RSSMedia Heavily Invested in New Start Treaty
Semper Fi Parents | November 27, 2010
The diplomatic relationship between the United States and Russia doesn't really matter as long as President Obama looks good.
The media are pushing hard to help President Obama succeed in getting the Senate to ratify the New Start Treaty with Russia. Weekend talk shows were filled with Obama administration officials, primarily Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, talking about the urgency for the Senate to ratify the treaty during the lame duck session. But instead of trying to enlighten the viewers by having the objections to ratification answered, the thrust of the questioning by the media has been to make the objections by the Republicans appear to be all about politics, and defeating Obama, even if it means damaging the relationship between the U.S. and Russia.
We need to ratify it, we hear, because Russia is helping us with Iran, and they are helping us in Afghanistan. We’ll be spending enough to adequately modernize our remaining nuclear arsenal, we’re told. And our right to build missile defense as we desire will not be limited. Plus, we don’t have anyone on the ground to verify what the Russians are up to. Vice President Biden said that “Failure to pass the New START Treaty this year would endanger our national security.” So what could be the objection, other than raw politics by the Republicans?
Christiane Amanpour, on ABC’s “This Week with Christiane Amanpour,” for example, played the role of an attorney leading her witness—in this case Chairman Mullen—through all the reasons this must be ratified now, concluding with, “So by a process of elimination, is the Senate playing politics with American national security?” Here is that portion of the transcript:
AMANPOUR: The president and the president of Russia have signed the New START treaty. This week, that has been sort of stopped, stopping START in the Senate by the number-two Republican senator there, Jon Kyl. Can I ask you — I’m basically going to wave around a veritable “who’s who” of Republican and Democratic former secretaries of state, of defense, all sorts of people who have been studying this for a long time and say that this has to be ratified. Does it have to be ratified? Is this necessary for U.S. national — national security?
MULLEN: I think this is — more than anything else, it’s a national security issue. I was involved extensively in the negotiations with my counterpart in Russia. We have for decades had treaties with them to — to be able to — to verify aspects of the nuclear weapons capabilities that we both have. And from a national security perspective, this is absolutely critical.
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