Toward real nuclear disarmament | csmonitor.com

Toward real nuclear disarmament | csmonitor.com

"The nuclear club now has eight members, with North Korea and Iran pounding on the door. Meanwhile, the Bush administration is pressing Congress to fund nuclear "bunker busters" - which could kill up to a million city dwellers, depending on the yield - and new nuclear warheads, even as it insists other countries should just say no to nuclear arms."

My class on ethics in the use of force was fantastic, co-taught by an expert in Christian just war theory and a renowned professor of international policy. But a nagging feeling was growing in my soul throughout the semester: an opinion I had long held was being slowly unseated. One day, it burst forth in clarity: The UN is useless!

This might not astound some of you who follow international affairs more closely than I had. How could I have missed that it's too good to be true: representatives of warring nations in the same room, hammering out documents that show they care about the rights of the child and ethical war practices. Everybody wins? Ha.

So I'm skeptical about the potential success of the new summit on nonproliferation, but happy that it's inspiring the media to question US nuclear holdings and to look seriously at how we could change our ways to make the world safer.