Opinion: McCain comes out against deadly nuclear weapons. Obama does too

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Under the category of I-gave-that-useless-speech-first-you-know, President Obama issued a statement on the day that Sen.John McCain, his recent Republican presidential opponent, called for a reduction in the world’s supply of nuclear weapons.

Obama recalled that he too had called for such a thing during a now-forgotten speech in Prague when he was campaigning last summer in Europe, where they couldn’t vote for him on Nov. 4. But Obama won anyway.

‘The Cold War ended almost 20 years ago,’ McCain said in a Senate speech recalling that President Reagan was also in a long line of presidential people who talked about reducing nuclear weapons.

‘And the time has come to take further measures to reduce dramatically the number of nuclear weapons in the world’s arsenals. In so doing, the United States can – and indeed, must – show the kind of leadership the world expects from us, in the tradition of American presidents who worked to reduce the nuclear threat to mankind.’

There was much more yada yada -- as, indeed, there can and should be. But you get the point.

Obama was halfway around the world. But the White House felt compelled to release one of those enough-about-me-let’s-talk-about-my-speech statements that called McCain’s speech an ‘important statement’ about ‘the need to move toward a world free of nuclear weapons.’

‘In my speech in Prague,’ Obama said, ‘I outlined my agenda for keeping the American people safe from the dangers posed by nuclear weapons, and I am grateful to John McCain for his leadership on these critical issues.

‘I have outlined an ambitious strategy for promoting arms control and preventing nuclear terrorism and proliferation, which is already bearing fruit. I look forward to working with Sen. McCain and the entire Congress to ensure that we accomplish these goals together for the American people and the security of the entire planet.’

Although nuclear explosions make for pretty photographs, they can prove even deadlier than the proliferation of speeches opposing nuclear proliferation that erupt from time to time in the American political arena. Such remarks are safe to give. They sound -- indeed, are -- very serious. And nuclear war proponents seem relatively silent these days. So who’s gonna disagree?

And since none of these remarks have any chance whatsoever of ever having any effect anywhere, politicians who courageously ‘speak out’ on this ‘critical issue’ risk absolutely nothing. It’s win-win.

And as the ongoing full-speed development of nuclear weapons in India, Pakistan, Iran and North Korea that we know of clearly demonstrate, throwing lots of adjectives, adverbs and even urgent verbs at the situation is having an obvious effect. A few more speeches and news releases like this and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong-Il will surely cave.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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