It's Not MAD, It's Madness

Figure this out if you can, because I can't.

The president has been telling us every hour on the hour, and rightly so I think, of the danger that terrorists might somehow get their hands on a nuclear or chemical weapon and set it off.

So why is it then that some of his political appointees at the State Department are suddenly blocking funds to pay for the one U.S. program that helps the Russians destroy their old nuclear and chemical weapons; a program started 10 years ago by Republican Senator Richard Lugar and former Democratic Senator Sam Nunn?

Well, it's not because those weapons are stored in a safe place where the terrorists can't steal them. Quite the contrary. The Washington Post reports that 60 percent of Russia's nuclear material is still not properly guarded.

But the State Department says it can't release the money to destroy those weapons because it can't certify that Russia is complying with all arms control agreements, the certification that Congress requires and won't lift.
And in fact, the Russians are not doing all they should.

But is this the way to punish or pressure them? To me, it's more like setting your house on fire to show the inefficiency of the fire department.

During the Cold War, we kept the peace with a nuclear policy called mutual assured destruction, MAD for short. This is not MAD, it is madness.