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  • The Nuclear Zero Lawsuits: Taking Nuclear Weapons to Court

    Nuclear Zero LawsuitsNuclear weapons remain the most urgent threat confronting humanity.  So long as they exist, there is the very real chance they will be used by accident, miscalculation or design.  These weapons threaten everyone and everything we love and treasure.  They are fearsome destructive devices that kill indiscriminately and cause unnecessary suffering.  No man, woman or child is safe from the fury of these weapons, now or in the future.  Nor is any country safe from them, no matter how powerful or how much it threatens nuclear retaliation.

    Given the extreme dangers of nuclear weapons, we might ask: why isn’t more being done to eliminate them?  There has been talk and promises, but little action by the nine nuclear-armed nations – United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea.  All nine countries are modernizing their nuclear arsenals.

    One small Pacific nation, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, has decided to take legal action against the nine nuclear-armed countries, which are threatening our common future.  As Tony de Brum, Foreign Minister of the Marshall Islands, points out, “The continued existence of nuclear weapons and the terrible risk they pose to the world threatens us all.”

    To understand the nature of the legal actions taken by the Marshall Islands, it is necessary to go back in time.  Forty-six years ago, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was opened for signatures; two years later it entered into force.  The treaty seeks to stop the further spread of nuclear weapons, but it does more.  It also obligates its parties to level the playing field by negotiating in good faith for an end to the nuclear arms race and for nuclear disarmament.  This treaty currently has 190 countries signed on, including five nuclear weapon states and 185 non-nuclear weapon states.

    The Marshall Islands is taking its case to the International Court of Justice in The Hague and, in addition, filing against the U.S. separately in U.S. Federal District Court in San Francisco.  The lawsuits argue that the nuclear disarmament obligations apply to all nine nuclear-armed states as a matter of customary international law.  The courts are being asked in these Nuclear Zero Lawsuits to provide declaratory and injunctive relief, by declaring that the nuclear weapon states are in breach of their obligations under international law and ordering them to begin negotiating in good faith to achieve a cessation of the nuclear arms race and a world with zero nuclear weapons.

    The Marshall Islands has shown courage and boldness by taking action in filing these lawsuits.  It is a country that knows firsthand the consequences of nuclear detonations.  Between 1946 and 1958, the U.S. conducted 67 nuclear weapon tests in the Marshall Islands.  These tests had an equivalent explosive force greater than 1.5 Hiroshima bombs being detonated daily for 12 years.  The Marshall Islanders paid a heavy price in terms of their health and well-being for these destructive tests.

    Now this small island nation is standing up against nine of the most powerful countries on the planet.  It is “David” against the nuclear nine “Goliaths.”  Its field of nonviolent battle is the courtroom.

    The Marshall Islands is, in effect, challenging the nuclear weapon countries to be honorable and fulfill their obligations not only to the rest of the countries that signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but to all humanity.

    The Republic of the Marshall Islands is offering us a way to live on a planet that is not threatened by nuclear catastrophe due to human fallibility or malevolence. This courageous small island country deserves our strong and unwavering support.

    To find out more about the Nuclear Zero Lawsuits and how you can support them, go to www.nuclearzero.org.

  • Ally Nation Sues United States for Nuclear Treaty Violations

    For Immediate Release

    Contact: Shineh Rhee
    Phone: 646-477-5790
    Email: srhee@fenton.com

    Ally Nation Sues United States for Nuclear Treaty Violations

    Republic of Marshall Islands’ Historic Legal Action, backed by Nobel Laureates, Says U.S. Fails to Keep Commitments

    April 24, 2014 –San Francisco, CA — The Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) today filed an unprecedented lawsuit in the U.S. Federal District Court in San Francisco to hold the United States government accountable for its flagrant violations of the international nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

    The small island nation, once used as a testing ground for nuclear bombs, says the United States has repeatedly broken its promise to pursue the abolition of nuclear weapons. Article VI of the 1968  Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) requires the U.S. to pursue negotiations “in good faith” for an end to the nuclear arms race “at an early date” and for nuclear disarmament.

    “The failure of the United States to uphold important commitments and respect the law makes the world a more dangerous place,” said Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a vocal backer of the lawsuit. “President Obama has said that ridding the world of these devastating weapons is a fundamental moral issue of our time. It is time for the United States to show true leadership by keeping the promises set forth in the Non-Proliferation Treaty.”

