Brooks and the National Nuclear
Security Administration are involved in efforts to develop so-called
bunker-busting nuclear bombs, including the proposed Robust Nuclear
Earth Penetrator Weapon—and,
according to one respected critic, “coming up with all the crazy
ideas” about how the U.S. military can use nuclear weapons.
Right
Web Profile Linton
Brooks
A Fire-Tested Vulcan
Stephen Hadley, the new National Security
Adviser,is a hardliner
close to Vice President Dick
Cheney and to the nuclear hawks in the neoconservative camp.
Right
Web Profile Stephen
Hadley
Nuclear Enthusiast as Top National Security Official
J.D. Crouch,
a virulent nationalist, enthusiast of nuclear weapons, and Christian-right
adherent, has recently become the right-hand man of National Security
Adviser Stephen Hadley.
Right Web Profile J.D.
Crouch II
Rational Nuclear War
Led by Keith Payne, a hyper-hawk
who once co-authored an article that argued the United States must
possess the means to wage “nuclear
war rationally,” the National Institute for Public Policy is
an influential—if not well-known—think tank which since
the 1980s has been front and center in the efforts to get the United
States to pursue ever-more aggressive strategic policies.
Right
Web Profile National
Institute for Public Policy
See also:
Center
for Security Policy
Deterrence
Concepts Advisory Panel
Rumsfeld
Missile Commission
Rumsfeld
Space Commission
Letters From Our Readers
(Editors Note: We encourage feedback and comments, which can
be sent for publication through our feedback page, at: http://rightweb.irc-online.org/form_feedback.html.
Thank you.)
Re: Patrick Fitzgerald
Mr. Kristol:
Pardon me if I address you by your real title, since you are another
in a long line of neocons claiming degrees you did not earn.
Your quote re Plamegate: “The problem for the White House (sic)
is Patrick J. Fitzgerald, and we have no idea what he knows,” is
both uniformed and childish. Had you actually gone on to earn a doctorate
(as opposed to the tried and true GOP method of purchasing/claiming
non-existent ones), perhaps you would not have made such a petulant
and fearful statement.
In the words of reality based folks everywhere: “So the investigator
that Bush claims he wanted to unravel an act of national betrayal is
now ‘the problem’ for the White House. Why? Because he
is trying to find out the truth.” (BuzzFlash, July 15,
2005).
Sorry, little man, but BuzzFlash is much more informed than
you and your insulated, intellectually-challenged friends. Commander
Bunnypants’ approval rating is now below 40% and you are desperately
trying to spin reality to fit your agenda. Go back to college and actually
enroll in a graduate program; perhaps you will learn how to do legitimate
research before spouting off White House talking points in the manner
of a slow eight year old.
And, with regard to Iraq: Enlist, or shut up!
Cheers,
- Dr. James Ackman
(Sorry, but mine is real, unlike yours)
Re: Consider the possibility: We’ve been Duped by
the Neocons!
In my opinion, we need to pay a very great deal more attention to
the possibility/likelihood that we have been duped by the neocons now
in power in Washington, DC.
It seems likely to me that the most recent plot to excuse the Iraq
war as an attempt to install a democratic government is nothing more
than the latest excuse (since WMD, War on Terror, etc. didn’t
work!) to hide the efforts to develop the neocon policy of Global Dominance
being pursued by Cheney and Rumsfeld (who managed to train Bush well
enough to let him be spokesperson).
What can we do to promote thorough analysis and public discussion
of this poisonous policy ??
- H. Milton Peek
In the next issue of Right Web News
Democracy for whom, by whom, of whom? A round-up of influential individuals,
government-supported groups, and policy institutes behind U.S. efforts
to make the world “safe for democracy,” whether the world
likes it or not.
