Congress.org sent me an email asking whether the U.S. needs a new and improved nuclear warhead. Goodness, thought I, we don't need the ones we have now. So, sure, I wrote them:

I oppose new and improved nuclear warheads for the U.S. One cannot well expect other nations to eliminate weapons of mass destruction when the US is sitting on top of the world's largest stockpile of these utterly barbaric weapons. Not only should there be no new programs, the existing weapons must be dismantled posthaste.

Sincerely, blah, blah, blah.

And what do you know? One of my pinhead Senators from Georgia sent an email back!

Dear Mr. Hall :

Thank you for contacting me regarding your concerns about the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program. It is good to hear from you.

Most of the United States nuclear warheads were built in the 1970's and 1980's and are being retained longer than originally planned. These warheads must be maintained because they contain thousands of parts that deteriorate at different rates. The Life Extension Program (LEP) was started to address these maintenance issues and replaces or rebuilds components as close as possible to the original specifications. This has been done over the last 11 years without nuclear testing. However, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the Department of Energy (DOE), the agencies in charge of the nuclear weapons program, are concerned that the LEP will not be able to maintain warheads over the long term due to the accumulation of variations made between original and replacement warhead components.

NNSA and DOE both recommend RRW to improve the reliability, longevity, and certifiability of existing weapons and their components. RRW will lead to newly designed warheads that are easier to manufacture and certify without nuclear testing whereas LEP might require nuclear testing to continue to certify the warheads. One goal of RRW is to produce warheads that will perform as intended over the long term. The program is not aimed at increasing the United States nuclear warhead stockpile but rather to replace it with fewer warheads in which the Department of Defense can have greater long term confidence in while increasing weapon safety and control and reducing the environmental burden all at a lower cost. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I will continue to follow this issue and will keep your views in mind.

I seriously doubt he'll give it another thought, as long as the campaign contributions from the defense industry keep rolling in. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he's essentially a paid shill, and don't think it's any different on the other side of the aisle.

Nuclear weapons are in no way defensive. They are designed to maintain a balance of terror at best, and annihilate life as we know it at worst. They're terribly expensive to build and maintain, not to mention the impact on human and environmental health. The sooner the world is rid of this scourge, the better. Sadly, the government that brought you Hiroshima and Nagasaki still doesn't seem to be willing to divest itself of its weaponry. How can it expect other nations to do so, or not acquire their own? As I see it, the U.S. Government missed a grand opportunity at the end of the Cold War to finally lead the world away from the abyss of nuclear destruction. We may yet live to see the results of its intransigence.