corrente

This—and your other confessions and post hoc apologies—is almost enough to make me take back all those nasty things I said back in the 60’s, Robert McNamara. Oh, all right. I take it back. Hell, at least you can admit you were wrong, and that means you’re a mensch, in a world where they’re few and far between. Keep on. His latest is in that lefty rag, Foreign Policy. A sample from the intro:

It is time - well past time, in my view - for the United States to cease its Cold War-style reliance on nuclear weapons as a foreign-policy tool. At the risk of appearing simplistic and provocative, I would characterize current US nuclear weapons policy as immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary, and dreadfully dangerous. The risk of an accidental or inadvertent nuclear launch is unacceptably high. Far from reducing these risks, the Bush administration has signaled that it is committed to keeping the US nuclear arsenal as a mainstay of its military power - a commitment that is simultaneously eroding the international norms that have limited the spread of nuclear weapons and fissile materials for 50 years...

...The whole situation seems so bizarre as to be beyond belief. On any given day, as we go about our business, the president is prepared to make a decision within 20 minutes that could launch one of the most devastating weapons in the world. To declare war requires an act of congress, but to launch a nuclear holocaust requires 20 minutes’ deliberation by the president and his advisors. But that is what we have lived with for 40 years. With very few changes, this system remains largely intact, including the “football,” the president’s constant companion.

Scary shit, at least if you spent your formative years in classrooms practicing duck and cover drills under threat of immediate annihilation, while the neighbors built bomb shelters. The whole thing is here: Apocalypse Soon

Sweet dreams.