Nukes in space. What a great idea.
by digby
Headline o' the day:
Pence leaves open the possibility of nuclear weapons in space: ‘Peace comes through strength’
My God. It's no longer just a "space force." It's a nuclear "space force." These people have lost their frickkin' minds.
“What we need to do is make sure that we provide for the common defense of the people of the United States of America and that’s the president’s determination here,” Pence said in an interview with The Washington Post, when asked if nuclear weapons should be banned from orbit.
Pence added, “What we want to do is continue to advance the principle that peace comes through strength.”
The new positioning comes as the Trump administration moves to potentially exit a major nuclear weapons pact with Russia and possibly bolster U.S. military operations in the heavens by forming a “Space Force.”
The 1967 Outer Space Treaty outlawed weapons of mass destruction from space, including nuclear weapons, and stopped the arms race between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union from entering space.
In recent days, President Trump has also signaled a willingness to withdraw from or renegotiate long-standing treaties. Trump told reporters last Saturday in Nevada that the U.S. would exit a landmark 1987 arms control agreement with the former Soviet Union, due to his belief that it constrains the U.S. from developing its own weapons and that Russia has violated the pact.
I feel like I'm living in a dystopian cartoon. This is daft.
As I mentioned before, Trump's "tough talk" against Putin and Russia ("you can't game me!") leads me to believe that this is actually a different kind of collusion. Trump said after every meeting with Putin that they were talking about "arms control" so I'm guessing their secret meeting in Helsinki may have resulted in setting up one of Trump's pageants, where he gins up the phony crisis and then pretends to solve it while everyone else in the world laughs behind his back but he doesn't know it. Putin said today that he wants to meet with Trump in Pris.
I'm sure they'll fall in love. Oh wait. They already are. Trump is Putin's trophy husband.
The bigger problem is that these things often get out of control. Trump is a buffoon who doesn't know what he's talking about, of course. But he's empowered some real nuts in his administration and the congress:
A few notes to get up to speed:
.
