Crunch Time For The U.S. Senate To Vote On The Start Treaty

Obama's Sneak Attack On U.S. Defense -- Frank J. Gaffney Jr., The Washington Times opinion

President hopes lame-duck Senate will join him.

President Obama has set the stage for an acrimonious relationship with the newly elected senators of the 112th Congress. As they come to Washington this week for freshman orientation, his welcome message amounts to, "I want to disenfranchise you."

This "unwelcome" applies especially to those occupying six new Republican seats in the Senate come January. It bears most particularly on two issues that will profoundly affect U.S. security over the next six years of these newly minted senators' terms in office and far beyond: the so-called New START treaty and the repeal of a statute prohibiting homosexuals from serving in the armed forces.

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More News On Trying To Get The U.S. Senate To Ratify The New Start Treaty

Clinton And Gates: Why The Senate Should Ratify New START -- Hillary Rodham Clinton and Robert M. Gates, Washington Post
Clinton and Gates Renew Call for START Treaty Ratification -- CBS News
Senate urged to quickly ratify New START treaty -- Reuters
START treaty: Mullen delivers tough speech on nuclear weapons agreement -- Christian Science Monitor
Offering Nuclear Plus-ups, White House Awaits Kyl's Word on "New START" -- Global Security Newswire
All eyes on Sen. Kyl as Obama presses nuclear treaty -- Washington Post
Source: $4 billion more offered in effort to ratify START treaty -- CNN
Obama makes nuclear arms reduction talks his No.1 priority in final weeks of 'lame duck' Congress -- The Daily Mail
Nuclear Mondays -- Armchair Generalist
Senate must ratify new START agreement on nuclear arms -- Christian Science Monitor editorial
Old Problems With New Start: The Senate shouldn't ratify the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty without guarantees that the administration will modernize weapons and improve missile defense. -- R. James Woolsey, Wall Street Journal

My Comment: Lame duck Senators do not vote on important international treaties .... that is why they are lame ducks. I do not know of one instance where a major international treaty was voted upon by a Congress after many members had been defeated .... again .... that is the tradition of U.S. politics.

But we live in different times with people in government who now operate with a different agenda. Will there still be a vote on this treaty and thereby breaking tradition .... I will have to say yes. Promises are being made to modernize America's nuclear forces (at the end of President Obama's hypothetical second term), as well as to continue missile defense development. My prediction is that these inducements will be enough to convince/bribe Republican Senator (Sen. Kyl) .... who can kill this treaty .... to give the final A-OK for the Start treaty.

Sighhhh .... I may not know the exact merits of the START treaty or the details of nuclear treaties, but I do know American politics, and this is not a good day for American democracy or representative government. The incoming U.S. Senators have earned the right and the people's vote to represent them in the Government .... a few months delay will not spell the end of the Start treaty, nor impact U.S.-Russia relations. But many in government/media/pundits/etc. disagree .... hence we are now going down this slippery slope.