tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45603311769162731682024-03-16T11:51:58.907-07:00The Nuclear AbolitionistWorking towards a nuclear free worldLeonard Eigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08211690207308023413noreply@blogger.comBlogger259125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560331176916273168.post-89797795255787641242023-07-19T19:15:00.002-07:002023-07-19T19:18:03.848-07:00 After 78 years, can we put the nuclear genie back in the lamp?<p>By Leonard Eiger</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><span style="color: black;">July 16th marks the day 78 years ago when the United States let the nuclear genie out of the lamp.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><span style="color: black;">On July 16, 1945, at 5:29:45 AM at the Alamogordo Test Range, on the Jornada del Muerto (Journey of Death) desert, in the test named Trinity, </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project">Manhatten Project</a><span style="color: black;"> scientists detonated the experimental device known as the "Gadget,” creating a light "brighter than a thousand suns." A mere 6 kilogram (13.2 pound) sphere of plutonium, compressed to supercriticality by the surrounding high explosives, created an explosion equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT (20 Kilotons).</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><span style="color: black;">Was this, as thought nuclear physicist </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Robert_Oppenheimer">Julius Robert Oppenheimer</a><span style="color: black;">, the beginning of the end? Oppenheimer headed up the Manhattan Project's weapons laboratory at Los Alamos during World War II, and is often credited as the “father of the atomic bomb.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><span style="color: black;">In a </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq3aPnpa-JY">1965 television interview</a><span style="color: black;">, Oppenheimer said of the moments following the Trinity test: "We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty, and, to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that, one way or another."</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><span style="color: black;">These scientists had certainly "become death", and they had created what could become (quite literally) "the destroyer of worlds," or what could at least destroy most life on Earth. The nuclear genie was out of the lamp, and now, 78 years later, we may have only one final wish left. What should it be? </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQog6YxjHzAayb_l2ak12-TqpiyV-r1dknPFy53rASbFxIA5JC_fH0FthGRUbMZO_HAlvbRbSzZ7B0wOdGs_dNCh5S1N-gYEjc9Ye1sI0v-dTAvlTBn4W_8Hh0En-mEf_fa-PSwW62I_GwrBPJvK6QPjXuJZCquDIo0tbNB1PzJ3hycfDnwGIlb8mvf3Q/s309/nuclear%20genie.gif" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="309" data-original-width="253" height="309" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQog6YxjHzAayb_l2ak12-TqpiyV-r1dknPFy53rASbFxIA5JC_fH0FthGRUbMZO_HAlvbRbSzZ7B0wOdGs_dNCh5S1N-gYEjc9Ye1sI0v-dTAvlTBn4W_8Hh0En-mEf_fa-PSwW62I_GwrBPJvK6QPjXuJZCquDIo0tbNB1PzJ3hycfDnwGIlb8mvf3Q/s1600/nuclear%20genie.gif" width="253" /></a></span></div><p></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><span style="color: black;">Less than one month after the Trinity test, the United States dropped two atomic bombs - on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - that killing roughly </span><a href="https://www.britannica.com/story/atomic-bombing-of-hiroshima">110,000 people</a><span style="color: black;"> immediately or shortly after the blast. As many as </span><a href="https://www.britannica.com/story/atomic-bombing-of-hiroshima">220,000 were dead</a><span style="color: black;"> by the end of 1945. Even today survivors and subsequent generations suffer the effects of radiation.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><span style="color: black;">The official U.S. government story was that the two atomic bombings were necessary to end the war and prevent up to a million U.S. soldiers' lives should the U.S. invade Japan. Yet, some military and civilian officials </span><a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/world/why-the-us-really-bombed-hiroshima/">have said publicly</a><span style="color: black;"> that the bombings were not necessary to end the war. Even the infamous General Curtis LeMay said, “...</span><a href="https://www.wagingpeace.org/the-decision-to-bomb-hiroshima/">The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all</a><span style="color: black;">.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><span style="color: black;">What is rarely mentioned about why the U.S. decided to use the bomb (aside from the blatant </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/09/dont-let-the-victors-define-morality-hiroshima-was-always-indefensible">racism</a><span style="color: black;"> that must have underscored the decision) is that the U.S. intended to </span><a href="https://www.history.com/news/hiroshima-nagasaki-bombing-wwii-cold-war">intimidate and contain the Soviet Union</a><span style="color: black;">. Whatever the real reasons, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin “</span><a href="https://www.history.com/news/hiroshima-nagasaki-bombing-wwii-cold-war">certainly saw U.S. possession of the atomic bomb as a direct threat to the Soviet Union and its place in the post-war world—and he was determined to level the playing field.</a><span style="color: black;">” And before the radioactive dust had settled the nuclear arms race between the U.S. and Soviet Union was underway.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><span style="color: black;">What is also mostly unknown are the effects on generations of people all over the world from the production of nuclear weapons (by the U.S. and other nuclear nations) - including the mining and processing of uranium, production of the weapons, nuclear testing, and mismanagement of nuclear waste. Generations of human beings have quite literally acted (without their knowledge or consent) as subjects of a grotesque experiment.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><span style="color: black;">So began a journey that has led humanity down the perilous road of continuing preparation for its own destruction. Scientists, continuing the legacy of the Manhattan Project scientists, have continued to seek the power of gods, creating ever more destructive thermonuclear devices over the years; and many in government, industry, and think tanks continue asking for more of these horrific weapons (and their delivery systems).</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><span style="color: black;">The U.S. government is currently working to replace its nuclear triad – bombers, land-based s missiles, and ballistic missile submarines, and new thermonuclear warheads will certainly be close behind. The replacement for the OHIO Class “Trident” ballistic missile submarines is currently in production and the Navy hopes to have the first replacement </span><a href="https://news.usni.org/2022/03/08/first-columbia-ballistic-missile-submarine-begins-to-take-shape">delivered by 2027</a><span style="color: black;">. The government has already built new bomb-making facilities at Kansas City and Oak Ridge, and is working to upgrade its other nuclear weapons facilities.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><span style="color: black;">The U.S. is so busy boosting its massive nuclear weapons program that it is no wonder it does not support the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It has paid lip service to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and has pulled out of both the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty (President George W. Bush) and Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty (President Donald Trump). To top it all off, in early 2023 Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia was “</span><a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/02/22/1158529106/nuclear-treaty-new-start-putin">suspending its participation</a><span style="color: black;">” in New START, the last remaining nuclear weapons treaty between the U.S. and Russia. Does this sound bleak?</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><span style="color: black;">Each successive U.S. president, including Joe Biden, has forged ahead towards nuclear darkness, and it is up to the people to call for an end to this madness that consumes vast quantities of economic capital while preparing for the end of life as we know it; it serves no useful purpose to national security or to humanity.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><span style="color: black;">We, as citizens of the U.S. and as global citizens, can participate on many levels, from advocacy to nonviolent direct action; from our hands to our feet - there is something everyone can do to help to try and put the nuclear genie back in the bottle. It is no simple task, and many people would say that we are naive to think such a thing is possible. Yet, we will never know if we don't try.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><span style="color: black;">Even the U.S. Conference of Mayors has, in many recent years, called on the United States to act now to both prevent nuclear war and eliminate nuclear weapons. </span><a href="https://beyondnuclear.org/mayors-call-for-action-against-nuclear-war/">This year's resolution</a><span style="color: black;"> by the Conference of Mayors is the first to support specific legislation - House Resolution 77, ‘Embracing the Goals and Provisions of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons’.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><span style="color: black;">Mayors understand that even a single thermonuclear weapon would cause devastation, death and suffering far beyond imagination. The survivors would envy those who were incinerated in the time it takes to snap one's finger, and their cities would be rendered uninhabitable for generations. Now try to imagine the results of a full-scale nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia!</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><span style="color: black;">Of course, the U.S. government has known since the early days of the Cold War that a nuclear war would cause the loss of millions of U.S. lives and utter devastation of the nation's infrastructure, and yet it still </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/06/21/533711528/in-the-event-of-attack-heres-how-the-government-plans-to-save-itself">made plans</a><span style="color: black;"> to deliver the mail, collect taxes, and for Congress to continue whatever business it would conduct after the nation had been destroyed. Much of those plans are still in place. You have to wonder how all this is going to work after an all-out nuclear war.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><span style="color: black;">We have heard time after time that the sole purpose of the U.S. nuclear arsenal is to deter aggression by another nation, and that this doctrine has worked (as there has not been a nuclear war for the past 78 years). Of course they don't talk about the numerous </span><a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/04/Close%20Calls%20with%20Nuclear%20Weapons.pdf">close calls</a><span style="color: black;"> that could have resulted in a nuclear war between the U.S. and Soviet Union/Russia.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><span style="color: black;">Of course, for deterrence to be remotely credible, the U.S. must have the intention to use nuclear weapons, and so long as they exist there is some probability that they will be used one day; it is not about if, but when. As the </span><a href="https://www.defense.gov/Portals/1/Spotlight/2022/NDS/NUCLEAR%20STRATEGY%20AND%20POLICY%20-%20NPR%20Factsheet.pdf">U.S. Nuclear Declatory Policy</a><span style="color: black;"> states , “As long as nuclear weapons exist, the fundamental role of U.S. nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear attack on the United States, our allies, and partners. The U.S. would only consider the use of nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances to defend the vital interests of the United States or its allies and partners.” The critical question here is, Just what would be considered an “extreme circumstance?”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><span style="color: black;">And finally, as have seen over and over, and now with blazing clarity with Russia's war on Ukraine, deterrence simply does not work. And yet, the U.S. continues to extoll the utility of nuclear weapons to protect itself. It is sheer madness. And now here we are, 78 years since the first atomic device was tested, and we are edging dangerously close once again to a nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia. Such an event would be the end of human civilization, and the survivors would envy the dead.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL03o7W_uX1eG6NSzMxwF_kNJEZTKXnNEnmDVl9VjzreON6n0ooRvJEm-BbCxV2TRW5KEm1a8GqlFUFZ33vtLi9zYf_Oac1L2CHYXjCxaStDgSNW8UrbnXkNuj75A7CKvqIfUHOFDViQkxf-wJ2aEcCUdWP0J34FQeZB4l-KzR4CawyWt0QifsM-o6qBo/s2082/Hiroshima-Nagasaki-Never-Again-Cropped-and-compressed.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="817" data-original-width="2082" height="151" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL03o7W_uX1eG6NSzMxwF_kNJEZTKXnNEnmDVl9VjzreON6n0ooRvJEm-BbCxV2TRW5KEm1a8GqlFUFZ33vtLi9zYf_Oac1L2CHYXjCxaStDgSNW8UrbnXkNuj75A7CKvqIfUHOFDViQkxf-wJ2aEcCUdWP0J34FQeZB4l-KzR4CawyWt0QifsM-o6qBo/w383-h151/Hiroshima-Nagasaki-Never-Again-Cropped-and-compressed.jpg" width="383" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="color: black;">How do we stop this madness? As a beginning, we can attend one of the </span><a href="https://psr.org/events/" target="_blank">upcoming events</a><span style="color: black;"> around the country commemorating the anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We must remember our history in order to avoid reenacting its most horrific moments, which, ironically, would pale in comparison to a nuclear war, which would be the shortest war in human history, ending in no more than a few short hours.</span><p></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><span style="color: black;">But we must not stop there. We must get involved with one or more of the organizations – </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-nuclear_organizations" target="_blank">local, regional, national, international</a><span style="color: black;"> – working to abolish nuclear weapons. Above all, we must educate ourselves and then share our knowledge with others so that they can take action.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><span style="color: black;">At 78 years it is high time we put the nuclear genie back in the lamp before it is too late. But first we need to determine what our final wish will be. Let us hope we, as a species, make the right choice. Our survival depends on it.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">###</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><i><b>Published at Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action on July 17, 2023: <a href="https://www.gzcenter.org/after-78-years-can-we-put-the-nuclear-genie-back-in-the-lamp/">https://www.gzcenter.org/after-78-years-can-we-put-the-nuclear-genie-back-in-the-lamp/</a></b></i></p>Leonard Eigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08211690207308023413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560331176916273168.post-10477177519884272292018-02-25T17:38:00.001-08:002018-02-25T17:38:20.276-08:00The debate you won't hear in the U.S. CongressOn February 20, 2018 Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer presented a "Question for Short Debate" in the House of Lords, Parliament of the United Kingdom: "To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the outcome of the United Nations Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, Leading to Their Total Elimination."<br />
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The <a href="https://usun.state.gov/remarks/7892" target="_blank">July 7, 2017 joint statement</a> by France, the United Kingdom and the United States clearly stated that they "do not intend to sign, ratify or ever become party to" the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons that was passed by a majority of nations that same day. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, or the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty, is the first legally binding international agreement to comprehensively prohibit nuclear weapons, with the goal of leading towards their total elimination.<br />
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It is unconscionable that any nation claiming to uphold the rule of international law and the United Nations Charter would refuse to support one of the most important treaties in modern history.<br />
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The only attempts at something resembling debate (about nuclear weapons) in the U.S. Congress have been recent concerns about the President's authority to order the launch of nuclear weapons, and the recently released Nuclear Posture Review will hopefully generate some useful debate. However, members of Congress are mostly mute about the U.S. signing the Ban Treaty.<br />
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<a href="https://hansard.parliament.uk/lords/2018-02-20/debates/70AD5C91-959A-4F2E-8650-4E2EAA058F36/NuclearWeapons" target="_blank">Click here to read</a> all the contributions to the debate surrounding Lord Domer's question.<br />
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Here is Lord Domer's opening contribution to debate on her question:<br />
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My Lords, I declare an interest as a co-president of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament. I thank all noble Lords who will contribute their considerable expertise this evening. Many noble Lords taking part in this debate will have spoken in the debate in 2013 that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, introduced, which was really the last substantial debate that we had on the issue generally.<br />
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What has changed since 2013? Certainly not my views. I still see nuclear weapons as an immense danger to the future of the planet. But the nuclear landscape has changed significantly, and there is a growing consensus that luck is running out—because we have been lucky that there has been no catastrophic accident, and no accidental launch. In the words of former US energy secretary Ernest Moniz, who is now the CEO of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, the,<br />
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“margin for error in avoiding disaster is getting thinner because of the introduction of new, smaller weapons, the broadening of circumstances in which their use is being contemplated, and a lack of high-level communications between major nuclear weapons powers”.<br />
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He said that the chance of nuclear use was,<br />
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“higher than it’s been since the Cuban missile crisis”.<br />
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His words are, rightly, chilling.<br />
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That increased threat was one of the factors that led to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which is about to become international law. It was voted for by 122 countries, with one against, and some abstentions—of course, all nuclear weapon states abstained. The treaty, widely known as the ban treaty, will become international law when 50 states have signed and ratified it. The ban treaty prohibits states parties from developing, testing, producing manufacturing, otherwise acquiring, possessing, stockpiling, transferring, using or threatening to use nuclear weapons, so it is pretty comprehensive. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, known as ICAN, won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for its work on the ban treaty.<br />
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The treaty results from the frustration of the vast majority of countries of the world with the few nuclear weapon states, which have completely failed to honour Article 6 of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Noble Lords will know that Article 6 requires that nuclear weapons states make meaningful steps towards nuclear disarmament. In return, other countries agreed not to develop nuclear weapons. It is 50 years since that agreement was signed and, although there have been steps to limit the number of nuclear weapons, there has not been the disarmament envisaged by Article 6.<br />
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In this very House, 50 years ago, Lord Chalfont, the then Minister, said that,<br />
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“we regard the Non-Proliferation Treaty as an essential first step in achieving the ending of the nuclear arms race and making progress towards general and complete disarmament”.—[Official Report, 18/6/1968; col. 514.]<br />
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So, 50 years on, my first question to the Minister is whether multilateral nuclear disarmament is still a UK Government aspiration. It seems to me that our Governments always say that it is an aspiration, but then always say that “now is not the time”.<br />
An example of this would be when the UN convened the open-ended working group to try and kick-start the process, stuck ever since 1996, of the UN Conference on Disarmament. The UK boycotted that opportunity—but why? I asked that question in March 2016, and this is the reply:<br />
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“The UK is not attending the Open Ended Working Group … on nuclear disarmament in Geneva …The Government believes that productive results can only be ensured through a consensus-based approach that takes into account the wider global security environment”.<br />
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But how can consensus ever be reached when those with nuclear weapons will not even attend meetings to debate the issues?<br />
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The UK boycotted the first two international conferences on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear war. Why? Does closing our eyes to the reality of a nuclear war really change those realities? Of course it does not. The president of the International Red Cross said at the conclusion of those conferences that,<br />
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“if a nuclear conflict happened today, there is no humanitarian assistance capacity that could adequately respond to such a catastrophe”.<br />
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Of course, beside the appalling immediate deaths, the world would face the much wider threat of a prolonged nuclear winter.<br />
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Nuclear weapons are now the only weapons of mass destruction that are not subject to a categorical ban. Chemical and biological weapons are rightly banned, but nuclear weapons, the most apocalyptic WMDs, remain legally acceptable. Now the ban treaty fills a major gap in international law and will change that.<br />
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The treaty was adopted, in July last year, before the increased dangers posed by President Trump’s new nuclear posture, which Senator Ed Markey says,<br />
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“isn’t deterrence—it’s an invitation for America’s adversaries to expand and diversify their nuclear arsenals too”.<br />
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The accuracy of his quote is echoed in the Chinese PLA Daily, which responded to the new American posture by saying that China needs more nuclear warheads to deter the US threat. Just this month the news is bad. Russia is reported to be deploying nuclear weapons on the borders of Poland and Lithuania. The US Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, said that Pakistan is developing new types of nuclear weapons, including short-range tactical ones, which will bring more risks to the region. All of this has led atomic scientists to move the Doomsday Clock forward to two minutes to midnight. The situation is extremely urgent.<br />
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In the light of that, the UK must become a much more positive influence for progress, just as it did on climate change when we were the first country to introduce a climate change Act with mandatory targets. This example was crucial to getting the final Paris accords. I am asking the UK Government to stop boycotting global efforts to even discuss this massive issue and take an active part. I am sure that other noble Lords will mention some of the positive moves that can be built on: the Iran deal—held to be a success despite President Trump’s attempts to sabotage it—and the resumption of the NPT review cycle, with a preparatory committee this May hopefully leading to a reinvigorated NPT.<br />
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I ask that the UK should play a constructive part in the forthcoming UN high-level conference on nuclear disarmament. This conference could make all the difference. It could set the scene for immediate steps in changing policy, such as no first use and de-alerting, before moving the agenda on to longer-term issues of a phased programme to reduce nuclear stockpiles. Will the Minister confirm that the UK will take part in the conference, to be held in New York in May? We have plenty to offer. The UK has done some valuable work on verification; Aldermaston could be a global centre of excellence in nuclear disarmament. We also owe participation to our NATO partners. Having asked them to oppose the ban treaty process, it is now time for nuclear weapon states to provide something in return: a commitment that we are willing to engage with serious nuclear disarmament initiatives.<br />
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There is a clear choice. Although this serious subject is not really the time for a joke, this one does illustrate the stupidity of the situation we have got ourselves into. There are two aliens, and the first one says, “The dominant life forms on planet Earth have developed satellite-based nuclear weapons”. The second alien asks, “Are they an emerging intelligence”? The first alien says, “I don’t think so; they have them aimed at themselves”. We have the nuclear weapons aimed at ourselves as mankind. It is time that we made a choice to start on the road to disarmament. It will be a long and difficult road, but we have to start talking. We have to attend the UN high-level conference in New York and I hope that the Minister will have a positive message about that for this House this evening.</blockquote>
