REPUBLICANS LEADERS PLAYING POLITICS WITH AMERICA'S SECURITY, BLOCKING VOTE ON BILATERAL ARMS REDUCTION TREATY

GOP COMMITTED TO DEFEATING PRESIDENT OBAMA IN 2012 AND IS WILLING TO ENDANGER NATIONAL SECURITY FOR POLITICAL GOALS.

Let me remember.  When the GOP sniffed anything other than complete and unquestioning support of George W. Bush's foreign policies, they bellowed TRAITORS!!!!! 

So what's going on here?  The GOP is against securing America's safety for the purpose of denying Mr. Obama any major accomplishments? 

That's the GOP:  The party of HELL NO!  Even when it involves America's security.


"The (old) Start Treaty, which allowed the US and Russia to inspect each other’s nuclear arsenals, had been in place since the end of the Cold War until President Bush let it expire beginning in 2009. As soon as he assumed office, President Obama made significant moves to reestablish friendly relations with Russia, culminating in the signing of the New Start Treaty in April.

"Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen appeared on the Sunday morning public affairs shows to urge the Senate to stop obstructing the New START Treaty, a bilateral arms reduction treaty between the United States and Russia, underscoring the importance of the issue for the Obama administration.


" 'I think this is -- more than anything else, it's a national security issue,' said Mullen on ABC's 'This Week.' 'I was involved extensively in the negotiations with my counterpart in Russia. We have for decades have had treaties with them to be able to verify aspects of the nuclear weapons capabilities that we both have. And from a national security perspective, this is absolutely critical.' "

The treaty has the overwhelming support of the military and national security professionals (from both Democratic and Republican administrations), including former Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Henry Kissinger and former Defense Secretaries William Cohen and James Schlesinger, among others.


The treaty passed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with strong bipartisan support in a 14-4 vote. It now, however, is being held up by GOP senators. Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the committee's ranking member, said his colleagues are deliberately delaying a vote because they don't want to have to take a definitive position on it.


'At the moment, the Republican caucus is tied up in a situation where people don't want to make choices,' Lugar told reporters recently. 'No one wants to be counted. No one wants to talk about it.'


When 'This Week' host Christiane Amanpour asked Mullen whether the Senate is playing politics with the treaty, he replied, 'Well, you'd have to ask the Senate about that.'


Pressed further, Mullen added, 'Well, certainly, what I think is that there is a sense of urgency with respect to ratifying this treaty that needs to be both recognized. Historically this has been bipartisan. This is a national security issue of great significance. And the sooner we get it done, the better.' He added that it should be done as soon as possible in the lame duck session."

Seven months later, Kyl is trying to postpone — for the third time — a vote to ratify the treaty. At first Kyl claimed that Democrats were rushing through the process by wanting to ratify the treaty before the August recess, then he argued Democrats were politicizing the vote by trying to hold it right before the election, and now Kyl’s saying the lame-duck session of Congress isn’t enough time to finish negotiations.


The 'negotiations' in question are between the White House and Republicans. In exchange for ratification, the White granted the GOP requests for $80 billion over the next 10 years plus $4.1 billion extra over the next 5 years to spend on modernizing the nuclear weapon complex, but Kyl isn’t satisfied even after garnering those concessions."

NYULOCAL








 h/t huffpost

David Wood of  Politics Daily has more