The Norman Transcript

Editorials

Discussion

December 10, 2012

Lugar helped make us safer

The Norman Transcript

NORMAN — The Department of Defense honored Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar and former Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn last week with its Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the Pentagon’s highest civilian honor.

The award recognizes two decades of effort to help the former Soviet Union secure its stockpiles of weapons, and it underlines the hope that the work will continue in spite of Lugar’s approaching departure from the U.S. Senate.

“We cannot let our guard down,” President Barack Obama said during a speech at the National Defense University in Washington.

Calling efforts to fight nuclear terrorism one of his top priorities as president, Obama praised the 20-year-old Cooperative Threat Reduction program that has provided billions of dollars in equipment and know-how to help former Soviet bloc nations safeguard and dismantle nuclear and chemical weapons.

Obama cited the “extraordinary progress” that’s been made in securing nuclear materials and thanked Democrat Nunn and Republican Lugar for their leadership. He called the two men “visionaries” who “challenged us to think anew” about ways to secure nuclear stockpiles produced during the Cold War. He called the two models for bipartisan cooperation. ...

The program helped deactivate more than 7,600 nuclear warheads. The program Nunn and Lugar created played a major role in preventing deadly weapons from falling into the wrong hands while the Russian government was facing a severe money crunch amid an economic meltdown and political turmoil that followed the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. The program is set to expire this spring, and Russia has said it will not be extended without a major overhaul. Obama expressed a willingness to do that.

Nunn and Lugar represent the kind of cooperation that is so hard to find in today’s political environment. Their work should be imitated.

— Kokomo, Ind., Tribune

For local news and more, subscribe to The Norman Transcript Smart Edition, or our print edition.

Text Only | Photo Reprints
Editorials
  • We are disaster central

    Oklahoma is disaster central. Per capita, the state has had more tornadoes and natural catastrophes than any other state. Texas and California have had more but they are much larger and have far more people than Oklahoma....

    May 25, 2013

  • Report price gouging

    A report on a national news website claims a store was reported for selling a case of water for $40. Attorney General Scott Pruitt’s office is investigating....

    May 25, 2013

  • New faces on the bench

    Cleveland County is one step closer to getting another district judge. House members overwhelmingly approved the legislation moving a vacant seat from Seminole County in eastern Oklahoma to Cleveland County....

    May 24, 2013

  • The randomness of it all

    A drive through the fringe streets of the damaged areas in Moore and south Oklahoma City this week shows the randomness of Monday’s tornado. Homes that appear to have little or no damage stand next to ones that are ready to be pushed over....

    May 24, 2013

  • The Oklahoma standard

    The sight of hundreds of young student volunteers walking across Moore’s Fourth Street interstate overpass had to be uplifting to the city’s tornado victims. They carried rakes, brooms and trash bags. A few had children’s red wagons. There ...

    May 23, 2013

  • There’s no answer for ‘Why?’

    Just hours before, there was breakfast and laughter. Pictures were on the walls and memories were in every room. But in seconds, those joys of life were reduced to a concrete slab by a rage of nature that man will never fully understand....

    May 22, 2013

  • Moore’s amazing resilience

    Our hearts, already heavy from Sunday’s deadly tornado in far eastern Cleveland County, sunk even further Monday afternoon as we watched the tornado rip through Moore. The monster storm that hit Monday followed nearly the same path as the ...

    May 22, 2013

  • Relying on private prisons

    Oklahoma began contracting to place inmates in private prisons during Gov. Frank Keating’s administration in 1995. Today, more than 5,000, or 23 percent, of our inmates are in the custody of three private prisons....

    May 21, 2013

  • Thanks for warnings

    We can’t say there wasn’t enough warning this time around....

    May 21, 2013

  • Airline changes coming

    In the airlines business, time is money. American Airlines wants to try and speed up its boarding process. Passengers who travel with only a personal item such as a purse or a brief case can now get on first....

    May 19, 2013