    The Nuclear Zero lawsuit (titled for the NPT promise of a world with zero nuclear weapons) filed today charges the United States with clearly violating its legal obligations by spending outrageous sums of money to enhance its nuclear arsenal and by failing to make real progress in nuclear disarmament.  The U.S. plans to spend an estimated $1 trillion on nuclear weapons in the next three decades and currently possesses nearly half of the world’s 17,300 warheads.

    The Marshall Islands does not seek compensation with the lawsuit. Rather, it seeks declaratory and injunctive relief requiring the United States to comply with its commitments under the treaty and begin clear action towards the agreed upon promises.

    The United States conducted 67 nuclear weapons tests in the Marshall Islands from 1946 to1958 and the health and environmental effects still plague the Marshall Islanders today. The 1954 “Castle Bravo” nuclear test was the largest the U.S. ever conducted – estimated to be 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed the city of Hiroshima.

    “Our people have suffered the catastrophic and irreparable damage of these weapons, and we vow to fight so that no one else on earth will ever again experience these atrocities,” said Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Tony de Brum. “The continued existence of nuclear weapons and the terrible risk they pose to the world threatens us all.”

    World leaders, international organizations, world-class experts and Nobel Peace Laureates have declared strong support for the lawsuit and denounced nuclear weapons as immoral (see list on the website). The lawsuits are also supported by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF), a U.S.-based civil society organization consulting with the Marshall Islands and its pro bono legal team.

    “Nuclear weapons threaten everyone and everything we love and treasure. They threaten civilization and the human species. After 46 years with no negotiations in sight, it is time to end this madness,” said David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. “ The Marshall Islands is saying enough is enough. It is taking a bold and courageous stand on behalf of all humanity, and we at the Foundation are proud to stand by their side.”

    The lawsuit filed today in U.S. Federal District Court in San Francisco is accompanied by related lawsuits brought in the International Court of Justice in The Hague against all nine nuclear weapons states: United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea.

    To learn more about the Nuclear Zero Lawsuits, please go to www.nuclearzero.org.

  • Pacific Nation Challenges Nine Nuclear-Armed States in Lawsuits before the World Court

    For Immediate Release

    Contact: Shineh Rhee
    Phone: 646-477-5790
    Email: srhee@fenton.com

    Pacific Nation Challenges Nine Nuclear-Armed States
    in Lawsuits before the World Court

    Republic of Marshall Islands’ Historic Lawsuits Charge the U.S., Russia, UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea with Breaches of International Law

    April 24, 2014 –The Hague, Netherlands — The Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) today filed unprecedented lawsuits in the International Court of Justice to hold the nine nuclear-armed states accountable for flagrant violations of international law with respect to their nuclear disarmament obligations under the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and customary international law.

    The small island nation, which was used for 12 years as a testing ground for nuclear bombs by the United States, says the five original nuclear weapon states – U.S., Russia, UK, France and China – are continuously breaching their legal obligations under the treaty. The lawsuits also contend that all nine nuclear-armed nations are violating customary international law.

    Article VI of the NPT requires states to pursue negotiations “in good faith” on cessation of the nuclear arms race “at an early date” and nuclear disarmament. The five original nuclear weapon states are parties to the treaty but continue to ignore their obligations. The four newer nuclear-armed states – Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea – are not parties to the treaty but are bound by these nuclear disarmament provisions under customary international law.

    “Our people have suffered the catastrophic and irreparable damage of these weapons, and we vow to fight so that no one else on earth will ever again experience these atrocities,” said Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Tony de Brum. “The continued existence of nuclear weapons and the terrible risk they pose to the world threaten us all.”

    “The failure of these nuclear-armed countries to uphold important commitments and respect the law makes the world a more dangerous place,” said Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a vocal backer of the lawsuits. “We must ask why these leaders continue to break their promises and put their citizens and the world at risk of horrific devastation. This is one of the most fundamental moral and legal questions of our time.”

    These lawsuits detail the states’ offenses in continuing to modernize their arsenals while failing to negotiate nuclear disarmament. The nuclear-armed states are projected to spend $1 trillion on their arsenals in the next decade.

    The Marshall Islands does not seek compensation with these lawsuits. Rather, it seeks declaratory and injunctive relief requiring the nine nuclear-armed states to comply with their obligations.

