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Wednesday, April 14, 2010
The Vicksburg Post
THE VICKSBURG POST
EDITORIAL
Founded by John G. Cashman in 1883 Louis P. Cashman III, Editor & Publisher • Issued by Vicksburg Printing & Publishing Inc., Louis P. Cashman III, President Charlie Mitchell, executive editor | E-mail: post@vicksburg.com | Tel: 601.636.4545 ext 132 | Letters to the editor: post@vicksburg.com or The Vicksburg Post, P.O. Box, 821668, Vicksburg, MS 39182
JACK VIX SAYS: This year’s Iris crop in city gardens is spectacular.
OLD POSt FILeS 120 YEARS AGO: 1890 Thomas Mount, now of Greenville, is here visiting. • Herman Denio makes a trip to Greenville.
110 YEARS AGO: 1900 Dr. R. O’Leary is reported very ill. • Dr. Victor C. Smith locates in Henderson, La.
100 YEARS AGO: 1910 W.E. Mollison returns from Texas. • “A Maid of the Mountain” is showing at the Lyric Theatre.
90 YEARS AGO: 1920 The Mississippi River gauge here registers 50.4 feet. • J.J. Lum is planning to have a five-story apartment house built.
80 YEARS AGO: 1930 Tip Parker, an outfielder, joins the Billies. • Helen Salters and Helen Rea are home for the holidays.
70 YEARS AGO: 1940 “The Fire Prince,” two-act musical comedy, is presented by St. Francis Xavier Academy seniors. • Mr. and Mrs. C.O. Overstreet leave for Laurel to make their home.
60 YEARS AGO: 1950 The Vicksburg Billies and the Jackson Senators open the 1950 Southeastern League baseball season here with a game at City Park. • Jimmy Horn, membership chairman of the Loyal Order of the Moose, calls for full attendance at a meeting here.
50 YEARS AGO: 1960 Easter sunrise services are held at Fort Nogales. • George Evans and John Hennessey are home for the holidays from Notre Dame University. • Gregory Peck stars in “On the Beach” at the Rivoli Drive-In Theatre. • Mrs. Sarah Gaines dies.
40 YEARS AGO: 1970 Funeral services are held for Mrs. E.P. Fortson. • Mr. and Mrs. Stewart Baker announce the birth of a son, Bradley, on March 18. • Carroll Baker stars in “Baby Doll” at Showtown USA.
Our OPINION
Officially
30 YEARS AGO: 1980
President changes nuclear posture very little President Barack Obama, following in the footsteps of his predecessors, often talks the talk without walking the walk. Take for example the Nuclear Posture Review, the occasional statement of official U.S. doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons updated last week. It is virtually the same as the Bush doctrine, announced in 2001. There is a difference in tone, and a few modest steps in the direction of more-limited authorization to use nuclear arms. But even those changes have conditions and exceptions. The posture review says that the United States will use nuclear weapons only against states that either have nuclear weapons or states that are not in the Non Proliferation Treaty, or that are signatories but are defying their obligations. Those parameters could apply to North Korea and Iran and, possibly, Pakistan, Israel and Syria. Almost any kind of attack from these countries
could bring a nuclear response, so the notion that the United States would endure a biological or chemical attack from these countries without even thinking about nuclear retaliation seems inaccurate. In addition, the review says the United States will not develop new nuclear weapons but will put more resources into nuclear weapons labs like Los Alamos, Oak Ridge and Lawrence Livermore, presumably to make sure these older weapons are kept up to snuff. The Bush administration held out the possibility of commissioning new weapons, but, in fact, did not. This Posture Review also tries to integrate itself into Obama’s stated goal of eventually ridding the world of nuclear weapons in decades to come. Presidents across the spectrum have expressed this aspiration, including Ronald Reagan. But things may be more complicated now,
with “rogue” states like North Korea and Iran acquiring or desiring nukes, and Pakistan having an arsenal. The Posture Review is not directly connected to the Strategic Arm Reduction Treaty with the Russians, but it is mentioned, which underlines that the eventual goal is mutual reduction of warheads. Even this reduction of reliance on nuclear weapons is balanced by provisions calling for closer conventional military cooperation with various allies, which happens to be significantly more expansive. As Ted Carpenter, the libertarian Cato Institute’s vice president for foreign policy and defense studies, said, changes in the Obama Nuclear Posture Review are “about 95 percent rhetorical.” That seems about right. As with many other topics, the spin has changed, but little of substance.
