Left I on the News

Nonsense about nuclear weapons continues to permeate the media. In the October 30 issue of The Nation, Jonathan Schell writes about the recent North Korean nuclear test. Most of it is a fairly reasonable article, such as when he gets to the heart of the matter with this:

It is not, of course, North Korea's tiny arsenal that can lay waste continents and bring on nuclear winter; it is the arsenals of the United States and Russia, not to speak of England, France, China, Pakistan, India and Israel, about none of which anyone seems to have had a great deal to say recently.

But after that observation, he ends by asserting "Kim Jong Il...holds all Asia hostage to nuclear destruction." What nonsense. North Korea hasn't even threatened South Korea, much less "all Asia," with any sort of offensive attack whatsoever. The only one issuing threats and attempting to hold countries hostage is the United States, which is not only the only country ever to use nuclear weapons, but one which refuses to rule out their first use in the future, treaties or no treaties.

Then in today's Los Angeles Times we find an op-ed by William Odom (a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a professor at Yale University), which also starts well, as you can tell from it's headline: "U.S. must leave and allow Iraq to create its own future." But, after covering various aspects of his proposal, he comes to how he wants the U.S. to deal with Iran. And there we read "The price for success will include dropping U.S. resistance to Iran's nuclear weapons program" and "Accepting Iran's nuclear weapons is a small price to pay for the likely benefits." No "possible" nuclear weapons program or "suspected" nuclear weapons program, just "Iran's nuclear weapons program." One more repetition of one of many "big lies" in our world, one more drumming into the subconscious of the American reader that Iran has a nuclear weapons program, despite both convincing denials by Iran's leaders as well as a complete lack of actual evidence of such a program.

Facts? We don't need no steenkin' facts!