    “In 1996, the World Court unanimously held, ‘There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.’ The nuclear-armed states have chosen to ignore this ever since and in these cases the Marshall Islands requests the Court to tell them in no uncertain terms that they need to fully meet international obligations,” said Phon van den Biesen, who is heading up the RMI’s international legal team with Tony de Brum.

    Three of the nine states, the UK, India, and Pakistan, accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the World Court when the opposing state equally has done so, as has the Marshall Islands. As to the other six states, the RMI is calling on them to accept the jurisdiction of the Court for this particular case and explain to the Court their positions regarding the nuclear disarmament obligations.

    The United States conducted 67 nuclear weapon tests in the Marshall Islands from 1946 to1958, and the health and environmental effects still plague the Marshall Islanders today. The power of the 1954 “Castle Bravo” nuclear test was 1,000 times greater than the bomb that destroyed the city of Hiroshima.

    World leaders, international non-governmental organizations, world-class experts and Nobel Peace Laureates have declared strong support for these lawsuits and have denounced nuclear weapons as immoral (see list on the website). The lawsuits are also supported by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF), a U.S.-based civil society organization consulting with the Marshall Islands and its international pro bono legal team.

    “Nuclear weapons threaten everyone and everything we love and treasure. They threaten civilization and the human species. After 46 years with no negotiations in sight, it is time to end this madness,” said David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. “The Marshall Islands is saying enough is enough. It is taking a bold and courageous stand on behalf of all humanity, and we at the Foundation are proud to stand by their side.”

    The lawsuits filed today in the International Court of Justice in The Hague are accompanied by a related lawsuit brought in U.S. Federal District Court in San Francisco against the United States.

    To learn more about these lawsuits please go to www.nuclearzero.org.

    #    #      #

    The international legal team contact information is as follows:

    • Tony A. de Brum, Co-Agent, Foreign Minister of the RMI
    • Phon van den Biesen, Co-Agent, Attorney at Law at Van den Biesen Kloostra Advocaten, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, http://vdbkadvocaten.eu/en/phon-van-den-biesen-en/, +31652061266
    • Laurie Ashton, Esq., Counsel, Keller Rohrback L.L.P., United States, www.KRComplexLit.com, +1 805.284.6820
    • Nicholas Grief, Counsel, Doughty Street Chambers, London, and Professor of Law, University of Kent, UK, www.doughtystreet.co.uk, +44 7891 460157
    • John Burroughs, Esq., Counsel, Executive Director, Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, New York City, UN Office of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms, www.lcnp.org, +1 917.439.4585; +1 212.818.1861
    • David Krieger, J.D., Ph.D., Consultant, President of Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Santa Barbara, California, United States, www.wagingpeace.org, +1 805.965.3443; +1 805.450.4083

  • Open Letter to President Obama

    April 16, 2014

    Dear President Obama,

    During the closing session of the Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague on March 25, 2014, you cited a number of concrete measures to secure highly-enriched uranium and plutonium and strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation regime that have been implemented as a result of the three Nuclear Security Summits, concluding: “So what’s been valuable about this summit is that it has not just been talk, it’s been action.”

    Would that you would apply the same standard to nuclear disarmament! On April 5, 2009 in Prague, you gave millions of people around the world new hope when you declared: “So today, I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” Bolstered by that hope, over the past three years, there has been a new round of nuclear disarmament initiatives by governments not possessing nuclear weapons, both within and outside the United Nations. Yet the United States has been notably “missing in action” at best, and dismissive or obstructive at worst. This conflict may come to a head at the 2015 Review of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).

    We write now, on the eve of the third Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) meeting for the 2015 Review Conference of the NPT, which will take place at UN headquarters in New York April 28 – May 9, 2014, to underscore our plea that your administration shed its negative attitude and participate constructively in deliberations and negotiations regarding the creation of a multilateral process to achieve a nuclear weapons free world.  This will require reversal of the dismal U.S. record.

