Soon after the Warsaw Pact collapsed in 1989, Bush the Elder began retrieving the thousands of "tactical" nukes we had forward deployed in NATO countries for use against invading Warsaw Pact armies.
Did the Soviet Union follow suit? Well, no. It turns out that, although the Soviet Union had more than 15,000 tactical nukes for use against invading NATO armies, none had ever been deployed outside the Soviet Union.
Apparently we are the only nuke power that has ever based our nukes – tactical and strategic – in foreign countries.
Why bring that up now?
Well, President Bush has just announced a planned "redeployment" of our armed forces, from bases in Western Europe, Japan and South Korea to new bases in new NATO countries or NATO-wannabes.
Presumably, the hundreds of tactical nukes now deployed with our troops, overseas, will go with them to their new bases located in former Warsaw Pact or Soviet Union countries.
The Russia-NATO Council was established several years ago to help transform NATO from a military alliance dedicated to defeating the Warsaw Pact, into a politico-economic alliance dedicated to defeating global terrorism, preventing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and improving the economies of Russia and new NATO members.
Russia got a promise from the Council that substantial numbers of U.S. forces would not be stationed on its borders, especially in the Baltic states and in the Caucasus. But now, it looks like the neo-crazies intend to do exactly that.
And it won’t matter who is elected in November. Clinton began pushing NATO eastward, toward Moscow. Bush kept the train moving and Kerry won’t even try to stop it.
True, three years ago, we got the almost unbelievable "intelligence" that President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed to the deployment of U.S. armed forces and tactical nukes to three former Soviet bases in Uzbekistan and another in Tajikistan.
We have since established a huge air base in Kyrgyzstan, which borders China, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Uzbekistan and Tajikistan border on Afghanistan, and are separated by Kazakhstan from Russia itself.
This unbelievable basing agreement was made in anticipation of a U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Afghanistan by NATO. So if Putin acquiesced to U.S. troops being stationed there in the former Soviet Union, it was in support of NATO counter-terrorism activities. .
But why did Russia agree to our troops based in the former Soviet Union having tactical nukes?
Well, Bush the Younger had famously promised the world that he would not allow terrorists or rogue states supporting terrorists to acquire nukes. He promised he would act – preemptively – to prevent that acquisition.
Bush told the Russians he had "intelligence" that Osama bin Laden was interested in acquiring "weapons of mass destruction," and he and a loose nuke might be hiding in a cave in Afghanistan which only another nuke could destroy.
Of course, we and the Russians now know that Osama didn’t even have a vial of anthrax – much less a nuke. And even if we had dropped a nuke on those caves in Afghanistan we wouldn’t have killed bin Laden. He had long since fled to Pakistan.
"Oops," we told the Russians.
In 2003, Bush told the Russians he had to preemptively invade Iraq to destroy nukes and/or the makings thereof Bush said our "intelligence" said Saddam had hidden somewhere. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told the Russians Saddam didn’t, and they turned out to be right.
"Oops," we told the Russians.
Now, Condi Rice and Bonkers Bolton are threatening to launch preemptive strikes against the nuclear reactor complex under construction by the Russians at Bushehr and against the gas-centrifuge uranium-enrichment plant under construction by the Iranians at Narantz.
Once constructed, both complexes will be operated, henceforth, under the watchful eyes of the IAEA. Therefore, it will not be possible for the Iranians to produce – surreptitiously – weapons-grade material from either complex.
Rice, Bolton and the neo-crazies keep telling you otherwise, but they’re lying through their teeth. Why? Because they know that if they can’t keep the Iranian complexes from "coming on-line," the Israelis will – by force.
So, before the Israelis do an Osirak encore – using U.S.-supplied aircraft to kill Russian engineers this time, rather than French – it might be a good idea to retrieve all those nukes and troops we currently have deployed in the former Soviet Union. The French may have been satisfied with our "Oops." The Russians probably won’t be.
