Sweet. Pakistan, plutonium bombs, OBL and symps hanging around, Bush administration sitting on its hands and not telling anyone in Congress... in the words of Max, "What could go wrong?" Atrios: Like every other sentient being on the planet I'm rather confused by our policies towards Pakistan. We're generally led to believe that Bin Laden is hanging out there along with some of his pals. It's a dictatorship with an unclear line of succession if that dictator ever accidentally gets in the way of an assassin's bullet. They have an active nuclear program. Their top nuclear scientist was handing out nuclear technology like candy on Halloween. The country promptly pardoned him for this and we didn't say a thing. Oh, and for the Malkins of the world THEY'RE ALL BIG SCARY MUSLIMS. And, just for fun, they have a new plutonium plant. And the Bush administration hid this fact from Congress. http://www.atrios.blogspot.com/
Zinc is by far the best element. I also like plutonium. It is fun to say, plutonium. How's your plutonium? Good, thank you...
Even if we had known ahead of time, what realistically can we do about it? That's the thing about having nukes, no one can force you to anything...the Iranians know this, and if they get nuclear weapons, I guarantee you the Saudis will have them within a matter of months afterwards. Not to mention the Libyans almost had nukes as well. I think the 'counter-proliferation' efforts will ultimately fail, states now understand and acknowledge the political leverage that can be had through the acquisition of nuclear weapons. In fact, it could be cheaper to just acquire nukes than engage in an incredibly costly conventional arms buildup that would sap the resources of these poorer nations, so there is an economic aspect to it as well.
Still, there's no need to accelerate the destruction of the NPT with ad hoc agreements between powers. The US is being real shortsighted in its power play to isolate China. It's not far off to assume that China itself could lend its nuclear expertise to problem countries looking for it.
We are all forgetting that Pakistan, like Saudi Arabia, is a non-democratic hotbed of anti-american terrorist sentiments that we support. I mean - duh.
Why are you so worried? Let it proliferate. The more the merrier. Spread the technology around. If you don't want it to spread, nuclear power shouldn't have been invented in the first place. Since it has, live with it.
