Hypocrisy in Nuclear Weapons Budget
President Obama has received a lot of accolades in the past few weeks for the new START treat he recently signed with Russia and for changes made in the Nuclear Posture Review, some of these accolades came from this blog. These actions are indeed welcome steps towards reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the world and the likelihood of their use, but we should not lose sight of the fact that in many other ways the Administration’s actions remain woefully inadequate.
Pax Christi USA has a great article on their website today detailing how the Administration’s FY2011 budget continues all nuclear weapons related infrastructure projects started by the Bush Administration, to the tune of almost $7 billion. The goal of these projects is to modernize the nuclear weapons arsenal, even as it ostensibly gets smaller, at an enormous cost to taxpayers. I’ve written before about the absolute immorality of nuclear weapons in Catholic teaching. Their is some debate about the need to structure their elimination to maintain the world status quo, but no argument at all about their ultimate immorality. This immorality extends to money designed to modernize them. In fact anything that contributes to the development of nuclear weapons is to cooperate with evil, including funding.
(It would be nice to see the pro-life movement embrace this cause with the same tenacity they approach abortion for it too is a life issue. Nuclear weapons are one of the contributing factors to the culture of death that John Paul II identified in this country.)
To continue to spend billions on weapons that are pure evil is in and of itself also evil. This fact is magnified by the pressing social needs of this country. The President’s current 2011 budget includes a proposed domestic spending freeze, meaning that vital social programs will suffer, even as he increases money for weapons and war. To say the president, and most of our government, have their priorities screwed up is an understatement. Not only are their priorities screwed up, they are oriented towards the immoral and the evil while the country suffers.
The tentative steps the President has made towards the reduction of nuclear weapons remain welcome. If they are not to become mere window dressing, however, his budget must also be changed to truly reflect the goal of the elimination of the nuclear scourge from the world. To do anything less, and for Catholics and Christians to support anything less, is to cooperate in the evil that is nuclear weapons.
Please see the second link below for ways to advocate for these changes and full nuclear disarmament.
Modernizing the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Production Complex – Pax Christi USA
Disarm Now for Peace and Human Needs
The Hypocrisy in Nuclear Weapons Budget by Stephen DeWitt, OFM, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
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