The ban on new nuclear weapons is the most historic act, to date, of the Obama presidency, and the national media, punditry and blogospheres have barely touched it. The US government now, for the first time since the Manhattan Project of the 1940s, has a policy of producing no new nuclear arms. To accomplish that, the President overruled his own Defense Secretary and many of the top military brass. And when you make a move like that, as a civilian head of state, you have to take very deliberate steps to make sure that the rank-and-file military soldiers and the mid-level brass will be inoculated from manipulation toward “going rogue” or, as has happened in too many nations, conjuring a military coup d’etat by assassination or other means.
It hasn’t been by happenstance that the young President has personally gone to Langley to address and praise employees of the CIA, and to the FBI building to do the same there, and, of course, he's gone multiple times to the troops of the Armed Forces, always bearing gifts of better pay and health care and benefits and such. It is what must be done to remain strong enough in position as a real commander in chief to be able to buck the military brass on matters as sweeping and important as ending the production of nuclear weapons by the United States.
The flap over the release of 29 photos of torture has bought the President the cover he needed to issue this historic anti-nuclear order, one that will bolster and give credibility to his nuclear non-proliferation negotiations with other countries of the world.
OMG WOW - Obama is officially my favoritest person ever.
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