If You’re Not With Us... Hope You Like Glowing

Gee, is it a surprise to anyone that the UN conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty collapsed? Hmm, let’s see. We have the big, bad, U.S. of A. reneging on its pledge to disarm, claiming that since 9/11 (“everything changed,” remember?), it just shouldn’t be a priority anymore. We should instead be focusing on preventing proliferation (as if the two were somehow mutually exclusive). And demonstrating — proudly — that it’s more than willing to wage war on other nations based on fabricated pretexts. I suppose the rationale there is that well, we’re the good guys. (After all, it’s not like we lock people up without due process and torture them or anything.)

And the capper is that we actually have the gall to act shocked when other nations decide to ignore the treaty as well. Don’t get me wrong — I’m not justifying North Korea’s and Iran’s violations. But come on. What moron thinks that we can go in there and say, “Okay, we’re not going to obey the treaty, but we damn well expect you to.”

The implicit threat couldn’t be clearer: We’ll invade you if you don’t appease us, and we’re hanging on to all of our nukes, so watch out — ’cause you know what comes next...

Yeah, that’s an attitude that makes for great diplomacy. Who the hell needs John Bolton? We’re doing just fine in the asshole department without him.