Leonard Eigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08211690207308023413noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560331176916273168.post-35223183752938423282017-04-08T09:54:00.000-07:002017-04-08T09:54:54.719-07:00Syrian Airstrike; What If? Unmasking the Fatal Flaw of Deterrence!<b>Editor's Note: This commentary on yesterday's U.S. air strike on Syria was written by Ralph Hutchison, Coordinator of the Oak Ridge Peace Alliance. It provides a much more thoughtful and broader perspective on the event and its existential ramifications than you will find in the mainstream, corporate media. </b><br />
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<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<b><i>Trump orders airstrike on Syria. What If?</i></b></h3>
<b>By Ralph Hutchison</b><br />
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There was little warning. That is the nature of a surprise attack. Still, the reality that our country has carried out an act of war against another country is shocking. Knowing that our historic nuclear-armed nemesis is on the other side, on the ground in that country quickly turned my shock into a heavy dread.<br />
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There are many reasons for Russia to stand aside in response to the US attack on a Syrian airbase after Donald Trump was affected by scenes of children who had been murdered by chemical weapons.<br />
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There are also reasons for Russia to express concerns about a US President deciding to become the global enforcer of UN conventions without waiting for a greenlight from the security council or anyone else—what seems swift and decisive to President Trump could seem abrupt and impetuous to someone else.<br />
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And there could be reasons for Russia to take it personally—if Russian personnel were on the ground at the airbase and were killed in the attack, for instance.<br />
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The US President will receive accolades or condemnations from members of Congress and others who agree or disagree with his action. He declared his order to strike the airbase was based on the US’s “vital national security interest” in preventing the spread of chemical weapons. Pundits did not blink an eye; we have grown accustomed to defending any action we deign to take by invoking our vital national interest. In this case, no US citizens or military personnel were harmed by Assad’s horrific attack; no US corporate or government properties were at risk. If the US at this moment now holds UN conventions sacred, one can only hope we apply that same solemn obeisance to the Land Mines Convention and, when it enters into force, the Treaty to Ban Nuclear Weapons.<br />
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But the hard looming question of this night is this: What if Russia decides to test the mettle of Donald Trump and the divided United States by countering with firepower in a limited strike? What if Russian personnel were killed in the attack, and Vladimir Putin’s pride requires a concomitant response?<br />
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That What If has numbed me this night. That What If is unspeakable on Talk-TV tonight.<br />
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How quickly could this spiral out of control—two deeply offended egos, puffing themselves up for the honor of their country, acting decisively, precipitously, provocatively to face down the enemy—<br />
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Could one or the other, feeling tested, decide to put any questions to rest by reaching for the nuclear codes?<br />
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We pray that would never happen, of course. We pray for our lives, and the lives of future generations. We pray whether or not we believe in God or a god or goddess.<br />
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But we cannot pray that it could never happen, and therein lies our deepest problem and the unmasking of the fundamental, fatal flaw in the concept of nuclear deterrence. It could happen.<br />
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And the fact that all we can do about it at this moment is pray should motivate every woman, man and child in the country to take up the cause of nuclear disarmament. We don’t all have to be on the same page, we don’t all have to agree on the nuts and bolts or the schedule.<br />
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We also don’t all have to sit back and say it can’t be done, because it can. Hundreds of millions of people around the world believe it can. One hundred twenty-three nations that convened last week at the United Nations to discuss a treaty to ban nuclear weapons believe that it can. History says that it can—several countries that once possessed nuclear weapons no longer have stockpiles or manufacturing capabilities. Other countries that could produce their own nuclear weapons have chosen not to.<br />
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Only three things are lacking, and they are connected.<br />
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One is political will translated into political power—the people, when asked directly, express by large majorities the desire to live in a world free of nuclear weapons.<br />
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The second thing lacking is courage to embrace a power greater than our fears.<br />
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And the third thing is the liberation of our governing officials in the House and Senate from the golden chains of the nuclear weapons institutions—the corporations and weapons communities and federal agencies that drain the national coffers to build weapons of mass destruction.<br />
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Tonight, as we wait to see how Russia might respond and what will happen as this chess game plays out with pieces bathed in blood, we must confront the terrible truth of the times we live in: decisions made by these few men could end us all in one afternoon. Tomorrow afternoon, or the one after that, before we can even reach our children to hug them to our chests.<br />
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If that is not acceptable to you, find a group working for the abolition of nuclear weapons—not talking about it, but working for it—and throw yourself behind them. If you belong to such a group already, double down. If you can’t find a group, start one. Nothing is more important.<br />
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<b><i>Original Source URL: <a href="http://orepa.org/trump-orders-airstrike-on-syria-what-if/">http://orepa.org/trump-orders-airstrike-on-syria-what-if/</a></i></b><br />
<br />Leonard Eigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08211690207308023413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560331176916273168.post-41638870284379432432017-03-29T13:54:00.000-07:002017-03-29T13:56:21.693-07:00Don’t obstruct efforts to ban nuclear weapons<b>Editor's Note: The United Nations, on March 27th, began historic negotiations intended to lead to a global nuclear weapons ban treaty. The United States, along with the other nuclear-armed nations and some other nations, boycotted the negotiations. This commentary by Ramesh Thakur, just published in The Japan Times, provides an important perspective and context on the negotiations and their importance on the road to abolishing the threat posed by nuclear weapons.</b><br />
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<b><i><span style="font-size: large;">Don’t obstruct efforts to ban nuclear weapons </span></i></b></div>
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<b>By Ramesh Thakur</b><br />
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<b>Originally published in The Japan Times, March 29, 2017</b><br />
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We may be at an inflection point in global affairs with the world in disarray with a volatile, erratic and unpredictable administration in Washington, imminent British and possibly French exits from the European Union, presidential instability in South Korea and the like. One of the strong political headwinds creating international turbulence is intensifying nuclear threats.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTXtmFYX8MHn3losOyWb7yxh1z43txqxfgd6Eqzq4YGeqM0J_mSkl5uecwmpbWnrAv2hJ5zXJl4e16jCdsWAeQODdxcySDqqNlbfUMcPkbdU524sJ00axVn_rQeqjbk34YnX8uQTEtTew/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTXtmFYX8MHn3losOyWb7yxh1z43txqxfgd6Eqzq4YGeqM0J_mSkl5uecwmpbWnrAv2hJ5zXJl4e16jCdsWAeQODdxcySDqqNlbfUMcPkbdU524sJ00axVn_rQeqjbk34YnX8uQTEtTew/s1600/images.jpeg" /></a>On March 27, 115 countries gathered at a U.N. conference in New York to negotiate a treaty to ban nuclear weapons. Arguing that “it would be difficult for Japan to participate … in a constructive manner and in good faith,” Japan, having delivered its opening statement sharply critical of the conference, walked out. The hibakusha — survivors of the 1945 U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — saw the first-ever U.N. talks on a ban treaty as a practical and important step toward pursuing a world free of nuclear weapons and expressed criticism and disappointment at Tokyo’s decision.<br />
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The nine countries with nuclear weapons — China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States — refused to attend at all.<br />
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In an unusual move, to say the least, Washington’s U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley was joined by delegates from about 20 countries in an anti-treaty protest rally outside the General Assembly hall.<br />
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In an unclassified NATO document on Oct. 17, Washington had urged its allies to vote against a call to hold the negotiations and secondly, not to take part in any negotiations that were convened. Describing NATO as “a nuclear alliance,” it argued that “efforts to negotiate an immediate ban on nuclear weapons or to delegitimize nuclear deterrence are fundamentally at odds with NATO’s basic policies on deterrence and our shared security interests.”<br />
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India explained its abstention from the talks by saying that the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament was the only “right place for pursuing nuclear disarmament” because it alone has “the mandate, the membership and the rules for embarking on the path to nuclear disarmament.”<br />
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Yet the Conference on Disarmament has been deadlocked for many years, unable to agree even on a program of work let alone discuss such concrete issues as a fissile material cutoff treaty and the prevention of an arms race in outer space.<br />
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Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters in Tokyo that the U.N. negotiations “could further deepen the rift between nuclear and nonnuclear-weapon states and cause an adverse effect.”<br />
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This is disingenuous and self-serving. The deep division in the international community exists between the 110-130 countries pursuing ban negotiations in good faith and the 40-odd group of nuclear armed states and allies who have been resisting and obstructing their efforts.<br />
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There are two routes to reconciling the two groups. One is for the nonnuclear states to embrace nuclear weapons and join the possessor countries with their own bombs. The alternative is for the nuclear powers and the umbrella states to engage with the international community in the pursuit of nuclear disarmament.<br />
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The latter goal has five components. Three of these can be pursued only by those who possess the bomb: cap, reduce and eliminate.<br />
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The Asian nuclear powers — China, India, Pakistan and North Korea — are expanding their weapons stockpiles and diversifying their land, air and sea-based delivery platforms.<br />
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All nuclear powers are modernizing and upgrading their arsenals. Pyongyang is the only one still testing nuclear devices. Such developments could be frozen.<br />
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Russia and the U.S., with over 90 percent of nuclear stockpiles, could negotiate substantial cutbacks to reduce warhead numbers to a few hundred instead of several thousand each. They could also reduce reliance on high-risk doctrines, postures and deployment practices like launch-on-warning and first use of nuclear weapons.<br />
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Finally, following an eventual universal nuclear weapons convention, they could proceed to verifiable and enforceable elimination spread over more than a decade to ensure decommissioning, dismantlement and destruction of weapons and weapons-producing materials and infrastructure are carried out safely and securely.<br />
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The remaining two items on the agenda — stigmatization and prohibition — can be pursued by the nonnuclear weapon states and this is the primary purpose of the U.N. conference. A treaty coming from the conference will not reduce a single warhead from the global nuclear stockpiles. But it will harden the normative boundaries between conventional and nuclear, regional and global, and tactical and strategic weapons that are being blurred by technological developments.<br />
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There has also been a growing convergence between cyber, space and nuclear domains, further multiplying nuclear risks and dangers.<br />
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Over 2,000 scientists, recalling U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s belief that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought, have signed an open letter supporting the U.N. talks.<br />
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Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross which functions as the de facto custodian of international humanitarian law, believes that a ban treaty “will reinforce the stigma against their use, support commitments to nuclear risk reduction and be a disincentive for proliferation.”<br />
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Even the 2016 NATO document conceded that “The effects of a nuclear weapons ban treaty could be wide-ranging.” Several of these were spelled out in the document.<br />
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In other words, U.S. opposition is built fundamentally not on the lack of practical effects of a ban treaty, but on the opposite: its very considerable impact in the real world. Indeed the strength of their opposition is difficult to fathom but for this recognition of the practical import of a ban treaty.<br />
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Advocates of the ban negotiations believe that the world needs to be made safe from nuclear weapons through their stigmatization, reduction, prohibition and verified elimination.<br />
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Opponents of the negotiations insist that instead the world should first be made safe for nuclear disarmament to happen. In effect they seem to believe that negotiations on banning nuclear weapons should begin only after nuclear weapons no longer exist.<br />
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It is time for the so-called realists to get real about the existential dangers of a world brimming with nuclear weapons and the urgent need to stigmatize, prohibit and eliminate them.<br />
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<i><b>Professor Ramesh Thakur is director of the Center for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, Australian National University.</b></i><br />
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<i><b>Source URL for original article: </b></i><a href="http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2017/03/29/commentary/japan-commentary/dont-obstruct-efforts-ban-nuclear-weapons/#.WNwbXVKZNsO">http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2017/03/29/commentary/japan-commentary/dont-obstruct-efforts-ban-nuclear-weapons/#.WNwbXVKZNsO</a><br />
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<br />Leonard Eigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08211690207308023413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560331176916273168.post-39717164578438671072017-03-01T22:45:00.005-08:002017-03-01T22:45:58.786-08:00Remembering Castle Bravo: Time for a Ban Treaty!On March 1, 1954 the United States tested the first deliverable hydrogen bomb, code named "Bravo”, at Bikini Atoll, in the Marshall Islands. Bravo was the largest U.S. nuclear test ever exploded, with a yield of 15 megatons, 1000 times larger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima (and well beyond the predicted yield of 6 megatons). It blasted a crater 1.2 miles in diameter into the atoll.<br />
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Castle Bravo was supposed to be a secret test, but because its designers underestimated its yield, things went dreadfully wrong in a flash. Because of the fission products, huge yield and shifting winds, radioactive fallout from the cloud spread quickly and far, contaminating over seven thousand square miles of surrounding ocean and nearby inhabited islands including Rongerik and Rongelap. The flash could be clearly seen 250 miles away (some secret!).<br />
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Radioactive fallout from the test affected U.S. service personnel on ships, natives of Rongelap Island, 100 miles from the test, Utrick Island, 300 miles away, and fishermen on a Japanese vessel, the Daigo Fukuryu Maru, or Lucky Dragon. The crew were fishing outside of the U.S. declared exclusion zone when Castle Bravo detonated. The ship was covered in fine radioactive ash soon after the explosion. By the time the ship returned to Japan all 23 crew members suffered from the effects of acute radiation syndrome - including nausea, headache, burns, pains in the eyes, and bleeding from the gums - and were admitted to hospitals.<br />
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One of the crew, chief radio operator Aikichi Kuboyama, died on September 23 from the effects of radiation exposure. His last words were:<br />
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<b><i>I pray that I am the last victim of an atomic or hydrogen bomb.</i></b></div>
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Several hundred other fishing vessels and their crews were also exposed to the fallout from Castle Bravo.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqR4awijANBbzN8-c_orC3Mk5cCmRCCRmxphimugJPE7jFZZhnw4FS4-sJdTvL_wZfSsZWxa7r9A_MpXyNTE-IynXeSOv4X5EkjS8dfvlXte5KHrpAAsN70OgVBLcFxNRnL9ifnxDziRI/s1600/MOV_DOXA_NuclearSavage_2315-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqR4awijANBbzN8-c_orC3Mk5cCmRCCRmxphimugJPE7jFZZhnw4FS4-sJdTvL_wZfSsZWxa7r9A_MpXyNTE-IynXeSOv4X5EkjS8dfvlXte5KHrpAAsN70OgVBLcFxNRnL9ifnxDziRI/s320/MOV_DOXA_NuclearSavage_2315-1.jpg" width="201" /></a>The nearby islands' inhabitants as well as U.S. military personnel stationed there for the test were exposed to the radioactive fallout, and subsequently evacuated. All were exposed to significant levels<br />
of radiation; although short term effects were mild, long term effects were significant for many. 90% of the Marshall Islands' population experienced thyroid tumors. The Marshall Islanders and their lands were essentially involuntary test subjects in the U.S. governments nuclear testing, as were U.S. service personnel.<br />
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The U.S. continued atmospheric nuclear testing around the Marshall Islands, conducting 67 tests at Bikini and Enewetak atolls between 1946 and 1958 leaving a legacy of contamination and death. 840 Marshall islanders are believed to have died from health problems caused by the tests. As of the end of 2003, more than 1,000 islanders were suffering from symptoms believed related to radiation exposure. In 1956, the United States Atomic Energy Commission called the Marshall Islands “by far the most contaminated place in the world.” Today (63 years later) the Marshall Islands are still contaminated, and radioactive cesium is found in water and fruits.<br />
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Back in the early 1970s the U.S. government declared Bikini safe for resettlement, and some residents returned. They were removed once again in 1978 after it was discovered that they had ingested high levels of radioisotopes from eating foods grown on the former nuclear test site. Residents of Rongelap Atoll underwent similar indignities. The U.S. has been derelict in failing to protect the health and welfare of the Marshall Islanders and their lands, and has failed to recognize their suffering and adequately compensate them.<br />
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The Marshall Islands have tried to bring the greater issue to the attention of the world. Among their strategies has been to file a lawsuit against the U.S., and eight other nuclear powers, in U.S. District Court, alleging that the U.S., as occupying superpower, has continued to modernize its nuclear arsenal in defiance of Article VI of the Treaty for the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).<br />
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Whatever the legal outcome of such actions, it should be clear that the United States has no moral standing on this issue. The continued pursuit of nuclear weapons and the threat of their use against other nations constitute crimes against humanity.<br />
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The Cold War is a distant memory (although a new Cold War is brewing); and yet the United States and Russia still maintain thousands of nuclear missiles ready to launch on warning. The President of the United States may have just a few minutes to make the fateful decision to launch nuclear weapons in case of warning of a nuclear attack. In 1995, Russia came within a few minutes of launching a nuclear counterattack after it initially interpreted the launch of a scientific rocket from Norway as a first strike. This is just one close call among many documented incidents involving both the United States and the Soviet Union/Russia. A number of them have been just too close.<br />
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The Bush administration repeatedly refused to pledge to a "no first use" policy regarding the use of nuclear weapons. President Obama never explicitly stated a "no first use" policy. And now we have a president who has stated that "we're going to be at the top of the pack" when it comes to nuclear weapons. He most likely doesn't even understand what "first use" even means, let alone the existential implications of using nuclear weapons.<br />
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Looking forward we should remember those last words of Aikichi Kuboyama before he died of radiation poisoning. We must work to remove the nuclear sword of Damocles hanging over humanity. If we fail in this task, we will have failed Kuboyama and all who have suffered from the effects of nuclear weapons.<br />
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<b>Support the upcoming United Nations Nuclear Ban Treaty Negotiations beginning this month. Learn more at the <a href="http://www.icanw.org/" target="_blank">International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons</a></b>.<br />
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<br />Leonard Eigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08211690207308023413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560331176916273168.post-39499173108422219562016-12-11T16:25:00.002-08:002016-12-11T16:28:33.909-08:00Divestment: Putting our money to work for peaceDivestment works! The divestment campaign mounted in the 1980s in protest of South Africa's apartheid system pressured the South African Government to begin negotiations ultimately leading to the dismantling of the Apartheid system.<br />
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Today we have a 70-year legacy of building and maintaining nuclear weapons that has benefited only the companies that have built and maintained them, along with the companies and organizations (and individuals) that have invested in them.<br />
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The newest <a href="http://www.dontbankonthebomb.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/2016_Report_final.pdf" target="_blank"><i><b>Don't Bank on the Bomb</b></i> report</a>, from the Dutch organization <a href="https://www.paxforpeace.nl/" target="_blank"><b>PAX</b></a>, identifies 390 banks, insurance companies and pension funds that still invest in nuclear weapon producing companies. Since 2013, these companies have made nearly half a trillion dollars available to companies involved in the production of nuclear weapons.<br />
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The vast majority of governments in the United Nations recently voted to negotiate a nuclear weapons ban treaty in 2017, and it is high time for financial institutions to make the moral/ethical decision to stop investing in companies involved with nuclear weapons.<br />
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Currently, eighteen financial institutions, managing more than $1.8 trillion, prohibit investments in nuclear weapons producers. These institutions are prepared for the legal implications of a ban on nuclear weapons to be negotiated at the UN in 2017.<br />
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Another 36 institutions have some form of limitation on such investments. But far too many institutions are still investing in nuclear weapons producers, according to the <a href="http://www.dontbankonthebomb.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/2016_Report_final.pdf" target="_blank"><i>Don’t Bank on the Bomb</i> report</a>.<br />
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<a href="http://www.dontbankonthebomb.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/2016_Report_final.pdf" target="_blank"><i>Don't Bank on the Bomb</i></a> tells us what companies are working on nuclear weapons, who is investing in them (the Hall of Shame), and most importantly - who is not (the Hall of Fame). With this information we, as both individuals and organizations, can make informed decisions about our investments. As clients and investors we can pressure the banks, pension funds and insurance companies to divest and reinvest in a responsible way. This is just one important way we can bring about the abolition of nuclear weapons.<br />
