Editor’s note: Watch Aaron Klein’s stunning interview about this subject on “Lou Dobbs Tonight.”
The Democratic Party’s formal 2012 platform, unveiled at its convention in Charlotte, N.C., last night, calls for reductions in the U.S. nuclear stockpile but does not reveal the specific number of nukes to be destroyed.
However, a recently released book suggests the specific blueprint for a second Obama term includes plans to reduce the U.S. nuclear arsenal to no more than 292 deployed nuclear weapons.
The just-released 2012 Democratic Party platform contains a section entitled, “Reducing Nuclear Weapons Stockpiles.”
The document boasts, “President Obama has taken important steps to decrease America’s nuclear arsenal and is committed to further responsible reductions.”
Continues the paper: “Moving forward, the president will work with Russia to achieve additional reductions in stockpiles and nuclear delivery vehicles, including tactical and non-deployed nuclear weapons. We will also work to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and seek a new Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty that prohibits the production of fissile materials intended for use in nuclear weapons.”
In the recently released book “Fool Me Twice: Obama’s Shocking Plans for the Next Four Years Exposed,” New York Times bestselling authors Aaron Klein and Brenda J. Elliott document progressive plans to further scale back the nuclear arsenal.
“Fool Me Twice” documents how the major leagues of progressive groups with deep ties to the Obama administration got together to produce a comprehensive, 96-page report with specific recommendations for how Obama should reform the U.S. military during his second term in office.
This detailed report, titled “A Report of the Task Force on a Unified Security Budget for the United States” (or 2012 Unified Security Budget), lays out a future Obama “defense” agenda.
The Unified Security Budget is a joint product of the Center for American Progress (CAP) and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). Previous recommendations from the two groups’ yearly Unified Security Budgets have been adapted by the Obama administration.
“Fool Me Twice” relates the Unified authors strongly argue for the reduction of the U.S. nuclear arsenal to no more than 292 deployed nuclear weapons and the complete elimination of the Trident II nuclear missile – a process Obama already initiated in April 2010 when he signed a deal with Russia reducing stocks of weapons-grade plutonium.
The accord with Russia was signed at a nuclear summit in Washington arranged by Obama at which leaders of 47 nations committed to reducing the world’s nuclear stockpiles. One week earlier, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev and Obama signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, committing both countries to reducing their deployed nuclear arsenals.
Obama had broadly proclaimed his disarmament intentions during a 2007 campaign speech.
“Here’s what I’ll say as president: America seeks a world in which there are no nuclear weapons.”
By 2010, as president, he was arguing: “We need to change our nuclear policy and our posture, which is still focused on deterring the Soviet Union – a country that doesn’t exist.”
Obama’s declaration came just as Russia was signing a major arms deal with Syria and beginning to revive its Cold War-era naval bases in the Middle East, including in the Syrian ports of Tartus and Latakia on the Mediterranean.
The Center for American Progress, as “Fool Me Twice” relates, was behind some of Obama’s first term agenda. CAP is run by John Podesta, a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton. Podesta was co-chairman of Obama’s 2008 White House transition team.
Podesta and CAP have had heavy influence on the crafting of White House policy. CAP routinely releases policy reports that are reportedly used in the formulation of Obama administration policy.
A Time magazine article profiled the influence of Podesta’s Center for American Progress in the formation of the Obama administration, stating that “not since the Heritage Foundation helped guide Ronald Reagan’s transition in 1981 has a single outside group held so much sway.”
The article branded CAP as the “idea factory” of the Obama administration.
The 2012 Unified Security Budget itself recalls how the group’s policy recommendations from some of its recent defense papers have already been adopted by Obama’s Sustainable Defense Taskforce, which has notoriously recommended $1 trillion in cuts over 10 years.
Boasts the 2012 report: “A majority, though not a supermajority, of the members of the President’s Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform adopted the annualized figure of $100 billion, and many of the recommendations from this proposal.”
The report makes clear the stated objective of transforming the U.S. Armed Forces into an operation that emphasizes conflict resolution and diplomacy.
