“Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”These words are taken from the Bhagavad Gita, a sacred Hindu text. They are the words of a wrathful god preparing to seek bloody vengeance on humanity.But the quote is now irrevocably attached to something less mystical, but no less fearsome: the consuming fire of a nuclear detonation.J. Robert Oppenheimer, considered the “father of the atomic bomb,” uttered this quote as he watched the fiery bloom from the first successful detonation of an atomic bomb rise over the testing grounds in the middle of a New Mexico desert.His words would prove frighteningly prescient the next month when a similar warhead was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, instantly killing 60,000-80,000 people. Thousands more would die painful, horrible deaths from radiation sickness in the following months. A different type of warhead obliterated Hiroshima days earlier, killing as many as 166,000 people.Someone had indeed become death, the destroyer of worlds, but it was no god — it was us.The United States has a stockpile of nuclear weapons today approaching 10,000 warheads. And as nuclear science has pushed forward with breathtaking pace, so has the terrifying power of that arsenal — today’s nukes dwarf the power and killing potential of the two that snuffed out so many lives in Japan.In the era in which we students are growing up, we tend to forget the mind-numbingly destructive power of nuclear weapons — and the stark reality that they could conceivably be used. But our parents grew up in a world in which the U.S. and the Soviet Union played chicken with their arsenals and schoolteachers prepared elementary schoolchildren for impending nuclear holocaust.So perhaps that’s why it’s surprising — and disgusting — to see the apathy with which the American public has greeted recent progress in removing these horrifying tools of destruction from the world.Just before University students left for spring break, President Obama signed a new treaty with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in which both countries agreed to slash their nuclear weapons stockpiles by a third. The world’s two dominant nuclear powers are making unparalleled progress toward the president’s vision of a nuclear-free world.That vision, outlined in a 2009 masterwork of oratory in Europe garnering worldwide acclaim, was part of the reason Obama was given his much-maligned Nobel Peace Prize. But, whatever right-wing pundits may say about it, our president’s commitment to the cause is the stuff that makes history.Nuclear disarmament shouldn’t be a partisan issue, but it is. People on the left, on the right and in the middle should all be committed to removing these machines of apocalypse, but they aren’t.You can hear it in partisan echo-chambers everywhere: “This president is weakening America,” or “This president is tying the hands of our military,” and on and on ad naseum.The administration’s recent decision to alter nuclear strategy is attracting the most vitriol. The new plan says the U.S. will not use nuclear weapons on any state that has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.Opponents predictably responded by saying the effort would hamstring the country’s ability to punish states abroad.Such a view is dangerously ignorant of the truly devastating power of this arsenal. Nuclear weapons shouldn’t be a response to attacks on sovereign nations, especially in an era in which attacks generally come from non-state actors. And opponents seem to forget the treaty very specifically leaves nuclear options open to states that do not abide by nuclear treaty conventions — which, by the way, are the only states foolhardy enough to openly attack the U.S.Partisan pundits unfortunately aren’t the only ones opposing Obama’s efforts. It’s entirely possible the treaty Obama has put together — which doesn’t even involve the controversial strategy decisions — will not pass congressional approval.If Congress kills this treaty, history will undoubtedly frown — or, rather, scowl — upon it. Calling the forces involved here apocalyptic is by no means a stretch, yet partisan battles are sadly still going on strong as ever.  They’re playing with fire here — the kind of fire that religious texts reserve for the end-times.Matthew Albright is a 21-year-old mass communication junior from Baton Rouge. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_malbright.
 
 
 
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