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Read the <a href="http://www.dontbankonthebomb.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/2016_Report_final.pdf" target="_blank"><i>Don't Bank on the Bomb</i> report</a> and share it widely. Then we can all put our hard-earned money to work for peace.Leonard Eigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08211690207308023413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560331176916273168.post-32568244093389039382016-10-29T21:59:00.002-07:002016-11-01T08:39:20.298-07:00Speak Up, Speak Out! Interview on Current Nuclear Weapons IssuesGinny Wolff, of Speak Up, Speak Out! on KSVR - FM, interviewed me last week about the work of Ground Zero Center for Non-Violent Action since 1977 to protest the Trident submarines based at the Bangor Naval Base in Silverdale, Washington. We discussed the history of Ground Zero, the bigger picture of U.S. foreign policy regarding the use of nuclear weapons, ongoing international tension, and the agreement between Congress and the Obama administration to spend a trillion dollars over 30 years to rebuild the entire U.S. arsenal of nuclear weapons.<br />
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<b>The interview ends with a simple message listeners can deliver to President Obama. After listening, you can <a href="https://secure3.convio.net/ucs/site/Advocacy;jsessionid=11891EC38E571243230D1B28E7C63061.app312b?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=4497&autologin=true&rtgro=90210" target="_blank">click here to send your message to President Obama</a>. </b>You can find additional action alerts at the right hand column (top of the page).<br />
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Thanks to KSVR and Speak Up, Speak Out! for covering important issues you won't hear in the mainstream/corporate media.<br />
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<iframe frameborder="no" height="450" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/290467105&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%"></iframe><br />Leonard Eigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08211690207308023413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560331176916273168.post-52097852938717362812016-10-29T11:58:00.003-07:002016-10-30T19:45:45.099-07:00Praying (and Working) for a Nuclear Weapon-Free WorldGreetings Friends,<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The monument "Stronger Than Death"<br />
in Semey, Kazakhstan</td></tr>
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Earlier this week the United Nations, <a href="http://www.icanw.org/campaign-news/un-votes-to-outlaw-nuclear-weapons-in-2017/" target="_blank">in a truly historic vote</a>, moved closer to establishing a legally binding instrument to prohibiting nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination. The United States shamelessly lobbied and pressured other nations to vote against the measure. The General Assembly will take a final vote in December, and the UN will then take up deliberations in 2017 to negotiate the details and finalize this important work on a treaty to de-legitimize and legally ban nuclear weapons. <br />
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So many people from so many nations have been working tirelessly, and in so many different ways, to create a nuclear weapon-free world. With the nuclear-armed nations and their vassal states (living under the mythical "nuclear umbrella") pushing so hard against our efforts, the job has been anything but easy.<br />
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In August, many of us attended an <a href="http://www.astanaconf2016.org/" target="_blank">international conference in Astana</a>, Kazakhstan organized by Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (PNND) and the Kazakh Government to discuss and plan concrete actions to abolish nuclear weapons. Nearly 200 legislators, religious leaders, government officials, diplomats, veterans, representatives of international organizations, academics, scientists, medical professionals, lawyers, and nuclear disarmament campaigners gathered for this conference, which was held on the 25th anniversary of the closing of the Soviet nuclear test site in Kazakhstan. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">URI's United Nations Representative, <br />
Monica Willard, with the Nuclear Prayer<br />
at the monument "Stronger Than Death"</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
From 1949, the Semipalatinsk region in the (then) Soviet republic of Kazakhstan was the site of 456 test explosions of nuclear weapons. The multigenerational impacts on human health on the steppe of northeast Kazakhstan have been devastating, with over 1.5 million people suffering cancers, birth deformities, and other serious illness or death from the resulting radiation.<br />
<br />
On August 31st, some of the Astana conference delegates travelled to learn and bear witness to the legacy of nuclear testing on the Kazakh people. Some travelled to the nuclear test site itself; and others visited the medical center that treats victims of the nuclear testing, the radiation effects research center, and the Peace Park commemorating the Kazakh nuclear testing legacy.<br />
<br />
At both "Ground Zero" at the test site and at the base of the monument, "Stronger than Death", in the Semey Peace Park, the two groups circled and read the Prayer for a Nuclear Free World (The Nuclear Prayer). The prayer, written by The Right Rev William E. Swing, founder of <a href="http://uri.org/" target="_blank">United Religion Initiative</a> (URI), to help strengthen interfaith movements against nuclear weapons, brought us together in a shared belief in our common humanity and the possibility of a nuclear weapon-free world.<br />
<br />
Here is the video of the group at the Peace Park reading the Nuclear Prayer (and below it the full text):<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="214" mozallowfullscreen="" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/181707232" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="380"></iframe><br />
<a href="https://vimeo.com/181707232">Nuclear Prayer (unedited)</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/user7952556">Leonard Eiger</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i><a href="http://www.uri.org/the_latest/2015/04/a_prayer_for_those_whose_hearts_carry_the_weight_of_nuclear_weapons" target="_blank">A Prayer for Those Whose Hearts Carry the Weight of Nuclear Weapons</a></i></b></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><b>The Beginning and the End are in your hands, O Creator of the Universe. And in our hands you have placed the fate of this planet. We, who are tested by having both creative and destructive power in our free will, turn to you in sober fear and intoxicating hope. We ask for your guidance and to share in your imagination in our deliberations about the use of nuclear force. Help us to lift the fog of atomic darkness that hovers so pervasively over our Earth, Your Earth, so that soon all eyes may see life magnified by your pure light. </b></i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><b>Bless all of us who wait today for your Presence and who dedicate ourselves to achieve your intended peace and rightful equilibrium on Earth. In the Name of all that is holy and all that is hoped. Amen. </b></i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- Written by the Rt. Rev. William E. Swing,<br />
President and Founder<br />
United Religions Initiative (URI)<br />
December 4, 2014</blockquote>
At the end of our journey to Semey, I felt a renewed sense of hope (as I believe we all did), as well as renewed spiritual strength for the journey (and difficult work) ahead. These two small prayer circles were small, yet significant acts, and I hope that these circles can expand like ripples on the water by sharing The Nuclear Prayer with you, and you with others. As we continue to expand our circles of faith, hope and action, we can hasten the day when the leaders of the nuclear-armed nations will be forced to see the inhumanity of their actions - the crimes against humanity they commit through the possession and threat of use of nuclear weapons.<br />
<br />
Toward a Nuclear Weapon-Free World,<br />
<br />
Leonard<br />
<br />
<b><a href="http://www.uri.org/files/resource_files/TheNuclearPrayer_EnglishSpanish.pdf" target="_blank">Click here to download</a> the PDF version of the Nuclear Prayer in English and Spanish.</b>Leonard Eigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08211690207308023413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560331176916273168.post-54973327809894365592016-10-28T09:30:00.002-07:002016-10-28T09:30:55.790-07:00“Historic” U.N. Vote for Nuclear Weapons Ban<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Swiss, SunSans-Regular; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; padding-bottom: 5px !important; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">
<b>EDITOR'S NOTE:</b> The United Nations General Assembly voted yesterday to move forward to negotiate a total ban on nuclear weapons. This is a historic vote, and is the beginning of a global effort to finally move past the archaic stonewalling of the nuclear-armed nations that has made a sham of treaty obligations (e.g., the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons). The following news release from the <a href="http://www.accuracy.org/release/historic-u-n-vote-for-nuclear-ban/" target="_blank">Institute for Public Accuracy</a> contains an analysis of the vote by Ira Helfand, past president of<span style="color: #500050;"> </span><a href="http://www.psr.org/about/board-of-directors/ira-helfand.html" style="color: #015382; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Physicians for Social Responsibility</a> and current co-president of <a href="http://www.ippnw.org/" target="_blank">International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War</a>. Time to move forward!!!</div>
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AP reports: “United Nations member states voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to approve a resolution calling for negotiations on a treaty that would outlaw nuclear weapons, despite strong opposition from nuclear-armed nations and their allies.</div>
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“The vote in the U.N. disarmament and international security committee saw 123 nations voting in favor of the resolution, 38 opposing and 16 abstaining.</div>
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“The resolution was sponsored by Austria, Brazil, Ireland, Mexico, Nigeria and South Africa.</div>
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“The United States, Russia, Israel, France and the United Kingdom were among the countries voting against the measure.</div>
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“The resolution now goes to a full General Assembly vote sometime in December.”</div>
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IRA HELFAND, MD,<span style="color: #500050;"> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/IPPNW" style="color: #015382; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">@IPPNW</a><br />
<span style="color: #500050;"> </span>Helfand is past president of<span style="color: #500050;"> </span><a href="http://www.psr.org/about/board-of-directors/ira-helfand.html" style="color: #015382; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Physicians for Social Responsibility</a> and is currently co-president of that group’s global federation, the <a href="http://www.ippnw.org/" style="color: #015382; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War</a>, recipient of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize.</div>
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Helfand said today: “In an historic move the United Nations First Committee voted Thursday to convene a conference next March to negotiate a new treaty to ban the possession of nuclear weapons. The vote is a huge step forward in the campaign to rid the world of nuclear weapons launched several years ago by non-nuclear weapons states and civil society from across the globe.</div>
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“Dismayed by the failure of the nuclear weapons states to honor their obligation under Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty which requires them to pursue good faith negotiations for the elimination of their nuclear arsenals, and moved by the growing danger of nuclear war, more than 120 nations gathered in Oslo in March of 2013 to review the latest scientific data about the catastrophic consequences that will result from the use of nuclear weapons. The conference shifted the focus of international discussion about nuclear war from abstract consideration of nuclear strategy to an evaluation of the medical data about what will actually happen if these weapons are used. It was boycotted by all of the major nuclear powers, the U.S., Russia, UK, China and France, the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, or P5.</div>
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“Further meetings in Nayarit, Mexico and Vienna followed in 2014 and culminated in a pledge by the Austrian government to ‘close the gap’ in international law that does yet specifically outlaw the possession of these weapons. More than 140 countries ultimately associated themselves with the pledge which was fiercely opposed by the United States and the other nuclear weapons states, and in the fall of 2015 the U.N. General Assembly voted to establish an Open Ended Working Group which met in Geneva earlier this year and recommended the negotiations approved Thursday.</div>
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“The United States, which led the opposition, had hoped to limit the ‘Yes’ vote to less than one hundred, but failed badly. The final vote was 123 For, 38 Against and 16 Abstentions. The ‘No’ votes came from the nuclear weapons states, and U.S. allies in NATO, plus Japan, South Korea and Australia, which have treaty ties to the U.S., and consider themselves to be under the protection of the ‘U.S. nuclear umbrella.’</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT_duQzCmhf9BZW5pec-nQor21qnNSP-biKh7ukgt3GPbuyNLmGJKcYD3e-G2eJ3SThFu-oTtjAOBdPpElI6_3iu3qUech2pIwh_ATZDsSef0B-GCO5DhdROxV6rmP6VsIeotONpqpSCE/s1600/Cv2oK1GXEAAKURe.jpg-large.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT_duQzCmhf9BZW5pec-nQor21qnNSP-biKh7ukgt3GPbuyNLmGJKcYD3e-G2eJ3SThFu-oTtjAOBdPpElI6_3iu3qUech2pIwh_ATZDsSef0B-GCO5DhdROxV6rmP6VsIeotONpqpSCE/s400/Cv2oK1GXEAAKURe.jpg-large.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">How the nations voted</td></tr>
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“But four nuclear weapons states broke ranks, with China, India and Pakistan abstaining, and North Korea voting in favor of the treaty negotiations. In addition, the Netherlands defied intense pressure from the rest of NATO and abstained, as did Finland, which is not a member of NATO but has close ties with the alliance. Japan which voted with the U.S. against the treaty has indicated that it will, nonetheless, participate in the negotiations when they begin in March.</div>
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“The U.S, and the other nuclear weapons states will probably try to block final approval of the treaty conference by the General Assembly later this fall, but, following Thursday’s vote, it appears overwhelmingly likely that negotiations will begin in March, and that they will involve a significant majority of U.N. member states, even if the nuclear states continue their boycott.</div>
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“The successful completion of a new treaty will not of itself eliminate nuclear weapons. But it will put powerful new pressure on the nuclear weapons states who clearly do not want to uphold their obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty even as they insist that the non-nuclear weapons states meet theirs.</div>
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“We have come perilously close to nuclear war on multiple occasions during the last 70 years, and we have been incredibly lucky. U.S. nuclear policy cannot continue to be the hope that we will remain lucky in the future. We need to join and lead the growing movement to abolish nuclear weapons and work to bring the other nuclear weapons states into a binding agreement that sets out the detailed time line for eliminating these weapons and the detailed verification and enforcement mechanisms to make sure they are eliminated.</div>
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“This will not be an easy task, but we really have no choice. If we don’t get rid of these weapons, someday, perhaps sooner rather than later, they will be used and they will destroy human civilization. The decision is ours.”</div>
Leonard Eigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08211690207308023413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560331176916273168.post-24784809637500334442016-10-16T23:35:00.000-07:002016-10-16T23:38:46.784-07:00Next president has a nuclear option: Scrap the program<b><i>NOTE: This Opinion was originally published in the Seattle Times on September 27, 2016.</i></b><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFazpexE4DDqZBM3p0ZWpTkJP2KO3JDqYCIwhsz2j34OwCo140_3PIXcOb2z3IS_S3tBJuojqYjxA7fpwO6wwaKuPuB2S3EGhijTWYE_C__FzElYyPIgTMa4kdcbzcq983NNKGUo9VJ38/s1600/c50dc96a-84fa-11e6-9971-0c04527d79d0-1560x941.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFazpexE4DDqZBM3p0ZWpTkJP2KO3JDqYCIwhsz2j34OwCo140_3PIXcOb2z3IS_S3tBJuojqYjxA7fpwO6wwaKuPuB2S3EGhijTWYE_C__FzElYyPIgTMa4kdcbzcq983NNKGUo9VJ38/s400/c50dc96a-84fa-11e6-9971-0c04527d79d0-1560x941.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The USS Ohio sailing in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The Trident nuclear submarine <br />
has been converted to a guided missile submarine. It was first launched in 1979, <br />
and was the original nuclear submarine in the U.S. Pacific Fleet... <br />
(Steve Ringman/The Seattle Times)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b>By David Hall and Leonard Eiger</b><br />
Special to The Times<br />
<br />
HAVE you seen the Seattle bus ads? They read: “20 miles west of Seattle is the largest concentration of deployed nuclear weapons in the U.S.”<br />
<br />
In light of recent media attention on who should have their finger on the nuclear button, this statement seems to beg the question: With so many nuclear weapons, what would happen should the president order their use?<br />
<br />
“Mutual-assured destruction” is still central to U.S. nuclear deterrence policy. U.S. and Russian nuclear-armed missiles remain on hair-trigger alert 24/7, threatening to end civilization.<br />
<br />
One hydrogen bomb deployed from Naval Base Kitsap on Hood Canal could wipe out a large city like Seattle and make the land uninhabitable for centuries. Look up the presentation “One city, one bomb” to understand the devastating potential of modern nuclear weapons.<br />
<br />
The United States is the only nation to have used nuclear weapons against another, and we have led the nuclear arms race from its beginning in 1945. Now Congress and the Obama administration have adopted a trillion-dollar plan to rebuild the entire nuclear-weapons complex, including replacement of the Trident submarine fleet on Hood Canal, over the next 30 years. Trident submarines are considered the deadliest weapon ever built.<br />
<br />
When our leaders warn that “all options are on the table,” they are threatening to use nuclear weapons. This has happened dozens of times since WW II, including during the Korean and Vietnam wars.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1AJr-XR98ovN2BNusx9onbY-Ez9vcrqd5o3Zw0Udd_OFH1BpnumMg4ncdk7joKoCtzhMUf8u-CmgssI-6kCmlgDE9KJBVeI4IqTBnRn5VUsD8JhNHygehBX6f4bIC4yO-HSVIUU2Ocyo/s1600/GZ+Bus+Ad%252C+by+Leonard+Eiger-min.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1AJr-XR98ovN2BNusx9onbY-Ez9vcrqd5o3Zw0Udd_OFH1BpnumMg4ncdk7joKoCtzhMUf8u-CmgssI-6kCmlgDE9KJBVeI4IqTBnRn5VUsD8JhNHygehBX6f4bIC4yO-HSVIUU2Ocyo/s400/GZ+Bus+Ad%252C+by+Leonard+Eiger-min.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: start;">King County Metro bus ad reading, “20 miles west of Seattle <br />is the largest concentration of deployed nuclear weapons <br />in the U.S. (Courtesy of Leonard Eiger)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Once the current international prohibition against using nuclear weapons is breached, the door is open for every nuclear-capable nation to use nuclear weapons. Climate scientists have modeled a “small” nuclear war between India and Pakistan assuming 50 Hiroshima-sized bombs from each side targeting cities. Smoke and soot would be lofted by superheated air into the upper atmosphere, lowering temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere enough to reduce agricultural production for a decade. That’s how 2 billion food-insecure people in South Asia and China could starve to death.<br />
<br />
This is our policy: to threaten these consequences. But decision-makers are not calculating the scale of devastation built into a single nuclear warhead, much less the thousands they plan to maintain throughout this century. Because the U.S. is building up its nuclear capability, other nuclear nations are building up theirs.<br />
<br />
Think the Cuban missile crisis to understand Russian fears of the proximity of U.S. nuclear weapons. The Cuban missile crisis, often described as the closest humankind has come to incinerating itself, was caused by nuclear weapons in proximity to U.S. shores. And the recent coup in Turkey could have put 50 nuclear warheads in potentially unstable hands.<br />
<br />
Washington state sits at the center of U.S. nuclear policy for our deployed nuclear weapons at Naval Base Kitsapand for the largest Superfund site in our hemisphere at the Hanford nuclear reservation. Plutonium production for U.S. nuclear weapons left millions of gallons of highly corrosive and radiologically lethal sludge that we may never be able to safely dispose.<br />
<br />
We are looking for leaders who understand that nuclear weapons are immoral and must never be used. Nuclear weapons threaten genocide on a scale that decision-makers refuse to talk about. The use of nuclear weapons are illegal under the laws of war and humanitarian law — unusable because there is no secure way to limit escalation, exorbitantly expensive and are a massive diversion of human talent and resources away from diplomacy, foreign assistance, innovation and public health.<br />
<br />
U.S. priorities in the world are clearly written into our national budget.For the sake of future generations, we ask, “What will be the priorities of the next administration?”<br />
<br />
<i>David Hall, of Lopez Island, and Leonard Eiger, of North Bend, are active members of Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action and Physicians for Social Responsibility.</i><br />
<br />
URL for original publication: <a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/next-president-has-a-nuclear-option-scrap-the-program/">http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/next-president-has-a-nuclear-option-scrap-the-program/</a>Leonard Eigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08211690207308023413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560331176916273168.post-70256015333256778352016-09-28T09:58:00.001-07:002016-10-16T18:18:27.219-07:00Chain Reaction 2016From July to October 2016, civil society around the world is acting in a Chain Reaction of peace to highlight the immorality and insecurity of nuclear weapons, to oppose the institutions and policies perpetuating the nuclear arms race, and to support nuclear disarmament actions by governments and the United Nations.<br />
<br />
This action is engaging youth, environmentalists, parliamentarians, mayors, religious leaders, human rights activists and other representatives of civil society.<br />
<br />
Chain Reaction is facilitated by UNFOLD ZERO, and the Basel Peace Office, which created this video showcasing events related to the CHAIN REACTION 2016.<br />
<br />
My hope is that the energy of these past few months will grow into a sustained CHAIN REACTION, continuing until the day on which the last nuclear weapon is destroyed. Join us!<br />
<br />
This video highlights the actions going on around the world that are part of the CHAIN REACTION!<br />
<br />
<iframe width="409" height="230" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wCZHY1JZS5s" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
<br />
<i>URL for YouTube video: <a href="https://youtu.be/wCZHY1JZS5s">https://youtu.be/wCZHY1JZS5s</a> </i>Leonard Eigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08211690207308023413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560331176916273168.post-28258088305044265662016-09-14T16:47:00.000-07:002016-09-14T16:51:09.437-07:00The Astana Vision: From а Radioactive Haze to a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Editor's Note:</b> I recently participated in the international conference in Astatna, Kazakhstan - Building a Nuclear Weapon-Free World. </span>The conference included parliamentarians, mayors, religious leaders, government representatives and disarmament experts, and was held in conjunction with the 25th anniversary of the closing the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site.<br />
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Kazakhstan's leadership toward a nuclear weapon-free world has, until now, gone largely unnoticed. In addition to closing the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site in 1991 and subsequently decommissioning it, Kazakhstan also relinquished its entire nuclear arsenal (then the fourth largest in the world) to Russia. These were unarguably the most significant acts in the history of nuclear disarmament, and were the first significant acts toward that end. </span><br />
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-kerning: none;">It has been under the leadership of President Nursultan Nazarbayev that Kazakhstan has moved away from nuclear weapons, and today he continues to lead the way, calling for a new paradigm of collective security for all nations.</span><br />
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span>
The conference just held adopted the following declaration, which sets a direction for disarmament and calls on governments to take specific steps toward a nuclear weapon-free world. This is the full text of the declaration, <b style="font-style: italic; text-align: center;">The Astana Vision: </b><span style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-weight: bold;">From а Radioactive Haze to a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World, </i>adopted August 29, 2016.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Declaration</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>The Astana Vision: <br />
From а Radioactive Haze to a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Adopted in Astana, August 29, 2016 <br />
at an international conference ‘Building a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World’ <br />
