Classic Who: How a Plan for a Nuclear-Free World Was Sabotaged

The post Classic Who: How a Plan for a Nuclear-Free World Was Sabotaged appeared first on WhoWhatWhy.

On February 10, 2017, WhoWhatWhy ran a story that we called “Barack Obama Once Had a Dream.” We thought the title was appropriate. The story focused on Obama’s campaign speech of 2007, and we said “His words are those of somebody who was hopeful that he could change the country and the world. These aspirations were coupled with a certain naivete.”

This article brought forth complaints from some dozens of readers who detected what they felt was a pro-Obama bias. But what we reported in that brief piece was all true. Never mind that WhoWhatWhy has posted numerous stories that are highly critical of Obama. (To see but a few, go here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.)

Below is a book excerpt we published last April on the same theme, and we hope these same aggrieved readers will take a look at it. The piece documents the machinations, beneath the surface, that destroyed the dream of a world free of nuclear weapons, a dream Obama had endorsed.

The facts presented show why — at least in this case — Obama faced a Hobson’s choice: He could forgo a second treaty with Russia to limit nuclear proliferation, or he could enlist support from a powerful special interest pushing for a substantial US investment in our existing nuclear arsenal. In either case, his hope for a safer world would be diminished.

In May of 2016 President Barack Obama visited Hiroshima, Japan. He became the first sitting president to visit the city since the US dropped the atomic bomb on it more than 70 years before. While he did not publicly apologize to the Japanese people for the US’s actions, he expressed sympathy, laying memorial wreaths with the Japanese prime minister and embracing weeping victims of the attack. He again called for a renewed effort to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

The former president was simultaneously criticized by the hawks for another “apology tour,” and for not officially apologizing by those who see the dropping of the atomic bombs as war crimes.

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The excerpt below is from Sally Denton’s The Profiteers: Bechtel and the Men Who Built the World — and the title of this book is no exaggeration. As the author puts it, “This book is a portrait of an American corporation so potent, and with such a global reach, that it has its own foreign policy that has often been at odds with US foreign policy.”