     

    • The 2010 NPT Review Conference unanimously agreed to hold a conference in 2012, to be attended by all states in the region, on a Middle East Zone Free of Nuclear and other Weapons of Mass Destruction. The U.S. was a designated convener, and a date was set for December 2012 in Helsinki. The Finnish ambassador worked feverishly, meeting individually with all of the countries in the region to facilitate the conference. Suddenly, on November 23, 2012, the U.S. State Department announced that the Helsinki conference was postponed indefinitely.
    • In March 2013, Norway hosted an intergovernmental conference in Oslo on the Humanitarian Impacts of Nuclear Weapons, with 127 governments in attendance. Mexico hosted a follow-on conference in Nayarit, Mexico in February 2014, with 146 governments present. The U.S. boycotted Oslo and Nayarit. Austria has announced that it will host a third conference, in Vienna, late this year.
    • In November 2012, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) established an “Open-Ended” working group open to all member states “to develop proposals to take forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations for the achievement and maintenance of a world without nuclear weapons,” and scheduled for September 26, 2013, the first-ever High-Level meeting of the UNGA devoted to nuclear disarmament. The U.S. voted against both resolutions and refused to participate in the Open-Ended working group, declaring in advance that it would disregard any outcomes.
    • The U.S. did send a representative to the UN “High-Level” meeting, but it was the Deputy Secretary for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance, rather than the President, Vice-President or Secretary of State. Worse, the U.S. joined with France and the U.K. in a profoundly negative statement, delivered by a junior British diplomat: “While we are encouraged by the increased energy and enthusiasm around the nuclear disarmament debate, we regret that this energy is being directed toward initiatives such as this High-Level Meeting, the humanitarian consequences campaign, the Open-Ended Working Group and the push for a Nuclear Weapons Convention.”
    • In contrast, Dr. Hassan Rouhani, the new President of Iran, used the occasion of the High-Level Meeting to roll out a disarmament “roadmap” on behalf of the 120 member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). The roadmap calls for: “early commencement of negotiations, in the Conference on Disarmament, on a comprehensive convention on nuclear weapons for the prohibition of their possession, development, production, acquisition, testing, stockpiling, transfer, use or threat of use, and for their destruction; designation of 26 September every year as an international day to renew our resolve to completely eliminate nuclear weapons;” and “convening a High-level International Conference on Nuclear Disarmament in five years to review progress in this regard.” The NAM roadmap was subsequently adopted by the UNGA with 129 votes in favor. The U.S voted no.

    Meanwhile, your Administration’s FY 2015 budget request seeks a 7% increase for nuclear weapons research and production programs under the Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). NNSA’s “Total Weapons Activities” are slated to rise to $8.2 billion in FY 2015 and to $9.7 billion by 2019, 24% above fiscal year 2014. Your Administration is also proposing a $56 billion Opportunity Growth and Security Initiative (OGSI) to be funded through tax changes and spending reforms. OGSI is to be split evenly between defense and non-defense spending, out of which $504 million will go to NNSA nuclear weapons programs “to accelerate modernization and maintenance of nuclear facilities.” With that, your FY 2015 budget request for maintenance and modernization of nuclear bombs and warheads in constant dollars exceeds the amount spent in 1985 for comparable work at the height of President Reagan’s surge in nuclear weapons spending, which was also the highest point of Cold War spending.

    We are particularly alarmed that your FY 2015 budget request includes $634 million (up 20%) for the B61 Life Extension Program, which, in contravention of your 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, as confirmed by former U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff, General Norton Schwartz, will have improved military capabilities to attack targets with greater accuracy and less radioactive fallout.

    This enormous commitment to modernizing nuclear bombs and warheads and the laboratories and factories to support those activities does not include even larger amounts of funding for planned replacements of delivery systems – the bombers, missiles and submarines that form the strategic triad, which are funded through the Department of Defense.  In total, according to the General Accounting Office, the U.S. will spend more than $700 billion over the next 30 years to maintain and modernize nuclear weapons systems. The James Martin Center places the number at an astounding one trillion dollars. This money is desperately needed to address basic human needs – housing, food security, education, healthcare, public safety, education and environmental protection – here and abroad.

    The Good Faith Challenge

    This our third letter to you calling on the U.S. government to participate constructively and in good faith in all international disarmament forums. On June 6, 2013, we wrote: “The Nuclear Security Summit process you initiated has been a success. However, securing nuclear materials, while significant, falls well short of what civil society expected following your Prague speech.”  In that letter, we urged you to you speak at the September 26, 2013 High-Level Meeting on Nuclear Disarmament at the United Nations; to endorse UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Five-Point Proposal on Nuclear Disarmament; to announce your convening of a series of Nuclear Disarmament Summits; to support extending the General Assembly’s Open-Ended Working Group to develop proposals to take forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations for the achievement and maintenance of a world without nuclear weapons; and to announce that the U.S. would participate in the follow-on conference on the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons in Mexico in early 2014.

