We probably lost close to billions over the yearsa from allied servicemens pockets

If people knew how much Liarbour wouldn’t see the treaury seats for 100 years.

THey would have the gall to say security is more priority than money, but lets point to the billions they’ve stolen off Kiwis’s over the years.

North Korea? Pakistan? I ndia?

The only way Obama is going to rid the world of Nuclear weapons is to make them obsolete. Can we make a more destructive weapon? YES WE CAN!
”

Speaking of making nuclear weapons obsolete, or at least obsolescent, the US has been working on the anti-ballistic missile system , combined with research into weaponised lasers, for a reason. It is this research that Russia but most importantly the likes of China, Iran and N Korea loath because it makes their only effective deterrence useless except on those nations without it such defences, and puts them at a stark disadvantage when faced with the fact that their conventional forces, although large, are in no way capable of large scale offensive operations beyond their own borders.

Or did the Bush administration wave a big stick at them?

That was an interesting case, but it was notable that they did not make regime change part of their demands.

“……There is hysteria about nuclear energy that even has idiots in at least one NZ city expression concern about a new radiation unit to treat cancer. Let’s hope they don’t start screaming about the very, very mild isotopes said to be used in some fire alarms…..”

Jack5, the NZ Fire Service actually sued Greenpeace back in the 1980′s over their use of scare tactics about radiation from fire alarms.

The way NZ-ers have been duped and dragged around by the nose by the propaganda of what are basically nihilistic commie agitators on the whole nuclear issue, is just sickening. We should give Prof. Paul Callaghan and a few of NZ’s other brightest minds a few hour-long slots on primetime TV to put this completely straight. The role of the media in not simply letting facts be known, is an indictment on their true agenda.

The longer NZ persists with this antinuke law, the more stupid we look and the more wrongheaded we look.

Who thinks our glorious, noble stand has made a scrap of difference to Pakistan or North Korea or Iran and their approach to the nuclear weapons issue? We are just an example of someone too irrelevant and miniscule to make any difference, posturing as though we are big and relevant enough and have made a moral choice having weighed up the options. Bunk. If we were big and relevant enough, we would have the maturity that goes along with size and relevance, to think clearly about the issues.

Who thinks our stand has made a scrap of difference to France, Sweden, Japan, et al; and their approach to meeting the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol? (By building lots and lots of nuclear power plants).

DUH. DUH. DUH.

This issue and the “iconic” nature of it is one of the most glaring indictments of our national psyche. As Professor Paul Callaghan, (possibly NZ’s most-awarded living scientist) says, we can’t call ourselves a “knowledge economy” and go on with this costly sophistry.

It has been done before. LBJ declared a war on poverty, Nixon declared a war on drugs and GWBush declared a war on terror (after the compassionate. Poverty, drugs and terrorism are all still with us – nuclear weapons are equally assured of a longterm existance.

It may of interest that the US Coastguard is at present considering whether its possible new polar icebreakers should be nuclear powered. Russia already uses nuclear icebreakers, and this makes a lot of sense when these vessels may take long periods to break out of ice.

Given NZ reliance on US icebreakers as backup to get fuel and heavy materials to NZ’s Scott Base in Antarctica, this raises the question of whether NZ would be hypocritical enough to refuse US nuclear icebreakers entry to NZ ports while relying on them for Scott Base.

NZ’s opposition to nuclear-powered ships is an ignorant digression from campaigns against nuclear weapons. It’s like banning the use of TNT in construction projects if it is used in aircraft bombs. Nuclear power for ships is safe.

There is hysteria about nuclear energy that even has idiots in at least one NZ city expression concern about a new radiation unit to treat cancer. Let’s hope they don’t start screaming about the very, very mild isotopes said to be used in some fire alarms.

I assume you are only including countries that are not part of the “5 nuclear states”, as per the non-proliferation treaty – which are the US, Russia, China, Uk…and france

Dosen’t matter, the US already has thousands of nukes.

[DPF: The ban is stupid, but so is the US position. None of their ships are nuclear powered except some subs (won't visit as they have nukes) and carriers (too big)]

It’s that enduring streak of stupidity that any other country must examine when it comes to joint defence plans and preferential trade access. And don’t we say there shouldn’t be any preferential trade access?

Have we publicly apologised for our stupidity? Have we admitted that our foreign policy was made around the kitchen tables of the various green and peacenik organisations of Brussells and a dozen other foreign capitals back in the 1980s?

I’m buggered if I can see why the US should treat us as an ally when we remain mired in the nuclear folklore of the past.

JC