Posted on 07/04/2009 1:22:40 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
Youthful Ideals Shaped Obama Goal of Nuclear Disarmament By WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER
In the depths of the cold war, in 1983, a senior at Columbia University wrote in a campus newsmagazine, Sundial, about the vision of “a nuclear free world.” He railed against discussions of “first- versus second-strike capabilities” that “suit the military-industrial interests” with their “billion-dollar erector sets,” and agitated for the elimination of global arsenals holding tens of thousands of deadly warheads.
The student was Barack Obama, and he was clearly trying to sort out his thoughts. In the conclusion, he denounced “the twisted logic of which we are a part today” and praised student efforts to realize “the possibility of a decent world.” But his article, “Breaking the War Mentality,” which only recently has been rediscovered, said little about how to achieve the utopian dream.
Twenty-six years later, the author, in his new job as president of the United States, has begun pushing for new global rules, treaties and alliances that he insists can establish a nuclear-free world.
“I’m not naïve,” President Obama told a cheering throng in Prague this spring. “This goal will not be reached quickly — perhaps not in my lifetime. It will take patience and persistence.”
No previous American president has set out a step-by-step agenda for the elimination of nuclear arms. Mr. Obama is starting relatively small, using a visit to Russia that starts Monday to advance an intense negotiation, with a treaty deadline of the year’s end, to reduce the arsenals of the nuclear superpowers to roughly 1,500 warheads each from about 2,200.
In an interview on Saturday, Mr. Obama stressed that “I’ve made clear that we will retain our deterrent capacity as long as there is a country with nuclear weapons.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Obama will disarm only America, if he can.
26 years and still a kid singing kumbaya and wishing worldly issues away.
Most of us have matured out of our early 20’s of no responsibilities.
if it were that popular, why did Mondale carry only Minnesota in '84? The true popular response was to back Reagan, SDI and freedom.
Classic example of “young skull full of mush”.
The NY Times is setting us up for what obama plans to do in Moscow-
sign a one-sided agreement to curtail or eliminate US nuclear weapons modernization and defense
then claim it as a historic victory
Even Hillary is not going to participate in this diplomatic farce
No previous American president has set out a step-by-step agenda for the elimination of nuclear arms.
Yeah. And no previous American (acting) president has been a foreign born, traitor to the USA, either.
You’d think the NYT would be careful with citing that student paper article. It’s barely coherent, and is a nice counter-example to the writing in “Dreams”. It’d be hard to imagine that the same author wrote both, so it raises the question once again who wrote “Dreams of My Father”?
Speaking of Hillary, you sure don’t see her in the news much anymore. She’s part of the Obama administration, but according to some reports, she doesn’t have much power, and she’s not in the “inner circle” of Obamabot advisors.
If Hillary feels strongly on this issue, that could be her cue to resign in protest.
Stay tuned.
Uh-huh. Funny how the MSM can miraculously dig up things from Zero's past when they want to.
sounds like a rehash of a conversation at the dining room table with Ayers and the same pablum I recall being fed in school, right down to the expression, ‘million-dollar erector sets’ - amazing this article was just ‘rediscovered’ in time for Zero’s russia trip - pshaww.
Sophomoric
Zero is looking like a sleep cell everyday. He’s going to bury America just as Gorbechev burried Soviet Union.
I don’t think of either Clinont a sa “patriot” but she is a conniving pragmatist and may be the only venue ot ake back he rown party before it;s too late even for them.
If obama really does enter into a baaad, alarming, security-risking agreement with Russia, she could use it against him. That plus his “jobless recovery”, unconscionable budgetless spending, and the stench of manipulation of the financial system and media that’s even starting to drift into the salons of the leftwing chattering class.
Hill can take a cue from Sarah- sometimes the way to fight the system is to step out of it, first.
No. It was a youth full of associations with communist radicals that shaped obama's goal of unilateral nuclear disarmament.
Youthful is quite a euphemism. Naive, ignorant, destructive could all be substituted. Making us weaker does not make the world a better place. Who, or what, does he want to surpasse the USA? The dictator run UN? The answer is clearly yes.
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