    In our second letter, dated January 29, 2014, we urged that you direct the State Department to send a delegation to the Mexico conference and to participate constructively; and that your administration shed its negative attitude and participate constructively in deliberations and negotiations regarding the creation of a multilateral process to achieve a nuclear weapons free world. And we called on the United States to engage in good faith in efforts to make the Conference on Disarmament productive in pursuing the objective for which it was established more than three decades ago: complete nuclear disarmament; and to work hard to convene soon the conference on a zone free of WMD in the Middle East promised by the 2010 NPT Review Conference.

    Since our last letter, the U.S. – Russian relationship has deteriorated precipitously, with the standoff over the Crimea opening the real possibility of a new era of confrontation between nuclear-armed powers. The current crisis will further complicate prospects for future arms reduction negotiations with Russia, already severely stressed by more than two decades of post-Cold War NATO expansion, deployment of U.S. missile defenses, U.S. nuclear weapons modernization and pursuit of prompt conventional global strike capability.

    Keeping Our Side of the NPT Bargain

    Article VI of the NPT, which entered into force in 1970, and is the supreme law of the land pursuant to Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, 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, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

    In 1996, the International Court of Justice, the judicial branch of the United Nations and the highest and most authoritative court in the world on questions of international law, unanimously concluded: “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.”

    Forty-four years after the NPT entered into force, more than 17,000 nuclear weapons, most held by the U.S. and Russia, pose an intolerable threat to humanity. The International Red Cross has stated that “incalculable human suffering” will result from any use of nuclear weapons, and that there can be no adequate humanitarian response capacity.   Declaring that “our nation’s deep economic crisis can only be addressed by adopting new priorities to create a sustainable economy for the 21st century,” the bi-partisan U.S. Conference of Mayors has called on the President and Congress to slash nuclear weapons spending and to redirect those funds to meet the urgent needs of cities.

    We reiterate the thrust of the demands set forth in our letters of June 13, 2013 and January 29, 2014, and urge you to look to them for guidance in U.S. conduct at the 2014 NPT PrepCom. We stress the urgent need to press the “reset” button with Russia again. Important measures in this regard are an end to NATO expansion and a halt to anti-missile system deployments in Europe.

     

    • We urge you to work hard to fully implement all commitments you made in the Nuclear Disarmament action plan agreed by the 2010 NPT Review Conference and to convene the promised conference on a zone free of WMD in the Middle East at the earliest possible date.
    • We urge you again to take this opportunity to endorse UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Five-Point Proposal on Nuclear Disarmament, to announce your convening of a series of Nuclear Disarmament Summits, and to engage in good faith in efforts to make the Conference on Disarmament productive in pursuing the objective for which it was established more than three decades ago: complete nuclear disarmament.
    • We call on you to declare that the U.S. will participate constructively and in good faith in the third intergovernmental conference on humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons to be held in Vienna late this year.
    • As an immediate signal of good faith, we call on your Administration to halt all programs to modernize nuclear weapons systems, and to reduce nuclear weapons spending to the minimum necessary to assure the safety and security of the existing weapons as they await disablement and dismantlement.

    Mr. President: It’s time to move from talk to action on nuclear disarmament. There have never been more opportunities, and the need is as urgent as ever.

    We look forward to your positive response.

    Sincerely,

    Initiating organizations:

    Jacqueline Cabasso, Executive Director, Western States Legal Foundation
    [contact for this letter: wslf@earthlink.net; (510) 839-5877
    655 – 13th Street, Suite 201, Oakland, CA 94612]

    John Burroughs, Executive Director, Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy

    Kevin Martin, Executive Director, Peace Action

    David Krieger, President, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

    Joseph Gerson, Disarmament Coordinator, American Friends Service Committee (for identification only)

    Alicia Godsberg, Executive Director, Peace Action New York

    Endorsing organizations (national):

    Robert Gould, MD, President, Physicians for Social Responsibility

    Tim Judson, Executive Director, Nuclear Information and Resource Service

    Michael Eisenscher, National Coordinator, U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW)