co-hosted by the Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan and Parliamentarians for Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">On 29 August 1991, precisely 25 years ago, President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, with the support of a popular movement of civil society against nuclear tests, closed down the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site, the first such step in the world history of disarmament. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The 456 nuclear weapons explosions conducted by the Soviet Union at the Semipalatinsk test site in eastern Kazakhstan have created a catastrophic impact on human health and environment, for current and future generations. The legacy from the nuclear tests around the world, including the Pacific, Asia, North Africa and North America, and the experience of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the risks of nuclear-weapons-use by accident, miscalculation or design - establish a global imperative to abolish these weapons. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We commend the leadership of President Nazarbayev and the people of Kazakhstan for voluntarily renouncing the world’s fourth largest nuclear arsenal, joining the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), achieving a <i>Central Asian Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone</i>, launching <i>The ATOM Project </i>to educate the world about dangers and long-term consequences of nuclear tests, moving the United Nations to establish August 29 as the <i>International Day Against Nuclear Tests</i>, initiating a <i>Universal Declaration for a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World</i> adopted by the United Nations in 2015, and advancing a <i>Manifesto “The World. The 21</i></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9.3px; line-height: normal;"><i><sup>st</sup></i></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> Century”</i> to end the scourge of war.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We support the ambition expressed in the Manifesto that a nuclear-weapons-free world should be the main goal of humanity in the 21</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9.3px; line-height: normal;"><sup>st</sup></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> century, and that this should be achieved no later than the 100</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9.3px; line-height: normal;"><sup>th</sup></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> anniversary of the United Nations in 2045.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We commend world leaders for taking action, through the series of Nuclear Security Summits and other international action, to prevent nuclear weapons or their components from falling into the hands of terrorists. However, world leaders should join President Nazarbayev in placing a similar high priority on nuclear disarmament. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We deplore the continued testing of nuclear weapons by the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea, and we express concern at the continuing modernization of nuclear weapons by all nuclear-armed States. With tensions growing among these states, an accidental or intentional military incident could send the world spiraling into a disastrous nuclear confrontation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We recognize the special responsibility of the legislatures and legislators around the world for further advancement of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament at the global level and for the adoption of relevant legislation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We congratulate Kazakhstan on the country’s election as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) for 2017-2018. We are confident that Kazakhstan will work closely with other Security Council members to prevent nuclear proliferation and advance the peace and security of a nuclear-weapon-free world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We support the initiative put forward at this conference for President Nazarbayev to establish an international prize for outstanding contribution to nuclear disarmament and the achievement of a nuclear weapon free world, and the announcement of the Astana Peace Summit in 2016. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We welcome the progress made in the Open Ended Working Group on Taking Forward Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament Negotiations, and we urge governments around the world to do more.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We - as legislators, religious leaders, representatives of international organisations, academics, scientists, medical professionals, lawyers, youth and other representatives of civil society - specifically call on governments to:</span></div>
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<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Sign and Ratify the CTBT, in particular the nuclear armed States, if they have not already done so, noting the symbolism of this conference taking place on the 25</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9.3px; line-height: normal;"><sup>th </sup></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">anniversary of the closure of the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site and the 20</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9.3px; line-height: normal;"><sup>th </sup></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">anniversary of the opening for signing of the CTBT;</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Initiate negotiations and substantive discussions in accordance with the adopted 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Plan of Action, and the universal obligation to negotiate for complete nuclear disarmament affirmed by the International Court of Justice in 1996;</li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Establish a Middle East Zone free from Nuclear Weapons and other Weapons of Mass Destruction as agreed at the 1995 Review and Extension Conference, and call upon the United Nations Secretary-General to advance this mandate; and establish additional nuclear-weapon-free zones, such as in North East Asia, Europe and the Arctic;</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Reduce the risks of nuclear-weapons-use by taking all nuclear forces off high-operational readiness, adopting no-first-use policies and refraining from any threats to use nuclear weapons;</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Fully implement their treaty and customary law obligations to achieve zero nuclear weapons;</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Commence multilateral negotiations in 2017 to prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons;</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Support interim measures by the UN Security Council regarding nuclear disarmament, including to prohibit nuclear tests and nuclear targeting of populated areas;</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Further develop the methods and mechanisms for verifying and enforcing global nuclear disarmament, including through participation in the International Partnership for Nuclear Disarmament Verification; </span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Eliminate the reliance on nuclear deterrence in security doctrines, and instead resolve international conflicts through diplomacy, law, regional mechanisms, the United Nations and other peaceful means;</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Call on all nuclear weapon states to undertake deep cuts to their nuclear weapons stockpiles with the aim to completely eliminate them as soon as possible, but definitely no later than the 100</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9.3px; line-height: normal;"><sup>th</sup></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> anniversary of the United Nations.</span></li>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We are ready to support and cooperate with governments to abolish nuclear weapons. The cooperation between different constituents at this international event provides a platform for building the global movement to achieve nuclear disarmament.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Deeply concerned for the future of all humanity, and encouraged by the example of Kazakhstan in the field of nuclear disarmament we affirm the possibility and necessity to achieve the peace and security of a nuclear-weapon-free world in our lifetimes.</span></div>
Leonard Eigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08211690207308023413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560331176916273168.post-76402408038079834062016-09-12T20:41:00.000-07:002016-09-12T21:04:01.350-07:00Isn’t It Time to Ban the Bomb?<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 12px;"><i>By Lawrence S. Wittner*</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Although the mass media failed to report it, a landmark event occurred recently in connection with resolving the long-discussed problem of what to do about nuclear weapons. On August 19, 2016, a UN committee, the innocuously-named Open-Ended Working Group, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/21/australia-attempts-to-derail-un-plan-to-ban-nuclear-weapons"><span style="color: #0433ff; line-height: normal;">voted to recommend</span></a> to the UN General Assembly that it mandate the opening of negotiations in 2017 on a treaty to ban them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">For most people, this recommendation makes a lot of sense. Nuclear weapons are the most destructive devices ever created. If they are used―as two of them were used in 1945 to annihilate the populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki―the more than <a href="http://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-forces/"><span style="color: #0433ff; line-height: normal;">15,000 nuclear weapons</span></a> currently in existence would destroy the world. Given their enormous blast, fire, and radioactivity, their explosion would bring an end to virtually all life on earth. The few human survivors would be left to wander, slowly and painfully, in a charred, radioactive wasteland. Even the explosion of a small number of nuclear weapons through war, terrorism, or accident would constitute a catastrophe of unprecedented magnitude.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Every President of the United States since 1945, from Harry Truman to Barack Obama, has warned the world of the horrors of nuclear war. Even <a href="http://www.thereaganvision.org/quotes/"><span style="color: #0433ff; line-height: normal;">Ronald Reagan</span></a>―perhaps the most military-minded among them―declared again and again: “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Fortunately, there is no technical problem in disposing of nuclear weapons. Through negotiated treaties and unilateral action, nuclear disarmament, with verification, has <a href="http://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-forces/"><span style="color: #0433ff; line-height: normal;">already taken place</span></a> quite successfully, eliminating roughly 55,000 nuclear weapons of the 70,000 in existence at the height of the Cold War.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Also, the world’s other agents of mass destruction, <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/bwc"><span style="color: #0433ff; line-height: normal;">biological</span></a> and <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/cwcglance"><span style="color: #0433ff; line-height: normal;">chemical</span></a> weapons, have already been banned by international agreements.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Naturally, then, most people think that creating a nuclear weapons-free world is a good idea. A <a href="http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/international_security_bt/577.php"><span style="color: #0433ff; line-height: normal;">2008 poll</span></a> in 21 nations around the globe found that 76 percent of respondents favored an international agreement for the elimination of all nuclear weapons and only 16 percent opposed it. This included 77 percent of the respondents in the United States. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">But government officials from the nine nuclear-armed nations are inclined to view nuclear weapons―or at least <i>their</i> nuclear weapons―quite differently. For centuries, competing nations have leaned heavily upon military might to secure what they consider their “national interests.” Not surprisingly, then, national leaders have gravitated toward developing powerful military forces, armed with the most powerful weaponry. The fact that, with the advent of nuclear weapons, this traditional behavior has become counter-productive has only begun to penetrate their consciousness, usually helped along on such occasions by massive public pressure.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Consequently, officials of the superpowers and assorted wannabes, while paying lip service to nuclear disarmament, continue to regard it as a risky project. They are much more comfortable with maintaining nuclear arsenals and preparing for nuclear war. Thus, by signing the nuclear <a href="http://www.un.org/en/conf/npt/2005/npttreaty.html"><span style="color: #0433ff; line-height: normal;">Non-proliferation Treaty</span></a> of 1968, officials from the nuclear powers pledged to “pursue negotiations in good faith on . . . a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.” And today, nearly a half-century later, they have yet to begin negotiations on such a treaty. Instead, they are currently launching yet <a href="http://bos.sagepub.com/content/70/4/94.full"><span style="color: #0433ff; line-height: normal;">another round</span></a> in the nuclear arms race. The U.S. government alone is planning to spend <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/USNuclearModernization"><span style="color: #0433ff; line-height: normal;">$1 trillion</span></a> over the next 30 years to refurbish its entire nuclear weapons production complex, as well as to build new air-, sea-, and ground-launched nuclear weapons.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Of course, this enormous expenditure―plus the ongoing danger of nuclear disaster―could provide statesmen with a powerful incentive to end 71 years of playing with their doomsday weapons and, instead, get down to the business of finally ending the grim prospect of nuclear annihilation. In short, they could follow the lead of the UN committee and actually negotiate a ban on nuclear weapons as the first step toward abolishing them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">But, to judge from what happened in the UN Open-Ended Working Group, a negotiated nuclear weapons ban is not likely to occur. Uneasy about what might emerge from the committee’s deliberations, the nuclear powers pointedly <a href="https://peaceandhealthblog.com/2016/08/19/ban-treaty-on-way/"><span style="color: #0433ff; line-height: normal;">boycotted</span></a> them. Moreover, the <a href="http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/disarmament-fora/oewg/2016/august/reports/11122-oewg-report-vol-2-no-19"><span style="color: #0433ff; line-height: normal;">final vote</span></a> in that committee on pursuing negotiations for a ban was 68 in favor and 22 opposed, with 13 abstentions. The strong majority in favor of negotiations was comprised of African, Latin American, Caribbean, Southeast Asian, and Pacific nations, with several European nations joining them. The minority came primarily from nations under the nuclear umbrellas of the superpowers. Consequently, the same split seems likely to occur in the UN General Assembly, where the nuclear powers will do everything possible to head off UN action.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Overall, then, there is a growing division between the nuclear powers and their dependent allies, on the one hand, and a larger group of nations, fed up with the repeated evasions of the nuclear powers in dealing with the nuclear disaster that threatens to engulf the world. In this contest, the nuclear powers have the advantage, for, when all is said and done, they have the option of clinging to their nuclear weapons, even if that means ignoring a treaty adopted by a clear majority of nations around the world. Only an unusually firm stand by the non-nuclear nations, coupled with an uprising by an aroused public, seems likely to awaken the officials of the nuclear powers from their long sleepwalk toward catastrophe.</span></div>
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<i>*</i>Dr. Lawrence Wittner (<a href="http://www.lawrenceswittner.com/"><span style="color: #0433ff; line-height: normal;">http://www.lawrenceswittner.com</span></a>) is Professor of History emeritus at SUNY/Albany. He wrote <i><a href="http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=9646" target="_blank">Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement</a>. </i>His latest book is a satirical novel about university corporatization and rebellion, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Whats-Going-UAardvark-Lawrence-Wittner/dp/0692261125/ref=sr_1_1_twi_pap_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1442077534&sr=1-1&keywords=what%2527s+going+on+at+UAardvark%253F"><span style="color: #0433ff; line-height: normal;"><i>What’s Going On at UAardvark?</i></span></a><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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Leonard Eigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08211690207308023413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560331176916273168.post-42533252143558344782016-07-13T18:14:00.000-07:002016-07-13T18:17:15.280-07:00Be Part of the CHAIN REACTION 2016!<b>There are roughly 15,000 nuclear weapons in the world. The only safe number is ZERO! Now is the time to break free of nuclear weapons. We need a huge groundswell of global citizen support and action to put pressure on the nuclear weapon states to assume their responsibility to disarm. CHAIN REACTION 2016 is an effort to help make this happen.</b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">WHAT is CHAIN REACTION 2016?</span></b><br />
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A nuclear bomb destroys through an uncontrollable chain reaction of atoms being split in two. There are over 15,000 nuclear weapons in the world’s arsenals – ready to destroy the world.<br />
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From July to October 2016, civil society around the world is acting in a Chain Reaction of peace to highlight the immorality and insecurity of nuclear weapons, to oppose the institutions and policies perpetuating the nuclear arms race, and to support nuclear disarmament actions by governments and the United Nations.<br />
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This action is engaging youth, environmentalists, parliamentarians, mayors, religious leaders, human rights activists and other representatives of civil society.<br />
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Chain Reaction is facilitated by UNFOLD ZERO and the Basel Peace Office.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>WHEN </b><b>is CHAIN REACTION 2016?</b></span><br />
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The period July 8 – October 2 takes in a number of key anniversaries and international commemorative days.<br />
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It includes dates such as the International Day Against Nuclear Tests, International Day of Peace and the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">GET INVOLVED in CHAIN REACTION 2016</span></b><br />
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<b>Organize your own event or participate in one of the many events happening between now and October.</b><br />
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<b>Learn more and get involved at <a href="http://unfoldzero.org/">unfoldzero.org</a>.</b>Leonard Eigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08211690207308023413noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560331176916273168.post-84419213428901156822016-06-22T10:20:00.003-07:002016-06-22T10:20:47.380-07:00The Worst Acts of the Nuclear Age <b>EDITOR'S NOTE: The following essay by David Krieger* lays out what might also be called the "worst crimes" of the nuclear age. These points, particularly when considered collectively, clearly demonstrate how those in power have consistently (for over 70 years) acted with great hubris while continuously preparing the way for humanity's demise. It is time for people to rise up and say ENOUGH and to show the way (to abolition)!</b><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(L to R) David Krieger, Fr. Louis Vitale & Daniel Ellsberg outside Vandenberg <br />Air Force Base in 2012 after taking part in a nonviolent civil resistance action.</td></tr>
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The ten worst acts of the Nuclear Age described below have set the tone for our time. They have caused immense death and suffering; been tremendously expensive; have encouraged nuclear proliferation; have opened the door to nuclear terrorism, nuclear accidents and nuclear war; and are leading the world back into a second Cold War.<br />
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These “ten worst acts” are important information for anyone attempting to understand the time in which we live, and how the nuclear dangers that confront us have been intensified by the leadership and policy choices made by the United States and the other eight nuclear-armed countries.<br />
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1 - Bombing Hiroshima (August 6, 1945). The first atomic bomb was dropped by the United States on the largely civilian population of Hiroshima, killing some 70,000 people instantly and 140,000 people by the end of 1945. The bombing demonstrated the willingness of the US to use its new weapon of mass destruction on cities.<br />
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2 - Bombing Nagasaki (August 9, 1945). The second atomic bomb was dropped on the largely civilian population of Nagasaki before Japanese leaders had time to assess the death and injury caused by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima three days earlier. The atomic bombing of Nagasaki took another 70,000 lives by the end of 1945.<br />
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3 - Pursuing a unilateral nuclear arms race (1945 – 1949). The first nuclear weapon test was conducted by the US on July 16, 1945, just three weeks before the first use of an atomic weapon on Hiroshima. As the only nuclear-armed country in the world in the immediate aftermath of World War II, the US continued to expand its nuclear arsenal and began testing nuclear weapons in 1946 in the Marshall Islands, a trust territory the US was asked to administer on behalf of the United Nations. Altogether the US tested 67 nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958, with the equivalent explosive power of 1.6 Hiroshima bombs daily for that 12-year period.<br />
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4 - Initiating Atoms for Peace (1953). President Dwight Eisenhower put forward an Atoms for Peace proposal in a speech delivered on December 8, 1953. This proposal opened the door to the spread of nuclear reactors and nuclear materials for purposes of research and power generation. This resulted in the later proliferation of nuclear weapons to additional countries, including Israel, South Africa, India, Pakistan and North Korea.<br />
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5 - Engaging in a Cold War bilateral nuclear arms race (1949 – 1991). The nuclear arms race became bilateral when the Soviet Union tested its first atomic weapon on August 29, 1949. This bilateral nuclear arms race between the US and USSR reached its apogee in 1986 with some 70,000 nuclear weapons in the world, enough to destroy civilization many times over and possibly result in the extinction of the human species.<br />
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6 - Atmospheric Nuclear Testing (1945 – 1980). Altogether there have been 528 atmospheric nuclear tests. The US, UK and USSR ceased atmospheric nuclear testing in 1963, when they signed the Partial Test Ban Treaty. France continued atmospheric nuclear testing until 1974 and China continued until 1980. Atmospheric nuclear testing has placed large amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere, causing cancers and leukemia in human populations.<br />
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7 - Breaching the disarmament provisions of the NPT (1968 – present). Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) states, “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament….”<br />
<br />
The five nuclear weapons-states parties to the NPT (US, Russia, UK, France and China) remain in breach of these obligations. The other four nuclear-armed states (Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea) are in breach of these same obligations under customary international law.<br />
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8 - Treating nuclear power as an “inalienable right” in the NPT (1968 – present). This language of “inalienable right” contained in Article IV of the NPT encourages the development and spread of nuclear power plants and thereby makes the proliferation of nuclear weapons more likely. Nuclear power plants are also attractive targets for terrorists. As yet, there are no good plans for long-term storage of radioactive wastes created by these plants. Government subsidies for nuclear power plants also take needed funding away from the development of renewable energy sources.<br />
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9 - Failing to cut a deal with North Korea (1992 to present). During the Clinton administration, the US was close to a deal with North Korea to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. This deal was never fully implemented and negotiations for it were abandoned under the George W. Bush administration. Consequently, North Korea withdrew from the NPT in 2003 and conducted its first nuclear weapon test in 2006.<br />
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10 - Abrogating the ABM Treaty (2002). Under the George W. Bush administration, the US unilaterally abrogated the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. This allowed the US, in combination with expanding NATO to the east, to place missile defense installations near the Russian border. It has also led to emplacement of US missile defenses in East Asia. Missile defenses in Europe and East Asia have spurred new nuclear arms races in these regions.<br />
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*David Krieger is a founder and president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (<a href="http://www.wagingpeace.org/">www.wagingpeace.org</a>).<br />
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This essay was <a href="http://www.indepthnews.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=474:the-worst-acts-of-the-nuclear-age&catid=8,12,9:nuclear-abolition&Itemid=108" target="_blank">originally published</a> June 18, 2016in IDN-InDepthNews: Analysis That Matters|, the flagship agency of the International Press Syndicate.Leonard Eigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08211690207308023413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560331176916273168.post-26104435453612037962016-06-15T13:05:00.000-07:002016-06-16T08:56:23.355-07:00Dorothy Day and the Deep Roots of Resistance"They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. Neither shall they learn war any more." Isaiah 2:4<br />
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Over a year ago, on April 28th 2015, I found myself standing before the Isaiah Wall, directly across the street from the United Nations building. It was 8:30 AM, and across the street delegates to the NPT Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference were entering the building as it began its second day.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">April 28, 2015 at the Isaiah Wall</td></tr>
