Left is Smearing Opposition to START

They failed to ram the hopelessly flawed New START treaty through the Senate this summer. Now the anti-nuke crowd has adopted a new strategy: misrepresent AND smear the opposition.

Michael Krepon (below), for example, recently “argued” that those who raise concerns about New START are mere corporate stooges.

Krepon presumes that treaty critics oppose arms control and have no desire to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons. He couldn’t be further from the truth. We are not opposed to arms control agreements. We just think much better ones can be had.

We are concerned about this treaty because of its serious flaws. But beyond that, our research suggests that Obama’s strategy for eliminating nuclear weapons (which starts with New START) will likely have the exact opposite effect of what the President (and we) desire. In other words, New START will put us on the path to even broader nuclear proliferation, thereby increasing the likelihood of nuclear war.

Krepon is also way off base when he accuses critics of “fear-mongering.” Indeed, if there were a fear-mongering score card, the New START cheerleaders would win hands down. They have played the fear card early and often. Remember, it was Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, a foundation that advocates a nuclear weapons-free world, who first breathlessly told the Associated Press, “[a] delayed ratification with a close vote would be a blow to U.S. leadership around the world.” “People would doubt the president’s ability to negotiate other agreements.”

But it’s the Administration that has played the fear card most egregiously, by suggesting that American troops would suffer every day the pact remained unratified. In the words of Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller, “We also must bear in mind that we have soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan and still working in Iraq… I think that our military leadership would prefer to be concentrating on what’s needed for our soldiers in Afghanistan than having to, through worst-case planning, pour resources into the nuclear forces.” https://blog.heritage.org/2010/09/16/playing-politics-with-the-troops/

Where Krepon errs most is in his sad suggestion that the debate is about money. “The ‘arms control lobby’ has not been known for its corporate backers or deep pockets,” he railed, adding snidely, “If someone out there has the time and interest, it might be useful to compare the resources used by The Arms Control Association and The Heritage Foundation to wage their respective campaigns over New START.”

Krepon’s “argument” here is a quintessential non-point. He seeks to imply that fat-cat defense contractors are buying the services of groups troubled by the treaty. But why would they do that. They don’t build nuclear weapons, so they don’t have a financial dog in this hunt.

This snide aside is, of course, an unwitting admission that Krepon himself has not even bothered to “do the math.” Why should he, when it’s so much easier just to throw mud?

But he should know better than to raise a rhetorical question that is pretty easy to answer. Here is the statement that goes at the bottom of every Congressional testimony by a Heritage person. “The Heritage Foundation is a public policy, research, and educational organization operating under Section 501(C) (3). It is privately supported and receives no funds from any government at any level, nor does it perform any government or other contract work….Its 2009 income came from the following sources: Individuals 80%, Foundations 17%, Corporations 3%. The top five corporate givers provided The Heritage Foundation with 1.6% of its 2009 income.”

I am responsible for writing and managing Heritage’s budget for national security and foreign policy research. I can tell you that “zero” percent of any donations to Heritage (including the small fraction of our total income that came from corporate donors) was earmarked for work on New START. Recently, Heritage has established a 501(C) (4) operation as well: Heritage Action for America. http://heritageforamerica.org/ As of October 22, 2010, they too have received “zero” cooperate giving.

I don’t know how much corporate funding the Arms Control Association has received. But it can’t be less than zero.

Sources aside, it be interesting to see which side of the New START debate has the deeper pockets. Consider “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.”

“Countdown to Zero” premiered at the Landmark Theater in Los Angeles and was screened at the Sundance Film Festival. Contrast that with “33 Minutes” a self-funded (with zero cooperate support) Heritage documentary. Its screenings come at community meetings organized and paid-for by local citizens. Here’s Billie Tucker’s perspective.

Krepon can’t be serious about wanting to sit down and open the books to see where the big money is flowing in the New START debate. But then again, it’s hard to take any of his “arguments” seriously.