Our Senators often debate
Over bills to determine our fate.
  Laws of taxes and crime
  And amendments most times
Are pored over by two from each state.

Many bills seem to be inessential,
Naming buildings just to be prudential.
  It's dull to designate,
  But the issues of late
Could have repercussions consequential.

The international community
Had a bill to promote global unity
  Thinking it would be best
  To suspend nuclear tests
So nations couldn't try nukes with impunity.

They had named it the CTBT
(Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty)
  Yet to have any enforcement
  It requires endorsement
Of all forty-four nuclear countries.

We were quick to join the Group of Eight
In saying India must sign, and not wait.
  With no nuclear test ban,
  Tensions with Pakistan
Would inevitably escalate.

Yet apparently we were all talk;
When it came time for our John Hancock
  The senate majority
  Didn't see it as priority
And the outcome was that we would walk.

Other countries will now follow suit,
Since we've given the bill ill repute.
  With us as an example,
  Now countries have ample
Reason to test bombs they will shoot

Some maintain the treaty had no worth
As a law, only a source for mirth.
  A world-wide accord
  Would soon show that the sword
Is mightier than the pen on this earth.

The world had once tried this before
When the Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawed war.
  'Twas a noble ideal,
  But in terms of the real
World, there wasn't much it was good for.

Still, the CTBT isn't the same,
Since we could slow the bomb-testing game.
  A warless world can't exist,
  But we may have just missed
Our best chance to halt nukes; what a shame.