Viewers in Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Virginia are going to see the Obama Campaign’s latest attempt to show that the Illinois Senator is capable of keeping America secure and safe from attack.
For what his ad does say - that Americans should be worried about terrorists gaining access to weapons of mass destruction - he’s right and he echoes what President Bush has been saying for a very long time. However, Senator Obama’s ad really doesn’t say much at all and I wonder how he expects to win in these states - especially as Georgia is a big focus for him - with a message that does little to describe policy.
Here is the ad script:
We are a beacon of light around the world. At least that’s what we can be - again. That’s what we should be - again.
The single most important national security threat that we face is nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists.
What I did was reach out to Senator Dick Lugar, a Republican, to help lock down loose nuclear weapons.
We have to lead the entire world to reduce that threat.
We can restore America’s leadership in the world.
I’m Barack Obama, and I approve this message.
Yet, as with most of Senator Obama’s ads, there is a bit of maskirovka going on here. Barak Obama is not being completely honest. Senator Obama did not reach out to Senator Dick Lugar to help lock down loose nuclear weapons. That legislation had already been on the books since 1991 - the Nunn-Lugar Act. In 2003, Congress adopted the Nunn-Lugar Expansion Act.
The latest Nunn-Lugar Scorecard shows that the program has deactivated or destroyed: 6,760 nuclear warheads; 587 ICBMs; 483 ICBM silos; 32 ICBM mobile missile launchers; 150 bombers; 789 nuclear air-to-surface missiles; 436 submarine missile launchers; 549 submarine launched missiles; 28 nuclear submarines; and 194 nuclear test tunnels.
Beyond the scorecard’s nuclear elimination, the Nunn-Lugar program secures and destroys chemical weapons, and works to reemploy scientists and facilities related to biological weapons in peaceful research initiatives. The International Science and Technology Centers, of which the United States is the leading sponsor, have engaged 58,000 former weapons scientists in peaceful work. The International Proliferation Prevention Program has funded 750 projects involving 14,000 former weapons scientists and created some 580 new peaceful high-tech jobs. Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan are nuclear weapons free as a result of cooperative efforts under the Nunn-Lugar program. They otherwise would be the world’s the third, forth and eighth largest nuclear weapons powers, respectively.
The legislation that Barak Obama worked with Senator Lugar on expanded an already on the books nuclear proliferation act to include the elimination of conventional weapons - small arms and ammunition. Barak Obama had nothing, nothing at all, to do with helping to eliminate nuclear weapons. That had been done before he was even a state legislator.
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