Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Times Record: Collins' Silence "Perplexing"

An editorial:

Our country's national security shouldn't be subject to political gamesmanship. But that's exactly what's happening in the U.S. Senate, where the Republican leadership has been using lame excuses to hold up the ratification vote on the New START nuclear arms control agreement with Russia that would reduce both countries' deployed strategic nuclear warheads from 2,200 to 1,550 by 2012...

Given that the New START agreement has the unanimous support of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and other key Pentagon leaders, it shouldn't have been difficult to gain the eight Republican votes needed to reach the 67 votes required for ratification. Previous nuclear arms control agreements, initiated by Republican presidents, had received close to unanimous bipartisan support in the past...

The silence of our two U.S. senators on this treaty is perplexing, given that both Sen. Olympia Snowe and Sen. Susan Collins have supported earlier arms control agreements negotiated by Republican presidents.

We encourage them to speak up for national security and urge their Republican leaders to stop the politicking and ratify this treaty.

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