Here's another issue that requires someone with a strong military record to counter the GOP's command on the issue going into the election. Kerry has a proven record IN government chairing Senate committees of and working on the top issues of foreign policy and military preparedness. Not to mention that he's a decorated war hero whose photos from that conflict can NOT be ridiculed nor give veterans pause for giving him their full support. He's fought in combat. He knows battle and when faced with an unjust war he's also worked for peace. This is a key voting factor for conservative Democrats, Independents and moderate Republicans.

But beyond all this we need a seasoned leader who has a reasoned world view for dealing with the unthinkable move by our and other nation's military leaders to EXPAND nuclear weapons and making the world a more dangerous place. We need a candidate that can BEAT BUSH!

Kerry is that man.



Facing a Second Nuclear Age
By WILLIAM J. BROAD

This week, ten minutes by car south of Omaha, Neb., the United States Strategic Command is holding a little-advertised meeting at which the Bush administration is to solidify its plans for acquiring a new generation of nuclear arms. Topping the wish list are weapons meant to penetrate deep into the earth to destroy enemy bunkers. The Pentagon believes that more than 70 nations, big and small, now have some 1,400 underground command posts and sites for ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction.

Determined to fight fire with fire, the Defense Department wants bomb makers to develop a class of relatively small nuclear arms — ranging from a fraction the size of the Hiroshima bomb to several times as large — that could pierce rock and reinforced concrete and turn strongholds into radioactive dust.

"With an effective earth penetrator, many buried targets could be attacked," the administration said in its Nuclear Posture Review, which it sent to Congress last year.

Welcome to the second nuclear age and the Bush administration's quiet responses to the age's perceived dangers.

While initiatives like pre-emptive war have gotten most of the headlines (understandably, given the invasion of Iraq and its shaky aftermath), the administration is hard at work on other ways to counteract the spread of weapons like nuclear arms. Federal and private experts agree that with the notable exception of North Korea, diplomacy and arms control, for now, have taken a back seat to muscle flexing...




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