    Michael McPhearson, Interim Executive Director, Veterans for Peace

    David Swanson, WarIsACrime.org

    Jill Stein, President, Green Shadow Cabinet

    Terry K. Rockefeller, National Co-Convener, United for Peace and Justice

    Hendrik Voss, National Organizer, School of the Americas Watch (SOA Watch)

    Alfred L. Marder, President, US Peace Council

    Robert Hanson, Treasurer, Democratic World Federalists

    Alli McCracken, National Coordinator, CODEPINK

    Margaret Flowers, MD and Kevin Zeese, JD, Popular Resistance

    Endorsing organizations (by state):

    Marylia Kelley, Executive Director, Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment) Livermore, California

    Blase Bonpane, Ph.D., Director, Office of the Americas, California

    Linda Seeley, Spokesperson, San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, California

    Susan Lamont, Center Coordinator, Peace and Justice Center of Sonoma County, California

    Chizu Hamada, No Nukes Action, California

    Lois Salo, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Peninsula Branch, California

    Rev. Marilyn Chilcote, Beacon Presbyterian Fellowship, Oakland, California

    Margli Auclair, Executive Director, Mount Diablo Pleace and Justice Center. California

    Roger Eaton, Communications Chair, United Nations Association-USA, San Francisco Chapter, California

    Dr. Susan Zipp, Vice President, Association of World Citizens, San Francisco, California
    Michael Nagler, President, Metta Center for Nonviolence, California (for identification only)

    Rev. Marilyn Chilcote McKenzie, Parish Associate, St. John’s Presbyterian Church of Berkeley, California (for identification only)

    James E. Vann, Oakland Tenants Union, California (for identification only)

    Vic and Barby Ulmer, Our Developing World, California (for identification only)

    Judith Mohling, Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, Colorado

    Bob Kinsey, Colorado Coalition for the Prevention of Nuclear War

    Medard Gabel, Executive Director, Pacem in Terris, Delaware

    Roger Mills, Coordinator, Georgia Peace & Justice Coalition, Henry County Chapter

    Bruce K. Gagnon, Coordinator, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, Maine

    Lisa Savage, CODEPINK, Maine

    Natasha Mayers, Whitefield, Maine Union of Maine Visual Artists

    Shirley “Lee” Davis, GlobalSolutions.org, Maine Chapter

    Lynn Harwood, the Greens of Anson, Maine

    Dagmar Fabian, Crabshell Alliance, Maryland

    Judi Poulson, Chair, Fairmont Peace Group, Minnesota

    Marcus Page-Collonge, Nevada Desert Experience, Nevada

    Gregor Gable, Shundahai Network, Nevada

    Jay Coghlan, Executive Director, Nuclear Watch New Mexico

    Joni Arends, Executive Director, Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, New Mexico

    Lucy Law Webster, Executive Director, The CENTER FOR WAR/PEACE STUDIES, New York

    Alice Slater, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, New York

    Sheila Croke, Pax Christi Long Island, chapter of the international Catholic peace movement, New York

    Richard Greve, Co Chair, Staten Island Peace Action, New York

    Rosemarie Pace, Director, Pax Christi Metro New York

    Carol De Angelo, Director of Peace, Justice and Integrity of Creation, Sisters of Charity of New York (for identification only)

    Gerson Lesser, M.D., Clinical Professor, New York University School of Medicine (for identification only)

    Ellen Thomas, Proposition One Campaign, North Carolina

    Vina Colley, Portsmouth/Piketon Residents for Environmental Safety and Security, Ohio

    Harvey Wasserman, Solartopia, Ohio

    Ray Jubitz, Jubitz Family Foundation, Oregon

    Cletus Stein, convenor, The Peace Farm, Texas

    Steven G. Gilbert, PhD, DABT, INND (Institute of Neurotoxicology & Neurological Disorders), Washington

    Allen Johnson, Coordinator, Christians For The Mountains, West Virginia

    cc:

    John Kerry, Secretary of State
    Rose Gottemoeller, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security
    Thomas M. Countryman, Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and
    Nonproliferation
    Susan Rice, National Security Advisor
    Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Advisor
    Samantha Power, Permanent Representative to the United Nations
    Christopher Buck, Chargé d’Affaires, a.i., Conference on Disarmament
    Walter S. Reid, Deputy Permanent Representative to the Conference on Disarmament