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Police vans were pulling up and and New York's finest were making preparations for the expected onslaught of nuclear abolitionists who would soon arrive for the 9:30 vigil here and the subsequent nonviolent direct action at the US Mission to the United Nations just down the block.<br />
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The sun was shining and the tree in front of the Isaiah Wall was bursting with the beauty of Spring. In an instant all this could disappear in a blinding flash and, quite ironically, Isaiah's words just might remain while every living thing around it would be vaporized or incinerated, the shadows created from their ash etched into the stone surface.<br />
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The letters etched into the stone of the wall are a permanent reminder of the words of the prophet Isaiah who, like most prophets, have been ignored through the centuries by leaders of so many nations and those who follow them blindly into the endless madness of war.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Civil Defense sign above the Isaiah Wall</td></tr>
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Yet many people have resisted and called humanity to something better. As I walked up the steps circling up by the wall I saw, at the top of the stairs, an icon of the Cold War - the days of duck and cover, of bomb shelters and mutually Assured Destruction. It was a faded, rusting fallout shelter sign over a nondescript door.<br />
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It was a stark reminder of my childhood, when students at my elementary school would walk from the school roughly a mile or two to the nearest official fallout shelter during the many Civil Defense drills held in those days.<br />
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It was also a reminder of Dorothy Day and other resisters who, during the Cold War, refused to enter the fallout shelters in New York during the drills, and were arrested for doing so. As today, the actions of Day and her co-conspirators were part of a small but significant witness against the nuclear arms race.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVBmlj66e6Rh4UQ-7d-ntJHHx-fu02wfNraJ1Ob7-vqBl1CTQAqAxISH8yKh6PbRHo1pnv7LuW1ujg3i76y06jTfkBdpv_8QsoviQCkET2bbbUEX4yYyS2Ep5fntW75kxodlXroHabBpk/s1600/Dorothy_Day_and_others_seated_in_protest_of_civil_defense_drill_1956.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVBmlj66e6Rh4UQ-7d-ntJHHx-fu02wfNraJ1Ob7-vqBl1CTQAqAxISH8yKh6PbRHo1pnv7LuW1ujg3i76y06jTfkBdpv_8QsoviQCkET2bbbUEX4yYyS2Ep5fntW75kxodlXroHabBpk/s400/Dorothy_Day_and_others_seated_in_protest_of_civil_defense_drill_1956.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dorothy Day (far right) and others seated on a park bench at Washington Square Park, New York City, on July 20, 1956, in protest of the mandatory "Operation Alert" civil defense drill. Police subsequently arrested them. (photo credit: Robert Lax)<br />
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At one of those early civil defense protests, the resisters shared a leaflet that read:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>We will not obey this order to pretend, to evacuate, to hide. In view of the certain knowledge the administration of this country has that there is no defense in atomic warfare, we know this drill to be an act in a cold war to instill fear, to prepare the collective mind for war. (from a 1955 protest leaflet)</i></blockquote>
In much the same spirit participants in the more recent (April 28, 2015) action engaged in active resistance to the nuclear weapons policies of the US, and in the spirit of Dorothy Day and so many others, blocked the entrances to the US Mission to the United Nations, risking arrest for their actions. The name of the action was "SHADOWS AND ASHES: Direct Action for Nuclear Disarmament." <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Resisters blocking the entrance to the US Mission to the United Nations on April 28, 2015 shortly before they were arrested.</td></tr>
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Indeed, as in Day's time, all that would be left after a nuclear war today are shadows and ashes, and so we continue to resist the forces of madness with Isaiah's words etched on our hearts. If we keep on in this wonderful, long tradition long enough, perhaps one day the words of Isaiah will ring like a clarion call and we will truly beat our swords into plowshares and make war no more.<br />
<br />Leonard Eigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08211690207308023413noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560331176916273168.post-69513353712050571112016-05-24T22:01:00.003-07:002016-05-24T22:07:18.303-07:00Calling on Obama to Take Concrete Action in Hiroshima<b>Editor's Note:</b> President Obama will visit Hiroshima this Friday after the Group of Seven economic summit in Japan. This will be the first time a U.S. president has visited the city that was devastated in the atomic bombing of August 6, 1945.<br />
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At a time when the US is modernizing its nuclear forces at an estimated cost of a trillion dollars over thirty years, the President's visit to Hiroshima is an opportunity that will likely not come again. Yet many, such as American University Professor Peter Kuznick, are concerned that Obama will "use it as a cover for his militarization of the conflict with China and his trillion dollar nuclear modernization program to make nuclear weapons more usable."<br />
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Joseph Gerson, of the American Friends Service Committee, said, “President Obama should cancel this spending, revitalize disarmament diplomacy by announcing a reduction of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, and challenge Russian President Putin to join in beginning negotiations to create the nuclear weapons-free world promised in Prague and required by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.”<br />
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Over seventy prominent scholars and activists signed the following letter urging President Obama to visit with Hibakusha, atomic bomb survivors, and to announce concrete steps toward nuclear disarmament during his visit to Hiroshima.<br />
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Whatever the President does and says in Hiroshima, his actions going forward toward the end of his term are what will count. He can take concrete steps to either end the new, rapidly escalating arms race or continue on the current path, one that will certainly come to no good end. <br />
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<i><b>May 23, 2016</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<i><b>President Barack Obama</b></i><br />
<i><b>The White House</b></i><br />
<i><b>Washington, DC</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<i><b>Dear Mr. President, </b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<i><b>We were happy to learn of your plans to be the first sitting president of the United States to visit Hiroshima later this week, after the G-7 economic summit in Japan. Many of us have been to Hiroshima and Nagasaki and found it a profound, life-changing experience, as did Secretary of State John Kerry on his recent visit. </b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<i><b>In particular, meeting and hearing the personal stories of A-bomb survivors, Hibakusha, has made a unique impact on our work for global peace and disarmament. Learning of the suffering of the Hibakusha, but also their wisdom, their awe-inspiring sense of humanity, and steadfast advocacy of nuclear abolition so the horror they experienced can never happen again to other human beings, is a precious gift that cannot help but strengthen anyone’s resolve to dispose of the nuclear menace.</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<i><b>Your 2009 Prague speech calling for a world free of nuclear weapons inspired hope around the world, and the New START pact with Russia, historic nuclear agreement with Iran and securing and reducing stocks of nuclear weapons-grade material globally have been significant achievements.</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<i><b>Yet, with more than 15,000 nuclear weapons (93% held by the U.S. and Russia) still threatening all the peoples of the planet, much more needs to be done. We believe you can still offer crucial leadership in your remaining time in office to move more boldly toward a world without nuclear weapons. </b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<i><b>In this light, we strongly urge you to honor your promise in Prague to work for a nuclear weapons-free world by:</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<i><b>• Meeting with all Hibakusha who are able to attend;</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<i><b>• Announcing the end of U.S. plans to spend $1 trillion for the new generation of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems;</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<i><b>• Reinvigorating nuclear disarmament negotiations to go beyond New START by announcing the unilateral reduction of the deployed U.S. arsenal to 1,000 nuclear weapons or fewer;</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<i><b>• Calling on Russia to join with the United States in convening the “good faith negotiations” required by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty for the complete elimination of the world’s nuclear arsenals;</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<i><b>• Reconsidering your refusal to apologize or discuss the history surrounding the A-bombings, which even President Eisenhower, Generals MacArthur, Arnold, and LeMay and Admirals Leahy , King, and Nimitz stated were not necessary to end the war.</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<i><b>Sincerely, </b></i><br />
<br />
Gar Alperovitz, Co-Chair of The Next System Project, former Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political-Economy at the University of Maryland,<br />
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Christian Appy, Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst<br />
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Colin Archer, Secretary-General, International Peace Bureau<br />
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Charles K. Armstrong, Professor of History, Columbia University <br />
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Medea Benjamin, Co-founder, CODE PINK, Women for Peace and Global Exchange<br />
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Phyllis Bennis, Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies<br />
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Herbert Bix, Professor of History, State University of New York, Binghamton<br />
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Norman Birnbaum, University Professor Emeritus, Georgetown University Law Center<br />
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Reiner Braun, Co-President, International Peace Bureau<br />
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Philip Brenner, Professor of International Relations and Director of the Graduate Program in US Foreign Policy and National Security, American University <br />
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Jacqueline Cabasso, Executive Director, Western States Legal Foundation; National Co-convener, United for Peace and Justice<br />
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James Carroll, Author of An American Requiem<br />
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Noam Chomsky, Professor Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology<br />
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David Cortright, Director of Policy Studies, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame and former Executive Director, SANE<br />
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Frank Costigliola, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor, University of Connecticut<br />
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Bruce Cumings, Professor of History, University of Chicago<br />
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Alexis Dudden, Professor of History, University of Connecticut<br />
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Daniel Ellsberg, Former State and Defense Department official<br />
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John Feffer, Director, Foreign Policy In Focus, Institute for Policy Studies<br />
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Gordon Fellman, Professor of Sociology and Peace Studies, Brandeis University.<br />
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Bill Fletcher, Jr., Talk Show Host, Writer & Activist.<br />
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Norma Field, Professor Emerita, University of Chicago<br />
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Carolyn Forché, University Professor, Georgetown University<br />
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Max Paul Friedman, Professor of History, American University.<br />
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Bruce Gagnon, Coordinator Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. <br />
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Lloyd Gardner, Professor of History Emeritus, Rutgers University.<br />
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Irene Gendzier Professor Emeritus, Department of of History, Boston University<br />
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Joseph Gerson, Director, American Friends Service Committee Peace & Economic Security Program,<br />
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Todd Gitlin, Professor of Sociology, Columbia University<br />
<br />
Andrew Gordon, Professor of History, Harvard University<br />
<br />
John Hallam, Human Survival Project, People for Nuclear Disarmament, Australia<br />
<br />
Melvin Hardy, Heiwa Peace Committee, Washington, DC<br />
<br />
Laura Hein, Professor of History, Northwestern University<br />
<br />
Martin Hellman, Member, US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University<br />
<br />
Kate Hudson, General Secretary, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (UK)<br />
<br />
Paul Joseph, Professor of Sociology, Tufts University<br />
<br />
Louis Kampf, Professor of Humanities Emeritus MIT<br />
<br />
Michael Kazin, Professor of History, Georgetown University<br />
<br />
Asaf Kfoury, Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science, Boston University. <br />
<br />
G. Peter King, Honorary Associate, Government & International Relations School of Social and Political Sciences, The University of Sydney, NSW <br />
<br />
David Krieger, President Nuclear Age Peace Foundation<br />
<br />
Peter Kuznick, Professor of History and Director of the Nuclear Studies Institute, American University<br />
<br />
John W. Lamperti, Professor of Mathematics Emeritus, Dartmouth College<br />
<br />
Steven Leeper, Co-founder PEACE Institute, Former Chairman, Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation<br />
<br />
Robert Jay Lifton, MD, Lecturer in Psychiatry Columbia University, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, The City University of New York<br />
<br />
Elaine Tyler May, Regents Professor, University of Minnesota<br />
<br />
Kevin Martin, President, Peace Action and Peace Action Education Fund<br />
<br />
Ray McGovern, Veterans For Peace, Former Head of CIA Soviet Desk and Presidential Daily Briefer<br />
<br />
David McReynolds, Former Chair, War Resister International<br />
<br />
Zia Mian, Professor, Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University<br />
<br />
Tetsuo Najita, Professor of Japanese History, Emeritus, University of Chicago, former President of Association of Asian Studies<br />
<br />
Sophie Quinn-Judge, Retired Professor, Center for Vietnamese Philosophy, Culture and Society, Temple University<br />
<br />
Steve Rabson, Professor Emeritus of East Asian Studies, Brown University, Veteran, United States Army<br />
<br />
Betty Reardon, Founding Director Emeritus of the International Institute on Peace Education, Teachers College, Columbia University<br />
<br />
Terry Rockefeller, Founding Member, September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, <br />
<br />
David Rothauser Filmmaker, Memory Productions, Producer of "Hibakusha, Our Life to Live" and "Article 9 Comes to America<br />
<br />
James C. Scott, Professor of Political Science and Anthropology, Yale University, ex-President of the Association of Asian Studies<br />
<br />
Peter Dale Scott, Professor of English Emeritus, University of California, Berkleley <br />
<br />
Mark Selden, Senior Research Associate Cornell University, editor, Asia-Pacific Journal, <br />
<br />
Martin Sherwin, Professor of History, George Mason University<br />
<br />
Tim Shorrock, Journalist, Washington DC. <br />
<br />
John Steinbach, Hiroshima Nagasaki Committee<br />
<br />
Oliver Stone, Academy Award-winning writer and director<br />
<br />
David Swanson, director of World Beyond War<br />
<br />
Max Tegmark, Professor of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Founder, Future of Life Institute<br />
<br />
Ellen Thomas, Proposition One Campaign Executive Director, Co-Chair, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (US) Disarm/End Wars Issue Committee<br />
<br />
Michael True, Emeritus Professor, Assumption College, is co-founder of the Center for Nonviolent Solutions <br />
<br />
David Vine, Professor, Department of Sociology, American University<br />
<br />
Alyn Ware, Global Coordinator, Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament 2009 Laureate, Right Livelihood Award<br />
<br />
Jon Weiner, Professor Emeritus of Histry, University of California Irvine<br />
<br />
Lawrence Wittner, Professor of History Emeritus, SUNY/Albany<br />
<br />
Col. Ann Wright, US Army Reserved (Ret.), former US diplomat<br />
<br />
Marilyn Young, Professor of History, New York University<br />
<br />
Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics; Coordinator of Middle Eastern Studies, University of San Francisco Leonard Eigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08211690207308023413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560331176916273168.post-74096236063983134682016-04-08T21:11:00.002-07:002016-04-08T21:11:15.538-07:00The Trillion Dollar QuestionBy Lawrence Wittner*<br />
<br />
Isn’t it rather odd that America’s largest single public expenditure scheduled for the coming decades<br />
has received no attention in the 2015-2016 presidential debates?<br />
<br />
The expenditure is for a thirty-year program to “modernize” the U.S. nuclear arsenal and production facilities. Although President Obama began his administration with a dramatic public commitment to build a nuclear weapons-free world, that commitment has long ago dwindled and died. It has been replaced by an administration plan to build a new generation of U.S. nuclear weapons and nuclear production facilities to last the nation well into the second half of the twenty-first century. This plan, which has been largely ignored by the mass media, includes redesigned nuclear warheads, as well as new nuclear bombers, submarines, land-based missiles, weapons labs, and production plants. The estimated cost? $1,000,000,000,000.00 — or, for those readers unfamiliar with such lofty figures, $1 trillion.<br />
<br />
Critics charge that the expenditure of this staggering sum will either bankrupt the country or, at the least, require massive cutbacks in funding for other federal government programs. “We’re . . . wondering how the heck we’re going to pay for it,” admitted Brian McKeon, an undersecretary of defense. And we’re “probably thanking our stars we won’t be here to have to have to answer the question,” he added with a chuckle.<br />
<br />
Of course, this nuclear “modernization” plan violates the terms of the 1968 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which requires the nuclear powers to engage in nuclear disarmament. The plan is also moving forward despite the fact that the U.S. government already possesses roughly 7,000 nuclear weapons that can easily destroy the world. Although climate change might end up accomplishing much the same thing, a nuclear war does have the advantage of terminating life on earth more rapidly.<br />
<br />
This trillion dollar nuclear weapons buildup has yet to inspire any questions about it by the moderators during the numerous presidential debates. Even so, in the course of the campaign, the presidential candidates have begun to reveal their attitudes toward it.<br />
<br />
On the Republican side, the candidates — despite their professed distaste for federal expenditures and “big government” — have been enthusiastic supporters of this great leap forward in the nuclear arms race. Donald Trump, the frontrunner, contended in his presidential announcement speech that “our nuclear arsenal doesn’t work,“ insisting that it is out of date. Although he didn’t mention the $1 trillion price tag for “modernization,” the program is clearly something he favors, especially given his campaign’s focus on building a U.S. military machine “so big, powerful, and strong that no one will mess with us.”<br />
<br />
His Republican rivals have adopted a similar approach. Marco Rubio, asked while campaigning in Iowa about whether he supported the trillion dollar investment in new nuclear weapons, replied that “we have to have them. No country in the world faces the threats America faces.” When a peace activist questioned Ted Cruz on the campaign trail about whether he agreed with Ronald Reagan on the need to eliminate nuclear weapons, the Texas senator replied: “I think we’re a long way from that and, in the meantime, we need to be prepared to defend ourselves. The best way to avoid war is to be strong enough that no one wants to mess with the United States.” Apparently, Republican candidates are particularly worried about being “messed with.”<br />
<br />
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton has been more ambiguous about her stance toward a dramatic expansion of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Asked by a peace activist about the trillion dollar nuclear plan, she replied that she would “look into that,” adding: “It doesn’t make sense to me.” Even so, like other issues that the former secretary of state has promised to “look into,” this one remains unresolved. Moreover, the “National Security” section of her campaign website promises that she will maintain the “strongest military the world has ever known” — not a propitious sign for critics of nuclear weapons.<br />
<br />
Only Bernie Sanders has adopted a position of outright rejection. In May 2015, shortly after declaring his candidacy, Sanders was asked at a public meeting about the trillion dollar nuclear weapons program. He replied: “What all of this is about is our national priorities. Who are we as a people? Does Congress listen to the military-industrial complex” that “has never seen a war that they didn’t like? Or do we listen to the people of this country who are hurting?” In fact, Sanders is one of only three U.S. Senators who support the SANE Act, legislation that would significantly reduce U.S. government spending on nuclear weapons. In addition, on the campaign trail, Sanders has not only called for cuts in spending on nuclear weapons, but has affirmed his support for their total abolition.<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, given the failure of the presidential debate moderators to raise the issue of nuclear weapons “modernization,” the American people have been left largely uninformed about the candidates’ opinions on this subject. So, if Americans would like more light shed on their future president’s response to this enormously expensive surge in the nuclear arms race, it looks like they are the ones who are going to have to ask the candidates the trillion dollar question.<br />
<br />
<i>This article was originally published in the Huffington Post, March 17, 2016, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-wittner/the-trillion-dollar-question_b_9481432.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-wittner/the-trillion-dollar-question_b_9481432.html</a></i><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-wittner/the-trillion-dollar-question_b_9481432.html" target="_blank"> </a><br />
<br />
<i>*Lawrence Wittner (<a href="http://www.lawrenceswittner.com/">http://www.lawrenceswittner.com</a>) is Professor of History emeritus at SUNY/Albany. His latest book is a satirical novel about university corporatization and rebellion, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Whats-Going-UAardvark-Lawrence-Wittner/dp/0692261125/ref=sr_1_1_twi_pap_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1442077534&sr=1-1&keywords=what%27s+going+on+at+UAardvark%3F" target="_blank">What’s Going On at UAardvark?</a></i><br />
<em style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #222222; font-family: NotoNashkArabic, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px;"></em>Leonard Eigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08211690207308023413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560331176916273168.post-7598446004791266072016-01-31T20:09:00.000-08:002016-01-31T20:10:05.028-08:00POLITICAL RESPONSIBILITY IN THE NUCLEAR AGE: AN OPEN LETTER TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE<br />
<b>Prefatory Note [by Richard Falk]: What follows below is An Open Letter to the American People: Political Responsibility in the Nuclear Age. It was jointly written by myself in collaboration with David Krieger and Robert Laney. The three of us have been long connected with the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. For further information on the work of the foundation see <a href="http://wagingpeace.org/">wagingpeace.org</a><www .wagingpeace.org="">. The NAPF focuses its effort on the menace posed by nuclear weaponry and the urgency of seeking nuclear disarmament. The nuclear agreement with Iran and the North Korean nuclear test explosion are reminders of the gravity of the unmet challenge, and should serve as warnings against the persistence of complacency, which seems to be the prevailing political mood judging from the policy debates that have taken place during the early stages of the 2016 presidential campaign. This complacency is encouraged by the media that seems to have forgotten about nuclear dangers since the end of the Cold War, except for those issues arising from the real and feared proliferation of the weaponry to countries hostile to the United States and the West (Iran, North Korea). Our letter proceeds on the assumption that the core of the problem is associated with the possession, development, and deployment of the weaponry, that is, with the nine nuclear weapons states. The essence of a solution is to eliminate existing nuclear weapons arsenals through a phased, verified process of nuclear disarmament as legally mandated by Article VI of the Nonproliferation Treaty (1968, 1970).<br />
<br />