Karen Ragsdale wins first place in the history research contest of the Mississippi Junior Historical Society for her paper, “Kangaroo Justice,” an account of the hanging of gamblers in Vicksburg in 1835. • Roxann Harvey and Aaron Kenneth Halford Jr. announce their engagement. • Mr. and Mrs. Harry Scott celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary.
20 YEARS AGO: 1990 Andrea McMillin is featured shining softball trophies to be awarded to Riverfest winners. • Professional storyteller, author and columnist Robert Hitt Neill is the kickoff speaker during National Library Week at Vicksburg High School. • Vicksburg Cannon soccer members Justus Griffin and Trey Thorne are featured, planning a trip to the Soviet Union and Finland.
10 YEARS AGO: 2000 Culkin School alumni plan a 2000 reunion for all graduates. • Jill Oldenburg’s kindergartners at Redwood Elementary use coffee cans to make ice cream. • Annie Elizabeth Hudson of the Grange Hall community dies.
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MODERATELY CONFUSED by Bill Stahler
World won’t disarm unless the U.S. joins in WASHINGTON — One of my favorite novels of the last decade is Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road,” which chronicles the journey of a father and his young son as they struggle to survive in a bleak, post-apocalyptic landscape. Though McCarthy cleverly avoids naming the cataclysm, it was natural for me to suspect nuclear war. Natural, because my generation was born during the age of the atom and shadowed by the threat of nuclear annihilation. In my youth, Hollywood reveled in odd radiation disasters (“Them!” remains a personal favorite), the landscape was dotted with civil defense shelters, and my mother stocked canned goods in the crawl space under the house during the Cuban Missile Crisis. (No kidding. My father poked fun, but she would not be deterred.) That era has ended, but the threat of nuclear annihilation is still very much with us. I don’t agonize, as my parents did, over the prospect of
cynthia
tucker
I’m not teaching my toddler to duck under a desk. But I do worry that she is growing up in a world still haunted by nuclear weapons.
wholesale nuclear war with another superpower. I’m not teaching my toddler to duck under a desk. But I do worry that she is growing up in a world still haunted by nuclear weapons. That’s why I’ve been heartened by President Obama’s compelling promise to “seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” And last week, the president made a small down payment on that pledge. He and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a new treaty
in which both countries — which together control 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons — promised marginal cuts in their nuclear arsenals (assuming the treaty is ratified by legislators here and in Russia). Let’s be clear about this: Both countries will maintain nuclear arsenals powerful enough to destroy the planet several times over. This hardly amounts to disarmament — by either side. The treaty doesn’t even reduce each nation’s arsenal by half. But alongside Obama’s revised
policy on the use of nuclear weapons, New START, as the treaty is called, does provide prominent leadership from the world’s remaining superpower. The United States can never hope to persuade other countries to forgo development of nuclear weapons if we remain committed to a bristling arsenal, refreshed every 20 years or so by new technology. Obama’s interest in reducing the world’s nuclear capacity also helps to reinvigorate an effort that hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves: keeping nukes out of the hands of terrorists. A suitcase-size nuke could wreak widespread and lasting havoc, and the United States needs cooperation from other countries, including Russia, to secure them. Despite the modest changes Obama has made in U.S. nuclear policy, he’s already facing a barrage of criticism from conservatives, who, predictably, argue the president’s proposals will embolden our enemies and make us weaker. In fact, Obama’s policy revi-
sions and treaty proposals are less dramatic than I would have liked, since they take only small steps away from our Cold War posture. But at least they’re steps in the right direction. I’ve long since given up my dream of living long enough to see nuclear weapons abandoned, but I still have hope for the world in which my daughter grows old. As the president said in a speech in Prague last April, a year before the historic treaty: “I’m not naive. This goal will not be reached quickly — perhaps not in my lifetime. It will take patience and persistence. But now, we, too, must ignore the voices who tell us that the world cannot change. We have to insist, yes, we can.” Here’s hoping he’s right. •
Cynthia Tucker is editorial page editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. E-mail reaches her at cynthia@ajc.com.