Biggest Effin Hypocrite Award

[struggle4progress]

United States: More than 5,000 strategic warheads ... Russia: Nearly 5,000 strategic warheads ...France: Approximately 350 strategic warheads ...China: As many as 250 strategic warheads ... Britain: About 200 strategic warheads ... India: Between 45 and 95 nuclear warheads ... Pakistan: Between 30 and 50 nuclear warheads ...
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article1822559.ece

... When the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty went into effect in 1970, the five countries who had nuclear bombs - the US, France, China, Great Britain, and the USSR - agreed to work to reduce and eventually eliminate their nuclear arsenals. Now, 36 years later, no disarmament talks are taking place between those countries ...
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0610/S00130.htm

United States President George W. Bush accused North Korea on Monday of supplying Iran and Syria with missile technology ... “Last night the government of North Korea proclaimed to the world that it had conducted a nuclear test. We're working to confirm North Korea's claim. Nonetheless, such a claim itself constitutes a threat to international peace and security. The United States condemns this provocative act ...”, he said ...
http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=8891

White House Wants to Bury Pact Banning Tests of Nuclear Arms (2001)
.... In its first six months, the Bush administration has been examining ways to escape permanently from an unratified international agreement banning nuclear tests, just as it has moved to scrap the Antiballistic Missile Treaty ... But State Department lawyers told the White House that a president cannot withdraw a treaty from the Senate once it has been presented for approval. So, administration officials said, President Bush has resolved to let the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty languish in the Senate ... Mr. Bush has long opposed the treaty ...
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0707-01.htm

Bush pushes for next generation of nukes (2003)
... Last year the White House released, to little publicity, the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review. That policy paper embraces the use of nuclear weapons in a first strike and on the battlefield; it also says a return to nuclear testing may soon be necessary. It was coupled with a request for $70 million to study and develop new types of nuclear weapons and to shorten the time it would take to test them ...
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-07-06-nuclear-usat_x.htm

... "Russia unconditionally condemns tests conducted by North Korea," Putin told a meeting of top government ministers ...
http://www.sabcnews.com/world/europe/0,2172,136313,00.html

... Russian officials made several statements in 2005 about why Russia needs to maintain and modernize its nuclear forces ...
http://www.thebulletin.org/article_nn.php?art_ofn=ma06norris

... "The discussion will be on sanctions," said France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere. "The time has come to have a Chapter 7 resolution." ...
http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-10-09T224408Z_01_L08141538_RTRIDST_0_CANADA-KOREA-NORTH-COL.XML

... France's Atomic Energy Commission .... estimated the North Korean blast at around 1 kiloton or less — equivalent to the explosive force of 1,000 tons of TNT. For a nuclear device, that would be so weak that the French defense minister suggested that "there could have been a failure" with the North Korean reported test ...
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/10/10/europe/EU_GEN_Detecting_Nuclear_Tests.php

... On July 10 1985 French agents bombed the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour to prevent its protest voyage to the nuclear testing site of Moruroa in French Polynesia ...
http://archive.greenpeace.org/comms/rw/pkq&a.html

... France conducted its two hundred and tenth and last nuclear test on January 27, 1996 ...
http://www.thebulletin.org/article_nn.php?art_ofn=ja05norris

... "The DPRK has ignored the widespread opposition of the international community and conducted a nuclear test brazenly on Oct. 9," China's Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its Web site ( www.fmprc.gov.cn ) ...
http://in.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-10-09T105029Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-271388-1.xml

... In what some observers described as "monumental hypocrisy" from Britain, whose prime minister recently announced he would be replacing the ageing Trident nuclear weapons system, Tony Blair condemned North Korea's first nuclear test as "a completely irresponsible act" and warned of "international repercussions" ...
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2132572.cms

... Pakistan has criticised North Korea's nuclear test, saying it was a "destabilising" development for the entire region. Pakistan's disgraced nuclear scientist AQ Khan admitted in 2004 that he had passed on nuclear secrets to North Korea, Libya and Iran. India has also expressed deep concern about the test and said it "jeopardises" peace and stability. India and Pakistan carried out nuclear tests in 1998 ... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6032843.stm

United Nations, Oct 07: India has demanded multilateral negotiations on prohibiting development, production and stockpiling of nuclear weapons as also destruction of current atomic arsenals for their "global, non-discriminatory and verifiable" elimination within a specified timeframe. In a working paper on nuclear disarmament presented to the United Nations General Assembly, India affirmed its commitment to a nuclear weapons free world and asked the nuclear weapons states to "unequivocally" pledge progressive downsizing of stockpiles leading to complete disarmament ... http://www.zeenews.com/articles.asp?aid=327731&sid=NAT&ssid=

[Blackthorn]

1. Vote for the good ole US of A.

The only country to use them in the field. The only country threatening to stop other countries obtaining nuclear weapons by using nuclear weapons.

[MannyGoldstein]

2. Is This Really Helpful?

Come on.

Nuclear proliferation is in nobody's best interest. North Korea having nukes is a bad, bad thing.

[struggle4progress]

3. Dunno how else to talk about the issue inna grippin way. Ya think ..

.. it unhelpful to remember that BushCo set out to sabotage the NPT, ignored the Khan network in Pakistan, and wants fundin fer a new generation of US nukes? And ya think its unhelpful to note that Blair is pushin Trident modernization in the UK? Cuz from where I stand, that's exackly what's drivin the world towards a new arms race? Ya think its unhelpful to observe that the French loudly denounced the Korean test, even though their defense minister said the test mighta been a dud?

I think I gave ya some useful info in that post -- if ya wanna try to think of how to use it.

Yer 100% right: NK gettin nukes ain't really good news. But it's a teensy tiny story compared to the nukes already out there, armed and ready, causin most of the rest of the world a helluva lot of anxiety. Ya want nonproliferation? Good! Then attack the real roots of proliferation ...

[struggle4progress]

4. Ya might enjoy this thread:

BBC News (2002): US grants North Korea nuclear funds
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2356698&mesg_id=2356698