We would be grateful if you could help us reach the widest possible audience through reposting and dissemination via social media networks.</www></b><br />
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by Richard Falk, David Krieger and Robert Laney</div>
<br />
Dear fellow citizens:<br />
<br />
By their purported test of a hydrogen bomb early in 2016, North Korea reminded the world that nuclear dangers are not an abstraction, but a continuing menace that the governments and peoples of the world ignore at their peril. Even if the test were not of a hydrogen bomb but of a smaller atomic weapon, as many experts suggest, we are still reminded that we live in the Nuclear Age, an age in which accident, miscalculation, insanity or intention could lead to devastating nuclear catastrophe.<br />
<br />
What is most notable about the Nuclear Age is that we humans, by our scientific and technological ingenuity, have created the means of our own demise. The world currently is confronted by many threats to human wellbeing, and even civilizational survival, but we focus here on the particular grave dangers posed by nuclear weapons and nuclear war.<br />
<br />
Even a relatively small nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan, with each country using 50 Hiroshima-size nuclear weapons on the other side’s cities, could result in a nuclear famine killing some two billion of the most vulnerable people on the planet. A nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia could destroy civilization in a single afternoon and send temperatures on Earth plummeting into a new ice age. Such a war could destroy most complex life on the planet. Despite the gravity of such threats, they are being ignored, which is morally reprehensible and politically irresponsible.<br />
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<br />
We in the United States are in the midst of hotly contested campaigns to determine the candidates of both major political parties in the 2016 presidential faceoff, and yet none of the frontrunners for the nominations have even voiced concern about the nuclear war dangers we face. This is an appalling oversight. It reflects the underlying situation of denial and complacency that disconnects the American people as a whole from the risks of use of nuclear weapons in the years ahead. This menacing disconnect is reinforced by the media, which has failed to challenge the candidates on their approach to this apocalyptic weaponry during the debates and has ignored the issue in their television and print coverage, even to the extent of excluding voices that express concern from their opinion pages. We regard it as a matter of urgency to put these issues back on the radar screen of public awareness.<br />
<br />
We are appalled that none of the candidates running for the highest office in the land has yet put forward any plans or strategy to end current threats of nuclear annihilation, none has challenged the planned expenditure of $1 trillion to modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal, and none has made a point of the U.S. being in breach of its nuclear disarmament obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In the presidential debates it has been a non-issue, which scandalizes the candidates for not raising the issue in their many public speeches and the media for not challenging them for failing to do so. As a society, we are out of touch with the most frightening, yet after decades still dangerously mishandled, challenge to the future of humanity.<br />
<br />
There are nine countries that currently possess nuclear weapons. Five of these nuclear-armed countries are parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (U.S., Russia, UK, France and China), and are obligated by that treaty to negotiate in good faith for a cessation of the nuclear arms race and for nuclear disarmament. The other four nuclear-armed countries (Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea) are subject to the same obligations under customary international law. None of the nine nuclear-armed countries has engaged in such negotiations, a reality that should be met with anger and frustration, and not, as is now the case, with indifference. It is not only the United States that is responsible for the current state of denial and indifference. Throughout the world there is a false confidence that, because the Cold War is over and no nuclear weapons have been used since 1945, the nuclear dangers that once frightened and concerned people can now be ignored.<br />
<br />
Rather than fulfill their obligations for negotiated nuclear disarmament, the nine nuclear-armed countries all rely upon nuclear deterrence and are engaged in modernization programs that will keep their nuclear arsenals active through the 21st century and perhaps beyond. Unfortunately, nuclear deterrence does not actually provide security to countries with nuclear arsenals. Rather, it is a hypothesis about human behavior, which is unlikely to hold up over time. Nuclear deterrence has come close to failing on numerous occasions and would clearly be totally ineffective, or worse, against a terrorist group in possession of one or more nuclear weapons, which has no fear of retaliation and may actually welcome it. Further, as the world is now embarking on a renewed nuclear arms race, disturbingly reminiscent of the Cold War, rising risks of confrontations and crises between major states possessing nuclear weapons increase the possibility of use.<br />
<br />
As citizens of a nuclear-armed country, we are also targets of nuclear weapons. John F. Kennedy saw clearly that “Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident, or miscalculation, or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.” What President Kennedy vividly expressed more than 50 years ago remains true today, and even more so as the weapons proliferate and as political extremist groups come closer to acquiring these terrible weapons.<br />
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Those with power and control over nuclear weapons could turn this planet, unique in all the universe in supporting life, into the charred remains of a Global Hiroshima. Should any political leader or government hold so much power? Should we be content to allow such power to rest in any hands at all?<br />
<br />
It is time to end the nuclear weapons era. We are living on borrowed time. The U.S., as the world’s most powerful country, must play a leadership role in convening negotiations. For the U.S. to be effective in leading to achieve Nuclear Zero, U.S. citizens must awaken to the need to act and must press our government to act and encourage others elsewhere, especially in the other eight nuclear-armed countries, to press their governments to act as well. It is not enough to be apathetic, conformist, ignorant or in denial. We all must take action if we want to save humanity and other forms of life from nuclear catastrophe. In this spirit, we are at a stage where we need a robust global solidarity movement that is dedicated to raising awareness of the growing nuclear menace, and the urgent need to act nationally, regionally and globally to reverse the strong militarist currents that are pushing the world ever closer to the nuclear precipice.<br />
<br />
Nuclear weapons are the most immediate threat to humanity, but they are not the only technology that could play and is playing havoc with the future of life. The scale of our technological impact on the environment (primarily fossil fuel extraction and use) is also resulting in global warming and climate chaos, with predicted rises in ocean levels and many other threats – ocean acidification, extreme weather, climate refugees and strife from drought – that will cause massive death and displacement of human and animal populations.<br />
<br />
In addition to the technological threats to the human future, many people on the planet now suffer from hunger, disease, lack of shelter and lack of education. Every person on the planet has a right to adequate nutrition, health care, housing and education. It is deeply unjust to allow the rich to grow richer while the vast majority of humanity sinks into deeper poverty. It is immoral to spend our resources on modernizing weapons of mass annihilation while large numbers of people continue to suffer from the ravages of poverty.<br />
<br />
Doing all we can to move the world to Nuclear Zero, while remaining responsive to other pressing dangers, is our best chance to ensure a benevolent future for our species and its natural surroundings. We can start by changing apathy to empathy, conformity to critical thinking, ignorance to wisdom, denial to recognition, and thought to action in responding to the threats posed by nuclear weapons and the technologies associated with global warming, as well as to the need to address present human suffering arising from war and poverty.<br />
<br />
The richer countries are challenged by migrant flows of desperate people that number in the millions and by the realization that as many as a billion people on the planet are chronically hungry and another two billion are malnourished, resulting in widespread growth stunting among children and other maladies. While ridding the world of nuclear weaponry is our primary goal, we are mindful that the institution of war is responsible for chaos and massive casualties, and that we must also challenge the militarist mentality if we are ever to enjoy enduring peace and security on our planet.<br />
<br />
The fate of our species is now being tested as never before. The question before us is whether humankind has the foresight and discipline necessary to forego some superfluous desires, mainly curtailing propensities for material luxuries and for domination of our fellow beings, thereby enabling all of us and succeeding generations to live lives worth living. Whether our species will rise to this challenge is uncertain, with current evidence not reassuring.<br />
<br />
The time is short and what is at risk is civilization and every small and great thing that each of us loves and treasures on our planet.<br />
<br />
<b>The authors are affiliated with the Santa Barbara based Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><a href="https://www.wagingpeace.org/carta-abierta-al-pueblo-estadounidense-responsabilidad-politica-en-la-era-nuclear/">Vaya aquí</a> para la versión española.</b><br />
<br />
<b>Original Source URL: https://www.wagingpeace.org/political-responsibility-in-the-nuclear-age-an-open-letter-to-the-american-people/</b><br />
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<br />Leonard Eigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08211690207308023413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560331176916273168.post-2148402034456909482016-01-21T13:45:00.002-08:002016-01-21T13:53:06.504-08:00King & Obama: A Tale of Two Legacies<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Friends,</div>
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<br /></div>
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On January 26th the Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists will announce whether the minute hand of the
historic “<a href="http://thebulletin.org/overview" target="_blank">Doomsday Clock</a>” will be adjusted. . The Doomsday Clock
is that icon of the nuclear age that, since 1947, has conveyed “how
close we are to destroying our civilization with dangerous
technologies of our own making.” The hands of the clock are
currently at 3 Minutes to Midnight, and one can only hope they will
not be set closer to that fateful hour.</div>
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Much of the world knows Dr. King as one
of the great peacemakers of all time. What many people are not aware
of is just how deep was King's opposition not only to war, but also
to nuclear weapons.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Dr. King warned us, in his famous
“World House” essay that:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><i>When scientific power outruns
spiritual power, we end up with guided missiles and misguided men.</i></b></blockquote>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
As we consider the current and pending
position of the minute hand on the Doomsday Clock in the context of
Dr. King's recent birthday it is hard not to consider the stark
contrast between his legacy and the legacy being created by U.S.
President Barack Obama. Two Nobel Peace Prize recipients - two
radically different paths.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Dr. King was an extraordinary orator.
His words flowed deep from within his spiritual consciousness that
was rooted in the struggles of human beings for their basic rights.
They inspired people to come together in the spirit of nonviolence to
build a better world. He most certainly lived out the words he spoke.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
On the other hand President Obama, a
prisoner of the National Security State and Military-Industrial
Complex, is quite the orator, although his rhetoric has fallen far
short. In his famous 2009 Prague speech Obama stated, “America's
commitment to see the peace and security of a world without nuclear
weapons,” and specified that the United States would “reduce the
role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy, and urge
others to do the same.” Nearly seven years later these words are
nothing but empty promises.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Rebuilding the infrastructure that
develops, builds and maintains nuclear weapons is not "progress."
Rebuilding nuclear warheads and bombs is not “progress.” Moving
ahead with plans to build a new generation of ballistic missile
submarines, bombers, and land based missiles is most certainly not
“progress.”
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
As the President begins his last year
in office, and with the greatest nuclear weapons modernization effort
(since the end of the Cold War) underway, we must ask what legacy
will he leave?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
What would Dr. King say to President
Obama as he approaches final year in office? I imagine him speaking
of the President's two daughters and asking,"Mr. President, what
legacy do you want to leave for your children Malia and Sasha, and
indeed what legacy do you want to leave for all the children of the
world? Mr. President, just when is our nation going to truly lead the
world to peace? When will we learn to live together in this great big
World House that we all share? You and I know, Mr. President, that
the alternative to disarmament is the dark abyss of annihilation? So
Mr. President, what legacy will it be?"</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Getting back on track toward Obama's
vision in his Prague speech will require extraordinary vision,
engagement <i>and</i> decisive action. Engagement and action already
face strong opposition on many levels in both the civilian and
military sectors of the government and on Wall Street. The President
will <i>not</i> be moved to lead the world toward disarmament without
significant prodding from civil society.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Certainly, since the end of the Cold
War, a malaise set in as people assumed the peace dividend had
eradicated the nuclear menace, and so they went about business as
usual. Yet, the few in control of humanity's destiny have continued
to make preparations for the unspeakable.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
It is time for all citizens, and not
just a small percentage, to be informed about the issues surrounding
nuclear weapons and how they affect all of us. It is time for
citizens to step forward and become engaged in decisions that were
never in their hands in the first place, but should have been. It is
time to bring nuclear weapons into the center of a public dialogue
and debate, and for the citizenry to make its voice heard loud and
clear in the halls of The White House, Congress and the Pentagon (and
beyond).</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
If this United States in which we live
is to be a true democracy, then it is up to us as citizens to make it
so. And there is no greater issue, in terms of the survival of
humanity, in which we can (and must) become engaged than the
abolition of nuclear weapons.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Dr. King once said that "The arc
of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
King understood that change (at least lasting change) does not occur
overnight. It is a long, hard struggle, as evidenced by every
struggle for human rights throughout history.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Therein lies one major difference
between Dr. King and President Obama. In his Prague speech, Obama
recognized that, "This goal will not be reached quickly –-
perhaps not in my lifetime." The difference is that Dr. King
didn't stop working toward his goals even though he knew they may not
be realized in his lifetime.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
We, as citizens, must remind President
Obama that he needs to change course and be in this for the long haul - for the sake of
his children and all the children of the world. And – We <i>must</i>
do it <i>now</i>!</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
So - Happy Birthday Martin. May our
gift to you be our commitment to a nonviolent world free of the
scourges of war and nuclear weapons.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Peace,</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Leonard</div>
Leonard Eigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08211690207308023413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560331176916273168.post-57477576974335912582015-11-10T20:09:00.002-08:002015-11-10T20:14:24.313-08:00Nuclear War: No Cure - Only Prevention (A Call to Medical Professionals)<b>Editor's Note: This is an important perspective from physicians deeply invested in ridding the world of the scourge of nuclear weapons. They know quite well that for nuclear war, there is no cure - only prevention. Medical professionals have a particular responsibility to support the movement to abolish nuclear weapons, and this letter is a direct appeal. It was recently published in The New England Journal of Medicine</b><br />
<b><br />
</b> <b>*********************</b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Perspective</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Docs and Nukes — Still a Live Issue</span></b><br />
Ira Helfand, M.D., and Victor W. Sidel, M.D.<br />
October 14, 2015 DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp1509202<br />
<br />
Seventy years ago, the medical profession alerted the world to the devastating effects of nuclear weapons. Just weeks after the bombing of Hiroshima, Dr. Marcel Junod, a representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Japan, visited the devastated city and sent back one of the first eyewitness reports to reach the outside world: “The center of the city was a sort of white patch, flattened and smooth like the palm of a hand. Nothing remained.”<br />
<br />
Ever since that time, members of the medical profession have played a key role in warning governments and the public about the danger of nuclear war and the urgent need to abolish nuclear weapons. During the period of intense international tension that preceded the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Journal devoted the issue of May 31, 1962, to articles prepared by members of the newly formed Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), detailing the medical consequences of nuclear war.<br />
<br />
During the period of increased Cold War tension in the early 1980s, the medical community mobilized again to educate the public about the enormous threat to public health posed by the arms race. Working with PSR, medical schools throughout the country organized public symposia to explain what would actually happen if nuclear weapons were used. A newly formed global federation called the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), of which PSR became the U.S. affiliate, carried out similar educational work around the world. Doctors met with Presidents Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev to urge them to end the arms race that had brought the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation.<br />
<br />
These efforts had a profound impact. In his memoirs, Gorbachev described the effect his meetings with physicians had on his thinking about nuclear weapons when he was launching the series of initiatives, ultimately embraced by the United States, that led to the end of the arms race. For this work, and in recognition of the special role and responsibility that physicians have had in preventing nuclear war, the IPPNW was awarded the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize.<br />
<br />
In the years since the end of the Cold War, the medical community has paid far less attention to this issue. We, like most of the world, have acted as though the danger of nuclear war were a thing of the past. To the extent that we have considered the matter, we have focused on the possibility that terrorists or “rogue states” such as North Korea and Iran will acquire nuclear weapons. Although these are important threats, it is critical that we understand that the greatest danger is posed by the arsenals of the countries that already have nuclear weapons. There remain in the world today more than 15,000 nuclear warheads, 95% of which are in the arsenals of the United States and Russia.(1) Of these warheads, some 2000 are on hair-trigger alert. They can be fired in less than 15 minutes and can destroy their targets across the globe 30 minutes later.<br />
<br />
These weapons pose an existential threat to humanity. A 2002 study showed that if just 300 Russian warheads got through to targets in the United States, 75 million to 100 million people would die from the blast and heat effects in the first half hour.(2) In addition, the entire economic infrastructure on which we depend would be destroyed. The public health system, the communications network, the electric grid, the banking system, the food distribution system — all would be gone. In the months after such an attack, the vast majority of Americans not killed in the initial attack would die from starvation, radiation sickness, epidemic disease, or exposure to the elements. A corresponding U.S. attack would create the same devastation in Russia, and if NATO were drawn into the war, much of Europe would suffer the same fate.<br />
<br />
As incomprehensible as these direct effects are, they are only a part of the picture. The fires created by the use of nuclear weapons over urban targets would loft enormous quantities of black soot into the atmosphere, disrupting climate worldwide. A war involving the strategic weapons deployed today by the United States and Russia would generate some 150 million tons of soot, enough to reduce temperatures around the world by an average of 8°C. In the interior regions of North America and Eurasia, temperatures would drop by as much as 30°C, to levels not seen in 18,000 years, since the coldest point of the last ice age.(3) Food production would collapse, the vast majority of the human race would starve, and it's possible that our species would become extinct.<br />
<br />
For 25 years, since the end of the Cold War, we have been told that we did not need to worry about war between the United States and Russia. The deepening crisis in Ukraine and President Vladimir Putin's repeated nuclear threats give the lie to these assurances: armed conflict between the nuclear superpowers remains a real possibility. Even if neither side ever uses its nuclear weapons deliberately, there remains the very real danger of accidental nuclear war. We know of at least five times since 1979 when either Moscow or Washington prepared to launch nuclear weapons in the mistaken belief that it was already under attack by the other side. U.S. military leaders now warn that cyberterrorists might be able to launch a U.S. or Russian nuclear missile.<br />
<br />
Even a much more limited, regional nuclear war, as might take place between India and Pakistan, would have catastrophic consequences worldwide. Studies have shown that a war involving only 100 Hiroshima-sized weapons, less than 0.3% of the world's nuclear arsenals, would cause temperatures to fall an average of 1.25°C around the world.(4) Climate disruption of this magnitude would cause major declines in world agricultural output. At this time, there are some 800 million people who are malnourished and 300 million who get adequate nutrition but live in countries that depend on food imports that would not be available in the event of such a war. There are also about 1 billion people in China, which would see particularly severe effects on food production, who have not shared in China's recent economic growth. All these people, some 2 billion, would be at risk in the “nuclear famine” that would follow even a limited nuclear war.(5)<br />
<br />
In recognition of this grave threat to human survival, governments around the world have come together over the past 3 years in a series of extraordinary conferences to discuss the medical consequences, what they have called the humanitarian impact, of nuclear war. A total of 116 countries have signed the Humanitarian Pledge to seek a new treaty to fill a key gap in international law, which does not yet prohibit the possession of these weapons, and to push for their abolition.<br />
<br />
We believe the medical community has a responsibility to support this movement. The American Medical Association recently passed a resolution calling on all nations to “ban and eliminate nuclear weapons,” and the World Medical Association is considering a similar resolution at its Moscow meeting in October. Physicians need to act on these resolutions, sounding the alarm for a world that has grown dangerously complacent about the nuclear peril as we drift closer to an unimaginable catastrophe. We need to again educate our patients, the general public, and our political leaders about the medical consequences of nuclear war and the urgent need to abolish these weapons before they are used.<br />
<br />
Disclosure forms provided by the authors are available with the full text of this article at NEJM.org.<br />
<br />
This article was published on October 14, 2015, at NEJM.org. Source URL: <a href="http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1509202#t=article">http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1509202#t=article</a><br />
<br />
From Physicians for Social Responsibility, Washington, DC (I.H., V.W.S.); the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Somerville (I.H., V.W.S.), Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Leeds (I.H., V.W.S.), and the Family Care Medical Center, Springfield (I.H.) — all in Massachusetts; and the Department of Social Medicine, Montefiore Medical Center, New York (V.W.S.).<br />
<br />
<b>References</b><br />
<br />
1) Federation of American Scientists. Status of world nuclear forces (http://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-forces/).<br />
<br />
2) Helfand I, Forrow L, McCally M, Musil R. Projected US casualties and destruction of US medical services from attack by Russian nuclear forces. Med Glob Surviv 2002;7:68-76<br />
<br />
