Scare Tactics on New START

James Carafano / July 29, 2010

If the Senate doesn’t ratify New START, proponents of the arms-control agreement fear, then … well, the world will come to end.

The latest warning came from Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, a foundation that advocates a nuclear weapons-free world. “A delayed ratification with a close vote would be a blow to U.S. leadership around the world,” he told the Associated Press, “People would doubt the president’s ability to negotiate other agreements.”

More pressure to just “sign the treaty so we can purge the world of nuclear weapons” will be fueled by the premiere this week in Washington and New York of “Countdown to Zero,” a documentary on the threat of nuclear weapons. As one reviewer notes, the “film asserts that the United States and Russia, the entities with the most weapons by far, should lead the other nuclear countries toward a total disarmament initiative.” (more…)