Al's Opinions

In the news today, I learned that President Bush traveled to New Mexico to sign the Energy Bill just passed by Congress. I learned that subsidies and tax breaks are provided to encourage the building of new energy factories, such as nuclear power plants. We need the energy. Nuclear power does not require the use of imported petroleum.

In the news today, I also learned that North Korea and Iran have stopped negotiating about the dismantling of their nuclear facilities. One argument that North Korea is advancing is that it has a "right" to have nuclear power plants. Iran is advancing a similar argument.

Is there some sort of disconnect between these news stories? We Americans have the "right" to have nuclear power plants. In fact, we have many such plants. We propose to build more of them. Why should the people of North Korea and Iran have fewer "rights" than we have?

All right. The object is to make it difficult, if not impossible, for nations to acquire the ability to produce nuclear weapons if they don't already have it. Again, We Americans are in the position of telling the world, "do as we say, not as we do." Maybe we can prevail with this specious argument. The Bush neocons believe we can. But, they have no fall-back position if the argument doesn't convince other than "regime change," Iraq style.

I foresee bad times.