3) Robock A, Oman L, Stenchikov GL. Nuclear winter revisited with a modern climate model and current nuclear arsenals: still catastrophic consequences. J Geophys Res 2007;112:xD13107-xD13107 (<a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1029/2006JD008235/full">http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1029/2006JD008235/full</a>).<br />
<br />
4) Robock A, Oman L, Stenchikov GL, Toon OB, Bardeen C, Turco RP. Climatic consequences of regional nuclear conflicts. Atmos Chem Phys 2007;7:2003-2012<br />
CrossRef | Web of Science<br />
<br />
5) Helfand I. Nuclear famine: two billion people at risk? International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (<a href="http://www.ippnw.org/nuclear-famine.html">http://www.ippnw.org/nuclear-famine.html</a>).Leonard Eigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08211690207308023413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560331176916273168.post-69146104844267227702015-08-14T15:44:00.001-07:002015-08-14T15:48:47.521-07:00Remembering the bomb that changed the world The use of nuclear bombs on Japan should be a time of national reflection.<br />
<br />
By David P. Barash & Judith Eve Lipton <br />
<br />
Special to the [Seattle] Times, Originally published August 5, 2015 <br />
<br />
WE Americans like celebrations. We prefer happy holidays, not downers. Even Veterans Day and Memorial Day are opportunities for patriotic reflection and gratitude, not regrets or remorse.<br />
<br />
Since many Americans consider the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to have been legitimate, it isn’t surprising that Hiroshima Day (Aug. 6) and Nagasaki Day (Aug. 9) haven’t made it onto the national calendar. But they should. We propose Aug. 6 and Aug. 9 should be “Nuclear Awareness Days.”<br />
<br />
There is much to be said for reflecting on these events, and not simply for their historical significance. Aug. 6, 1945, was the first time a nuclear weapon was used to kill people deliberately, and Aug. 9, 1945, was the last — so far. On this, everyone agrees. In addition, use of nuclear weapons would constitute a tragedy of immense proportions. Nearly everyone agrees with this, too.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcuQj8dpdQ3r31Gb5cTl2VrMc6q9koZ51vsiJGnTnXigC0ImxxLVK6J_P2t1l_t2eZGfqMnGh9VyRsIlN6ksZPXC-KtWjU4W33USImsUwk84colVk5gwb9RCHm0ziZoiAIliGZEBEfsxI/s1600/f9522f46-3b94-11e5-9be2-c9beed7c2430-780x616.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcuQj8dpdQ3r31Gb5cTl2VrMc6q9koZ51vsiJGnTnXigC0ImxxLVK6J_P2t1l_t2eZGfqMnGh9VyRsIlN6ksZPXC-KtWjU4W33USImsUwk84colVk5gwb9RCHm0ziZoiAIliGZEBEfsxI/s400/f9522f46-3b94-11e5-9be2-c9beed7c2430-780x616.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="caption">An Allied correspondent stands in front of the shell of a building that once </span><br />
<span class="caption">was a movie theater in Hiroshima, Japan, a month after </span><span class="caption">an atomic bomb </span><br />
<span class="caption">was dropped by the United States. (Stanley Troutman/The Associated Press)</span> </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Although there is debate about whether nuclear weapons “keep the peace” via their avowed role as deterrents, informed opinion — including increasing numbers of military and strategic authorities — has been moving toward the position that these weapons are a liability (to everyone, including their possessors) rather than an asset.<br />
<span channel="<br"><br />
Seventy years after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world is still not a peaceful place. There is no evidence that possessing more than 16,000 bombs and warheads have made the nuclear states any more secure than their non-nuclear counterparts.<br />
<br />
Nuclear arsenals have not provided any discernible leverage. Imagine a policeman armed with a backpack nuclear weapon, confronting a bank robber. His “deterrent” would simply be too blunt, destructive and lacking in credibility to provide any benefit. Thus, nuclear weapons have not helped Russia in Ukraine, the United States in Iraq or Afghanistan, the United Kingdom in the Falkland Islands, France in Algeria, nor China in Tibet or Taiwan.<br />
<br />
Nuclear North Korea is a nightmare, but what good has armament done? India and Pakistan are less safe in their struggles over Kashmir, with nuclear weapons aimed at each other. Israel has a nuclear monopoly in the Middle East, but this hasn’t prevented decades of war — and when other states or terrorists get the bomb, only one or two warheads could effectively destroy Israel. Only nuclear abolition and careful verification could ultimately protect anyone.</span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi71XQI9z9-ZotvYZbS8K4ggzMZmm-PIYEAoD2_K6VBAW6bIZrKIu-opQVbDDfg_TnsobDxZPKj5ON7LvGMIt8IBBnxrC00tgJ9GMnSJ5f7fndPyrTdtrVBVrK_pfkWO01ORi44hsCqYAw/s1600/0de66c74-3b95-11e5-9be2-c9beed7c2430-780x1016.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi71XQI9z9-ZotvYZbS8K4ggzMZmm-PIYEAoD2_K6VBAW6bIZrKIu-opQVbDDfg_TnsobDxZPKj5ON7LvGMIt8IBBnxrC00tgJ9GMnSJ5f7fndPyrTdtrVBVrK_pfkWO01ORi44hsCqYAw/s400/0de66c74-3b95-11e5-9be2-c9beed7c2430-780x1016.jpg" width="306" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="caption">A massive column of billowing smoke </span><br />
<span class="caption">mushrooms over Nagasaki, Japan, </span><br />
<span class="caption">after the United States dropped </span><br />
<span class="caption">an atomic bomb on Aug. 9, 1945. (AP)</span> </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span channel="<br">Taking the events at Hiroshima and Nagasaki seriously by establishing Nuclear Awareness Days would give us an opportunity to meditate on the terrible reality of what transpired in 1945 and condemn the world’s worst weapons before they are used again. Chemical and biological weapons, land mines and cluster munitions are illegal, so why aren’t nuclear weapons? Some 112 countries have signed a petition calling for nuclear weapons to be banned.<br />
<br />
The U.S. nuclear arsenal is especially relevant to Puget Sound — Trident submarines are based at Naval Base Kitsap Bangor. A single vessel can carry 24 nuclear missiles (restricted to 20 by treaty), each capable of delivering eight to 12 independently targetable warheads, each roughly 40 times the size of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. To repeat: This is the potential output of just one Trident submarine — eight are currently deployed west of Seattle, and an additional five at Kings Bay, Ga., and one in Portsmouth, Va.<br />
<br />
Even if the theory of deterrence has any validity at all, how much extinction is enough? Bangor and other sites in Washington that house nuclear weapons are not just sources of planetary destruction, but also targets.<br />
</span><br />
<span channel="<br">
Maybe the United States will eventually wake up, abandon nuclear arms and embrace fundamental decency and basic planetary hygiene. Toward that end, we fervently recommend Nuclear Awareness Days as an opportunity to reflect not only on what has happened but also what might yet be achieved — and preserved.</span><br />
###<br />
<br />
<strong>Original Source URL</strong>: <a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/remembering-the-bomb-that-changed-the-world/">http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/remembering-the-bomb-that-changed-the-world/</a><br />
<span channel="<br"><br />
David P. Barash, professor of psychology at University of Washington, is the author of “Buddhist Biology: Ancient Eastern Wisdom Meets Modern Western Science.” Judith Eve Lipton, a retired psychiatrist, is the founder of the Washington state chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility. <br />
</span>Leonard Eigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08211690207308023413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560331176916273168.post-66546771399662962372015-08-01T16:47:00.002-07:002015-08-01T16:47:55.973-07:00Keeping Alive the Voices of the Hibakusha Dear Friends,<br />
<br />
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
In just a few days people around the world will commemorate the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The historical importance of these anniversaries is of special significance because we must maintain the collective consciousness of the bombings or humankind is certainly doomed to the consequences of continuing as slaves to the myth of the necessity of nuclear weapons for our protection. </div>
<br />
Of special standing in the telling of this history are the Hibakusha, the survivors of the atomic bombings. Some have told their stories to be recorded to share with future generations, while some have yet to do so. As the Hibakusha reach the end of their lives, it becomes imperative that we record the stories of those who are still willing to tell them.<br />
<br />
In 2010 I hosted a large delegation representing the Japan Council against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs (Gensuikyo) on their way home after the 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)Review Conference in New York. The delegation consisted of Japanese citizens from many cities, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The most venerable member of the delegation, Tokie MIZUNO, is a Hibakusha of Hiroshima.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2d4YmYX7729OqbfsNHVTXE4aGJ-WUBBkj2ESlNjHPlGOB14jO9NrVnwXcvduEuLDMFxqrNv9Br5p7O8lW8Vs06n19p-t3Xmz0Y2idgPMK1iDwf-RyfSXSWemf6m3ft5xK4LJgGWVrqoE/s1600/DSC_0074.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5469194785028812018" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2d4YmYX7729OqbfsNHVTXE4aGJ-WUBBkj2ESlNjHPlGOB14jO9NrVnwXcvduEuLDMFxqrNv9Br5p7O8lW8Vs06n19p-t3Xmz0Y2idgPMK1iDwf-RyfSXSWemf6m3ft5xK4LJgGWVrqoE/s200/DSC_0074.JPG" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 263px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 190px;" /></a>Ms. MIZUNO was 5 years old when the bomb exploded over her city, and she has never forgotten that day. She still bears the scars both visible and invisible that have affected her life and health. I could tell you more, but the story should be told by Ms. MIZUNO (in her own words). This is her story, and she wrote it down and then stood before people in Seattle, and then in Tacoma, and with great conviction told her story, gave her testimony, and called on everyone to work together for a nuclear weapon-free world.<br />
<br />
<div>
Ms. MIZUNO honored us with her testimony, and as witness to that testimony I feel a responsibility to pass on her words exactly as she spoke them on both occasions. You may read them here, and I hope that you will be touched by her words and pass them on to others, especially those who are still unaware that the nuclear-armed nations still brandish thousands of nuclear weapons, and are prepared to use them; the results of such action would be horrific.</div>
<br />
<div>
This year, which is the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombings, I was in New York for many activities surrounding the NPT Review Conference. Once again I met with many representatives of the Gensuikyo, including a number of Hibakusha. Each of their stories is compelling, and it gave me a renewed sense of the importance of our responsibility to honor them.</div>
<br />
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #006600;">The voices of the Hibakusha help keep the memory of those terrible events in 1945 alive so that we may choose (if we find our own conviction) to not allow such things to ever happen again. For if we do not remember history, we are doomed to repeat it; this terrible history must never be repeated. Let us hear the voices of the Hibakusha with our hearts and minds so that we may carry their message with us wherever we go...</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="color: #006600;"><i><b><br />No more Hiroshimas! No more Nagasakis!</b></i> </span></span><br />
</div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #006600;">Heiwa (Peace),</span></div>
<br />
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #006600;"><i>Leonard</i></span><br />
<em><span style="color: #006600;"></span></em><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQY0rTzbH8uYtK7-ET9ayO-K4iHRgk_zfFrRmFPoTtnIayUjsSZG29iLPpaFs-hWUSI07VDU5kbDikP-eZKZMqjm5QLJ8NFG40lP7gsED3YtEHUVk4BwN43KMY2Ulx-5Al_14VQUew-Eo/s1600/DSC_0024.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQY0rTzbH8uYtK7-ET9ayO-K4iHRgk_zfFrRmFPoTtnIayUjsSZG29iLPpaFs-hWUSI07VDU5kbDikP-eZKZMqjm5QLJ8NFG40lP7gsED3YtEHUVk4BwN43KMY2Ulx-5Al_14VQUew-Eo/s400/DSC_0024.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Toki Mizuno with offering at Seattle's Sadako Statue, May 2010</td></tr>
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This is the testimony of Tokie MIZUNO as it was written by Ms. MIZUNO in April 2010, and translated by Nobue KUGIMIYA; and presented by Ms. MIZUNO at First United Methodist Church of Seattle, Washington on May 5, 2010 and at the University of Washington Tacoma on May 6, 2010. The two black and white photos were also included with her testimony.</div>
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<i>My name is Tokie MIZUNO and I am a survivor of Hiroshima. 65 years ago, when I was 5 years old, the atomic bomb was dropped on my city, Hiroshima. I was near my grandmother’s house, 1.2 kilo-meters from ground zero.</i></div>
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<i><br />The City of Hiroshima was completely destroyed and was turned into rubble by the enormous destructive power of the atomic bomb. As other survivors, I was barely alive and the damage on my body and mind was unbearable.</i></div>
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<i>I might have been lucky to survive but life hasn’t been easy on me financially, physically and mentally. This agony should not be repeated on anybody else on earth. That’s why I have become involved in anti-nuclear actions with other Hibakusha as well as many other Japanese people.</i></div>
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<i>We have been collecting signatures for a nuclear-weapon-free world, and engaging in activities to defend the Japanese Constitution, especially the Preamble and Article 9, which pledges never to wage war again.<br /><br />Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution clearly states “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat of use of force as means of settling international disputes.”<br /><br />And it adds “In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained.” Article 9 is our treasure.<br /><br />This treasure for Japan was achieved with the sacrifice of precious lives of 20 to 30 million people in Asia and Pacific. This is one of the greatest achievements for the world, too, and we will hold on to it forever.<br /><br />Let me talk about that day.......<br /><br />On the morning of August 6th, 1945, just before Hiroshima was hit by the atomic bombing, one of the women in my neighbourhood came to my house and said “We have some sweets. Why don’t you come and have some?”<br /><br />So my little 3-year-old brother and I happily followed her. In those days it was very difficult to have sweets. My neighbour’s son, a soldier, was back from the battlefront to treat his wounds. He brought some sweets with him for his family and the neighbour invited us in.</i></div>
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<i>We were about to eat our sweets when the bomb exploded.<br /><br />With a blinding flash, the whole house was flattened.<br /><br />I found myself trapped under the rubble. I tried to look out from my little prison and saw my younger brother, rescued by a soldier, standing there with blood on his face and head.<br /><br />I myself was pulled out of the rubble. My right arm was heavily injured and I had several cuts on my face. My neighbour tore her underwear into pieces and covered my arm to stop it bleeding. Later I was told that it was her treatment that saved my right arm.<br /><br />I don’t remember how many hours had passed, but I saw my mother crawling to me over piles of rubble. She was desperately looking for me and my younger brother. She looked awful with only tattered patches of her clothing on her body and her hair standing on end.<br /></i><i>My 12-month-old baby brother was still buried under the rubble. My mother and grandmother were desperate and were removing the debris saying they should get him back home, even if he was dead.</i></div>
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<i>They also called out for help to people walking by but nobody stopped. They went on their way absentmindedly - they were like ghosts.<br /><br />We saw flames in the distance coming towards us. Terrified, my younger brother and I were both crying. I don’t remember the pain of my injury, but many collapsed houses around us horrified me, although my father thought I was just stunned.<br /><br />Fortunately, my baby brother was alive, and we managed to escape to a raft on the river. There were countless dead bodies floating and fire balls were falling all around. Red-hot galvanized plates darted towards us and made a huge noise when they dropped into the river. It was not a safe place to be.</i></div>
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<i>At that time I was so young that I don’t remember exactly what happened. But my deceased parents and grandmother told me a lot about that day.<br /><br />There was a woman on the raft who gave us food and water. She also gave my mother part of a Kimono to use as bandages and as a strap to carry me on her back.</i></div>
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<i>In the evening, cooling our bodies with river water, we finally found a place to evacuate to. It was a shrine near a railway station called Koi.<br /><br />Because my grandmother and I were seriously injured, we two were left at the shrine while my mother and brothers escaped to my aunt’s house in Itsukaichi City. My uncle who rushed to Hiroshima to search for us carried them on his handcart.Grandmother thought we could have some treatment at the shrine but nothing was available. We were given only one rotten rice ball. We finally evacuated to my aunt’s house.</i></div>
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<i>They were farmers and gave us good food. I had tomatoes, cucumbers, pickled shallots etc. to my heart’s content. It may be this diet that has kept me healthy.<br /><br />My father had to spend several nights at shelters in Hiroshima. He died abruptly from TB in August 1956, which we believe was due to residual radiation. Later when I was working to collect survivors’ stories, I learned that there were many Hibakusha who suffered from TB during those difficult times.</i></div>
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<i>My mother died in Oct. 1967. I believe that both of my parents were killed by the atomic bomb. At that time I thought that it was our fate and that because Japan was at war we couldn't complain about it.<br /><br />I also thought we were just unfortunate because we were in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped. Later I learned history, which completely changed my mind. I knew why the US had done it.</i></div>
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<i>The US government has kept saying that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the war and saved millions of people’s lives. That’s what they teach at schools.<br /><br />However, in 1944 there was scarcely any food left for Japanese people. People were dying from hunger. Japan’s ground and air forces and navy were almost completely destroyed. It was obvious that Japan was finished.</i></div>
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<i>Nonetheless, 210,000 people were killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Why?<br /><br />In 1945 the war ended, but another war, the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union had already started. The US wanted to have an advantage over the Soviet Union militarily and politically by showing the power of nuclear weapons. They also wanted to test their newly developed technology, atomic bombs.</i><br />
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<i>Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen as testing grounds with real live people.<br /><br />Let me share with you what the atomic bombing had done to us. The atomic bomb caused massive destruction and killed tens of thousands instantly and indiscriminately. It also emitted massive amounts of radiation which has afflicted us for decades.</i></div>
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<i>Hibakusha describe the moment of the bombing as “The Sun dropped on us and burnt us”. When Bomb exploded, a huge fireball, 280 meters in diameter, was generated in the air.<br /><br />Heat rays emitted from it raised the ground temperature, from 3000 to 4000 degrees Celsius (5500 to 7300 degrees Fahrenheit) near the hypocenter.</i></div>
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<i><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5468662091285971362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL5LLrBlPb2pYy9TQbNkAn4SOyc3cQp9gbU1q-hf-Nwwh97wkQ2a5oLpG3xtO8VFD_3gFsEWH92FbiTjTBNd4XEpbhjc3l76Y5TOH7-CJtWmJ5F8xGfA-Vd7DvT-woWFuj3Sat289zTis/s200/photo+of+boy.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 147px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 200px;" /></i><i><br />This was a boy, the charred remains. 700 meters from the hypocenter (Aug. 10. Nagasaki).<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHWcvDqBnkWRWjMWCedaBAbBvvitkEMT4soQxpqg2pFgJxddjAp7ig1jRga4R6N2dEBLAovdxBNLQ8o-hLr_I9ZYUKsZ5jPm4nItAKf_9GAjgkN1sh5fb5H_zHfOggq6LTl5iLsv3XHwo/s1600/shadow+of+a+man.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5469195336973758178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHWcvDqBnkWRWjMWCedaBAbBvvitkEMT4soQxpqg2pFgJxddjAp7ig1jRga4R6N2dEBLAovdxBNLQ8o-hLr_I9ZYUKsZ5jPm4nItAKf_9GAjgkN1sh5fb5H_zHfOggq6LTl5iLsv3XHwo/s200/shadow+of+a+man.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 218px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 165px;" /></a></i></div>
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<i>This is the shadow of a man (Shadow burnt into the granite steps).</i></div>
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<i>Within 1.2 kilo-meters of ground zero, those who were directly affected by the heat rays suffered terrible burns and their internal tissues and organs severely damaged. Most of them died instantly or within a few days.</i></div>
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<i>The explosion also created a powerful blast and destroyed most of the wooden houses in 2-kilometer radius of ground zero. People were blown through the air and many crushed to death under collapsed buildings.</i></div>
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<i>Radiation left the human body with serious damage. It penetrated deeply into our bodies, damaged cells and diminished the blood generation function of bone marrow.<br /><br />It also damaged inner organs. Even those who looked uninjured later became ill and died.<br /><br />Residual radiation left on the ground affected many long after the explosion. Those who entered the city to search for their families/friends or for relief operations eventually developed similar symptoms and died.</i></div>
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<i>Nuclear weapons are unspeakable weapons. They don’t allow us to live nor die as humans. They are weapons of absolute evil which can never co-exist with human beings.<br /><br />3.2 million Japanese people lost their lives in the Asia-Pacific War. 20 to 30 million people were victimized by the Japanese military in Asia.<br /><br />Learning from it, we have acquired the war-renouncing Japanese Constitution. However, military spending in the world is growing. Trillions of dollars are being spent for military purposes. If used for peaceful purposes, this money could solve many problems for human-kind.</i></div>
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<i>20th century war is gone. Our responsibility is to hand over a peaceful and cultivated 21st century to the next generation. I strongly believe that we can hand over a nuclear-weapon-free world to future generations if we work together in solidarity with the people of the U.S. and with the people of the world.<br /><br />Thank you.</i><br />
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<strong><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzRG1crlv8YMMWZkN2RjMDAtMjY0NC00YzZhLWE5NzMtNmMxNDEwMjNlZjlk/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Click here to download</a> the original program for Ms. Mizuno's presentation with the complete translation.</strong></div>
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<a href="http://www.antiatom.org/GSKY/en/discription_gensuikyo.htm">Click here</a> to learn more about the Japan Council against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs (Gensuikyo).</div>
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Leonard Eigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08211690207308023413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560331176916273168.post-6744146766367463882015-07-28T16:17:00.000-07:002015-07-28T16:17:37.777-07:00Why Americans Believe that Bombing Hiroshima was Necessary<strong><em>Editor's Note: This is a guest column by Gary Kohls, MD. Gary G Kohls. Kohls is a retired physician who practiced holistic mental health care, dealing extensively with the totally preventable and difficult to treat reality known as posttraumatic stress disorder, which is always a consequence of violence. He is a member of the Community of the Third Way (a local Every Church A Peace Church affiliate) and the Just Peace Committee of Peace Church UCC in Duluth, Minnesota.</em></strong><br />
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August 6, 2015, is the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, a civilian city that had minimal military value, despite the claims of President Truman when he announced the event to the American people.<br />
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The whole truth of what the Nuremburg tribunal would later help define as an international war crime and a crime against humanity has been heavily censored and mythologized ever since war-weary Americans in 1945 accepted the propaganda that the bombings were necessary to shorten the war and prevent the loss of a million US soldiers during the allegedly planned November 1945 invasion. <br />
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Of course, the reason that the United States wasn’t sanctioned like Germany was for the Jewish holocaust was that America was the victor and the occupier and thus it was in charge of making and enforcing the rules in the New World Order. <br />
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The United States military ambushed the equally defenseless Nagasaki City three days later with the second atomic bomb to ever be used against a civilian population (that no longer had any military value to Japan). “Fat Man”, the plutonium bomb named after Winston Churchill, was detonated before the Japanese leadership fully understood what had happened at Hiroshima. <lies history="" me="" my="" teachers="" told=""><br />
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My high school history teachers all seemed to be ex-jocks who weren’t athletically talented enough to make it to the majors. The main chance for them to continue playing games for pay was to join the teaching profession and coach high school athletics. American history was of secondary importance in many small town high schools but it hardly made the list of interests for coaches, who reluctantly accepted the job; and so my classmates and I “learned” our lessons from some very uninspired, very bored and/or very uninformed teachers who would rather have been on the playing field. <br />
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In my coach’s defense, the history books that they had to teach from had been highly censored in order to promote patriotism; and so we “learned” that most everything that the “noble” British colonizers and “honorable” US empire builders ever did in the history of warfare was self-sacrificing, democracy-promoting and Christianizing - and that everything their freedom-seeking, revolutionary colonial victims did was barbaric, atheistic and evil. Anybody who resisted colonial oppressors was treated as a terrorist. <br />
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It was from these history books that we learned about the “glorious” end of the war against Japan via nuclear incineration. Everybody in my high school, including myself, swallowed the post-war propaganda hook, line and sinker.<br />
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Of course, I now realize that my classmates and I, just like most other Americans (including the volunteer or conscripted members of the military), have been naïve victims of “lies our history teachers taught us”. In their defense, those teachers had been misled in their own schooling by equally mis-informed teachers who got their information from a variety of dis-informers who wrote the books: and those authors were the war- and empire-justifying militarists and assorted uber-patriotic pseudo-historians who had been duped into believing the myth of American exceptionalism. <br />
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Not included in that group of true believers were the 50,000 WWII American soldier-members of the “Greatest Generation” who, in many cases, logically and understandably deserted or went AWOL during their war service, a reality that has been conveniently censored out of our consciousness.<br />
<the casualty="" first="" is="" of="" truth="" war=""><br />
One of General Douglas MacArthur’s first acts after taking over as Viceroy of Japan was to confiscate or otherwise destroy all the photographic evidence documenting the horrors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He imposed total censorship over journalists who wanted to report to the world about what had really happened at Ground Zero, again proving the old adage that “the first casualty of war is truth”. Embedding journalists in the US military so that only America-friendly reportage happened wasn’t the original idea of General Stormin’ Norman Schwarzkopf in Gulf War I.<br />
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Back in 1995, the Smithsonian Institution was preparing to correct some of the 50-year-old pseudo-patriotic myths about the Pacific War by staging an honest, historically-accurate display dealing with the atomic bombings from the Japanese civilian perspective.<br />
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Swift, vehement and well-orchestrated condemnations directed at the Smithsonian historian’s plans to tell unwelcome truths about war came from right-wing pro-war veterans organizations, the GOP-dominated Congress at the time, and other militarist groups (such as Newt Gingrich’s paymaster Lockheed Martin, one of many war-profiteering merchants-of-death multinationals whose profits and products depend on Congressional and Pentagon largesse). Gingrich actually threatened to stop federal funding of the Smithsonian, thus forcing it to censor-out all of the contextually important parts of the real story. And so the pseudo-patriotic myths about Hiroshima and Nagasaki continue to be preserved to this very day. <br />
<historical america="" endemic="" illiteracy="" in="" is=""><br />
We historically-illiterate Americans are blocked, again and again, from learning historical truths about the American Empire - and the control that the military and multinational corporations have over it. Anything that might shake voter confidence in – or incite grassroots revolution against - the unelected ruling elites, the Pentagon or the conscienceless transnational corporations (that control our two major party politicians, the mainstream media and the “invisible hand of the market”) is verboten. <br />
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The Smithsonian historians did have a gun to their heads, of course, but in the melee, we voters failed to learn an important historical point, and that is this: the war in the Pacific could have ended in the spring of 1945 without the need for the August atomic bombings, and therefore there might have been no Okinawa bloodbath that senselessly doomed thousands of American Marines. <br />
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And there would have been no need for an American land invasion of Japan in November. Indeed, in the 1980s, released top secret records revealed that the contingency plans for a large-scale US invasion (planned for no sooner than November 1, 1945) would have been unnecessary.<br />
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To the victors go the spoils, and the American victors were the ones running the war crimes tribunals and thus also determined the content of my history text books. <br />
<america before="" for="" hiroshima="" honorably="" japan="" knew="" leaders="" months="" s="" searching="" surrender="" that="" to="" was="" ways=""><br />
American intelligence agencies, with the full knowledge of President Roosevelt’s and President Truman’s administrations, were fully aware of Japan's search for ways to honorably surrender months before Truman gave the fateful order to incinerate Hiroshima.<br />
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Japan was working on peace negotiations through its ambassador in Moscow as early as April of 1945, with surrender feelers from Japan occurring as far back as 1944. Truman knew of these developments because the US had broken the Japanese code even before Pearl Harbor, and all of Japan's military and diplomatic messages were being intercepted. On July 13, 1945, Foreign Minister Togo wrote: "Unconditional surrender (giving up all sovereignty, including the deposing of Emperor Hirohito) is the only obstacle to peace." <br />
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Truman’s advisors knew about these efforts, and the war could have ended through diplomacy by simply conceding a post-war figurehead position for the emperor (who was regarded as a deity in Japan). That reasonable concession was - seemingly illogically - refused by the US in their demands for unconditional surrender, which was first demanded at the 1943 Casablanca Conference between Roosevelt and Churchill and then reiterated at the Potsdam Conference between Truman, Churchill and Stalin. Still, the Japanese continued searching for an honorable peace through negotiations.<br />
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Even Secretary of War Henry Stimson said: “the true question was not whether surrender could have been achieved without the use of the bomb but whether a different diplomatic and military course would have led to an earlier surrender. A large segment of the Japanese cabinet was ready in the spring of 1945 to accept substantially the same terms as those finally agreed on.” In other words, Stimson knew that the US could have ended the war before Hiroshima. <br />
<the demand="" for="" japan="" prolonged="" s="" surrender="" the="" unconditional="" unreasonable="" war=""><br />
After Japan officially surrendered on August 15, 1945, MacArthur allowed the emperor to remain in place as spiritual head of Japan, the very condition that forced the Japanese leadership to refuse to accept the earlier, humiliating, “unconditional surrender” terms. <br />
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So the two essential questions that need answering in order to comprehend what was going on behind the scenes are these: 1) Why did the US refuse to accept Japan's only demand concerning its surrender (the retention of the emperor) and 2) why were the atomic bombs used when victory in the Pacific was assured?<the barbaric="" decision="" destruction="" factors="" history="" in="" leading="" mass="" most="" of="" the="" to="" up="" use="" warfare="" weapons=""><br />
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There are a number of factors that contributed to the Truman administration’s fateful decision to use the atomic bombs.<br />
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1) Investment. The US had made a huge investment in time, mind and money (a massive 2 billion in 1940 dollars) to produce three bombs, and there was no inclination - and no guts - to stop the momentum.<br />
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2) Revenge. The US military and political leadership – as did many ordinary Americans - had a tremendous appetite for revenge because of the Pearl Harbor “surprise” attack. Mercy wasn't in the mindset of the US military, the war-weary populace or even of average American Christians and their churches. The missions against Hiroshima and Nagasaki were accepted as necessary, with no questions asked, by most of those folks who only knew the sanitized, national security state version of events. Most Americans wanted to believe the cunningly-orchestrated propaganda.<br />
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3) A “use it or lose it” mentality and scientific curiosity. The fissionable material in Hiroshima's bomb was uranium. The Trinity test bomb (exploded on July 16, 1945) and the Nagasaki bomb were plutonium bombs. Scientific curiosity was a significant factor that pushed the project to its deadly completion. The Manhattan Project leaders were curious. “What would happen if a city was leveled by a single uranium bomb?” “What would happen if plutonium was used?” Now that the war against Nazi Germany (the original intended target) was over, the most conscientious scientists felt that the bombs should not be used against civilian targets. <br />
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4) “Orders are orders”. Actually, the military decision to drop both bombs had been made well in advance of August 1945. Accepting the surrender of Japan prior to their use was not an option if the experiment was to go ahead. It should be obvious to anybody that the three-day interval between the two bombs was unconscionably short if the purpose of the first bomb was to force immediate surrender. Japan’s communications and transportation capabilities were in shambles, and no one, neither the US military nor the Japanese high command, fully understood what had happened at Hiroshima. (It is a fascinating fact that the Manhattan Project had been so top secret that even MacArthur, commanding general of the entire Pacific theatre, had been kept out of the loop - until July 1)<br />
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5) The Russians. Stalin had proclaimed his intent to enter the war with Japan 90 days after V-E Day (Victory in Europe Day, May 8, 1945), which would have been two days after Hiroshima was bombed. Indeed, Russia did declare war on Japan on August 8 and was advancing eastward across Manchuria when Nagasaki City, the center of Japanese Christianity, was incinerated. <br />
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Certainly Russia was still feeling the sting of humiliating defeat and the loss of territory from the disastrous Russo-Japanese War of 1905 when they were beaten by upstart Japan. Elephants and ego-bloated nation-states have long memories, especially when they lose an argument, lose a fight or are embarrassed in public. Witness the 150 year old enduring promise from segregationist devotees of the Confederate flag like Dylan Roof, the KKK, and the White Citizen’s Councils that “The South Will Rise Again”; or consider the rabid right-wing, sociopathic NeoNazis all around the world in their devotion to Adolf Hitler and their symbol of fascism, the Swastika.<br />
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The US didn't want Japan surrendering to Russia and thus sharing the spoils of war. Russia was soon to be one of only two world superpowers - and therefore a future enemy of the United States. So the first "messages" of the Cold War were sent by the US to the USSR on August 6 and 9, 1945: “Stalin, stay away from Japan’s carcass. We own it. And besides, we have the bomb.”<br />
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Russia didn’t receive the spoils of the Pacific War that they had anticipated, and the two superpowers were instantly mired in the multi-trillion dollar stalemated nuclear arms race and the multitude of proxy wars that regularly risked the total extinction of humanity. What also happened along the way was the moral bankruptcy of both of the paranoid super-power nations that insisted on fighting the stupid cold war, a war that was fueled by war-profiteering corporations and borrow and spend economics.<br />
<the casualties="" for="" innocent="" of="" reality="" the="" war=""><br />
An estimated 80,000 innocent civilians, plus 20,000 weaponless young Japanese conscripts died instantly in the Hiroshima bombing raid. Hundreds of thousands more suffered slow deaths and disabilities from agonizing burns, radiation sickness, leukemia, anemia, thrombocytopenia and untreatable infections. The Japanese survivors and their progeny suffered a fate similar to the survivors and progeny of America’s “Atomic Soldiers”. (Atomic Soldiers were those soldiers who were exposed, in the line of duty, to the hundreds of nuclear tests in the 50s and 60s or to the depleted uranium that the US military used in the two Gulf Wars.) Each of those groups were afflicted with horrible radiation-induced illnesses, congenital anomalies, genetic mutations, immune deficiencies, cancers and premature deaths, still going on to this very minute. <br />
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(Another shameful reality that has been covered up is the fact that 12 American Navy pilots, their existence well known to the US command prior to the bombing, were instantly incinerated in the Hiroshima jail on that fateful day.)<br />
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<military myths="" our="" taught="" teachers="" that="" us="">So the official War Department-approved, highly censored version of the end of the war in the Pacific was added to an ever-lengthening list of myths that we Americans have been continuously fed by our corporate-controlled military, political and media opinion leaders. In the process, the gruesomeness and cruelty of war has been cunningly propagandized so that we consumers of information see only the glorification of American militarism. <br />
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Among the other censored out realities include what really happened in the US military’s participation in the destabilize-and-conquer campaigns and coups d’etat in Ukraine, Honduras, Venezuela, Libya, and bloody invasions and/or occupations of Korea, Iran, Viet Nam, Laos, Cambodia, Lebanon, Granada, Panama, the Philippines, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Haiti, Colombia, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc, etc. This list doesn’t necessarily cover the uncountable secret Pentagon/CIA covert operations and assassination plots in the rest of the world, where some 150 “sovereign” nations have been coerced into allowing the building of American military bases (permission lavishly paid for by bribes or threats of economic or military sanctions).<br />
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But somehow most of us still hang on to our shaky "my country right or wrong" patriotism, desperately wanting to believe the cunningly-orchestrated myths that say that the war-profiteering corporate elite (and the politicians, military leaders and media talking heads who are in their employ) only work for peace, justice, equality, liberty and “making the world safe”, not for democracy, but for predatory capitalism. <br />
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While it is true that the US military has faced down the occasional despot, with necessary sacrifice from dead and incurably-wounded (in body, mind and spirit) American soldiers and veterans, more often than not the rationalizations for going to war are the same as those of the "godless communists", the anti-American “insurgents” and “freedom fighters” who just want us Yankees to go home where we belong. <br />
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August 6 and 9, 1945 are just two more examples of the brain-washing that goes on in all "total war” political agendas, which are consistently accompanied by the inevitable human death and destruction that is euphemistically labeled “splendid slaughter”, "collateral damage" or "friendly fire".<br />
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It might already be too late to rescue and resuscitate the (mythical?) moribund humanitarian, peacemaking America that we used to know and love. It might be too late to effectively confront the corporate hijacking of liberal democracy in America. It might be too late to successfully bring down the arrogant and greedy ruling elites who are selfishly dragging our planet down the road to destruction. The rolling coups d’etat orchestrated by the profiteers of what I call Friendly American Fascism may have already accomplished its goal.<br />
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But I suppose there is always hope. Rather than being silent about the destabilizing conflicts that the war-mongers are provoking all over the planet (with the very willing assistance of Wall Street, the Pentagon, the weapons industries and their lapdogs in Congress), people of conscience need to start learning the whole truth of history, despite the psychological discomfort that they may feel (cognitive dissonance) when the lies that they had been led to believe can’t be believed any more. We need to start owning up to America’s uncountable war crimes that have been orchestrated in our names.<br />
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And so the whistle-blowers among us need to rise up in dissent, go to the streets in protest and courageously refuse to cooperate with those sociopathic personalities that have gradually transformed America into a criminal rogue state. Like Nazi Germany or Fascist Japan, rogue nations throughout history have been eventually targeted for downfall by its billions of angry, fed-up, suffering victims who live both inside and outside its borders. That fate awaits America unless its leaders confesses their sins, honestly ask for forgiveness and truly promise to join the peace-loving human race.<br />
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Doing what is right for the whole of humanity for a change, rather than just doing what is profitable or advantageous for our over-privileged, over-consumptive, toxic and unsustainable American way of life, would be real honor, real patriotism and an essential start toward real peace.<br />
</what></military></the></the></the></america></historical></the><!--50--></lies>Leonard Eigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08211690207308023413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560331176916273168.post-80870458311178695782015-07-17T14:01:00.001-07:002015-07-17T14:01:17.736-07:00The Nuclear Age at 70; Time for Mandatory Retirement!Yesterday marked the anniversary of the day in which the world entered the atomic age. On July 16, 1945, at 5:29:45 AM at the Alamogordo Test Range, on the Jornada del Muerto (Journey of Death) desert, in the test named Trinity, the experimental device known as the "Gadget" was detonated, creating a light "brighter than a thousand suns." A mere 6 kilogram (13.2 pound) sphere of plutonium, compressed to supercriticality by the surrounding high explosives, created an explosion equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT (20 Kilotons). It was a stunning sight. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0nuF0w1c451M7RbPdMDsj2G1VYqMJuwkWNZ6tWK0ZcivqnAK0OAAFwVBodWPD6j696SVTIWRDLZ_F-CvOlNlOwgiF25fPjXiCM5XTcn25NIjbr997MzJgeTHiLPxTxQTKSphJzk6ByUk/s1600/SB36.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0nuF0w1c451M7RbPdMDsj2G1VYqMJuwkWNZ6tWK0ZcivqnAK0OAAFwVBodWPD6j696SVTIWRDLZ_F-CvOlNlOwgiF25fPjXiCM5XTcn25NIjbr997MzJgeTHiLPxTxQTKSphJzk6ByUk/s400/SB36.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">No one who saw it could forget it, a foul and awesome display.<br /> - Kenneth Bainbridge, physicist</td></tr>
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Was this, as thought nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer, the beginning of the end? These scientists had "become death", and they had created what could become (quite literally) "the destroyer of worlds"(Oppenheimer quoted a verse from the Bhagavad Gita which read, "I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.") </div>
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Less than a month after the Trinity test, the United States dropped two atomic bombs - on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - that killed over 100,000 people in less time than it took me to type a few of these words. As many as 220,000 were dead from the effects of radiation by the end of 1945. Even today, 70 years later, survivors (the Hibakusha) and subsequent generations suffer the effects of radiation.<br />
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From its horrific beginnings the nuclear arms race has led humanity down a perilous road of preparation for its own destruction. Scientists have continued to seek the power of gods, creating ever more destructive nuclear devices over the years, and military planners continued asking for more of these awful weapons in every shape and form (and method of delivery).<br />
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The fall of the Berlin Wall provided an extraordinary opportunity for the U.S. to reach out to Russia to begin the process of bilateral disarmament that would have sent a clear signal to other nuclear armed nations, as well as the non-nuclear nations, that it was time to rid the world of the weapons of humanity's demise.<br />
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So why didn't this happen? The U.S. was so set on taking hold of the former Soviet republics, controlling resources in the region, and weakening the new Russian state that it barely throttled back on its nuclear weapons program. Oh yes, we cut back on the overall numbers of nuclear warheads and some delivery vehicles, Yet, the ICBM forces stayed (for the most part) on alert, and ballistic missile submarine (Trident) patrols have remained at near-Cold War levels to this day. <br />
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The nuclear weapons infrastructure has been in the process of rebuilding in recent years, a new generation of ballistic missile submarines is in the works, and other delivery systems are on the drawing boards. Is it any wonder then that other nations, including Russia, are building up their nuclear forces?<br />
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Of course, for the U.S., all this nuclear weapons modernization is about projecting force in our insane colonial quest to control resources around the world. The irony is that nuclear weapons do not provide any real security at all; they are only a liability, and their eventual use will mean the end of life on Earth as we know it. Don't future generations deserve better?<br />
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With the very real threats posed by Global Warming and its associated Climate Change, shouldn't we be spending our precious human and financial capital on works that will help humanity adapt and find sustainability in what will be a difficult enough future?<br />
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A new Cold War is brewing as the bomb approaches its 70th birthday. Is it not time to send this demonic creature into forced retirement and to transition the entire nuclear weapons infrastructure to sustainable industries and jobs to build a positive future for humankind?<br />
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Here in Washington State we have Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor and the Strategic Weapons Facility, Pacific. Bangor is home port to 8 of the nation's 14 ballistic missile (Trident) submarines, and the two facilities together represent the largest operational concentration of nuclear weapons in the U.S., and possibly anywhere in the world.<br />
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Trident is a first-strike weapon system designed during the height of the earlier Cold War in the bad old days of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). Those days are long gone, and with them any possible argument for the concept of Strategic Deterrence that continues to justify our nation's continued nuclear weapons modernization.<br />
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The Navy's plans for a successor to Trident, known as the OHIO Class Replacement, SSBN(X) or as I call it, "New Trident," are moving full speed ahead. Of course, the Russians are responding and building their submarine fleet (and the associated missiles) back up. <br />
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This madness must stop, or we will be assuring the eventual destruction of everything we hold dear. Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action has, for nearly four decades, resisted the Trident nuclear weapons system and worked for the abolition of all nuclear weapons, while grounding its work in the study and practice of nonviolence.<br />
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This August we will remember the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on this 70th anniversary and continue to work to retire Trident and all nuclear weapons. 70 years is long enough (or perhaps I should say far too long).<br />
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<strong>Wherever you may be this August, I invite you to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombings and begin or continue your work (in whatever way you are able) to rid the world of the scourge of nuclear weapons. There are events around the country, and you </strong><a href="http://www.psr.org/news-events/events/hiroshima-day-events-2015.html" target="_blank"><strong>click here to find one</strong></a><strong> thanks to Physicians for Social Responsibility.</strong><br />
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<strong>While you're reading this, consider taking one of the actions (at the top of the right-hand column of this blog) to help build a nuclear weapons free world. You can also check out (and get involved at) our campaign to stop production of New Trident at </strong><a href="http://www.notnt.org/" target="_blank"><strong>NO To NEW TRIDENT</strong></a>.<br />
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Towards a peaceful retirement for the nuclear age,<br />
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LeonardLeonard Eigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08211690207308023413noreply@blogger.com0