  • Earth Day: The Discipline of Tending to Our Own Planet

    David KriegerWe live in a vast universe made up of billions of galaxies, each of which is made up of billions of stars. Our home is a small planet that revolves around a small sun in a remote galaxy. It is just the right distance from the sun so that it is not too hot or too cold to support life. It has air that is breathable, water that is drinkable and topsoil suitable for growing crops. In the immensity of space, it is a very small dot, what astrophysicist Carl Sagan referred to as a “pale blue dot.” Our Earth is the only place we know of that harbors life. It is precious beyond any riches that could be imagined.

    One would think that any sane, self-reflecting creatures that lived on this planet would recognize its beauty and preciousness and would want to tend to it with care. In Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s classic book, “The Little Prince,” the prince says: “It’s a matter of discipline. When you’ve finished washing and dressing each morning, you must tend to your planet.” But that is an imaginary planet with an imaginary little prince. On the real planet that supports life, the one we inhabit, there aren’t enough of us who exercise such discipline and tend to our planet with loving care.

    Think about how we have managed our planet. We have allowed the planet to become divided into rich and poor, where a few people have billions of dollars and billions of people have few dollars. While some live in greed, the majority live in need. We have parceled the planet into entities we call countries and created borders that countries try to protect. We have created military forces in these countries and given them enormous resources to prepare for war and to engage in war. Annual global military expenditures now exceed $1.7 trillion, while hundreds of millions of humans live without clean water, adequate nutrition, medical care and education.

    We have eagerly exploited the planet’s resources with little concern for future generations or for the damage we cause to the environment. Instead of using renewable energy from the sun to provide our energy needs, we exploit the Earth’s stores of oil and transport them across the globe. We have turned much of the world into desert. We have polluted the air we breathe and the water we drink. In our excess, we have pushed the planet toward the point of no return in climate change and then argued climate change as a reason to build more nuclear power plants.

    We keep relearning, in tragic ways, that we humans are fallible creatures. That is the lesson of our recurrent oil spills. It is also the lesson of the accidents at Chernobyl over a quarter century ago and at Fukushima three years ago. It is a lesson that we urgently need to learn about nuclear weapons – weapons we have come close to accidentally using on many occasions and have twice used intentionally.

    Nuclear weapons kill directly by blast, fire and radiation. The nuclear weapons used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were small in comparison with today’s thermonuclear weapons.  In recent years, we have learned some new things about nuclear war. Atmospheric scientists have modeled a hypothetical nuclear war between India and Pakistan in which each side uses 50 Hiroshima-size nuclear weapons on the other side’s cities. In addition to the direct effects of the weapons, there would be significant indirect effects on the environment. Smoke from the burning cities would rise into the stratosphere and reduce warming sunlight for ten years, which would lower average surface temperatures, reduce growing seasons and lead to famine that could kill two billion people globally.

    That would be the result of a “small” nuclear war, using less than one percent of the operationally deployed nuclear weapons on the planet. A nuclear war between the United States and Russia could lead to the extinction of most or all complex life on Earth, including human life. As we celebrate Earth Day this year, more than 20 years after the end of the cold war, both the United States and Russia maintain hundreds of launch-ready, land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles on high-alert status, ready to be fired in moments.

    We who are alive today are the trustees of this planet for future generations. We’re failing in our responsibility to pass it on intact. We need a new Earth ethic that embraces our responsibility for fairness to each other and to future generations. We need new ways of educating that do not simply accept the status quo. We need to trade in our patriotism for a global humatriotism. We need a new approach to economics based on what is truly precious – life and the conditions that support it.

    Earth Day will have its greatest value if it reminds us to care for our Earth and each other all the other days of the year, individually and through our public policy. We need to inspire people throughout the world, young and old alike, with a vision of the beauty and wonder of the Earth that we can now enjoy, restore and preserve for future generations if we tend to our planet with the discipline of the little prince.

    This article was originally published by Truthout.

  • Your Doctors Are Worried

    Your doctors are worried about your health―in fact, about your very survival.

    No, they’re not necessarily your own personal physicians, but, rather, medical doctors around the world, represented by groups like International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW).  As you might recall, that organization, composed of many thousands of medical professionals from all across the globe, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985 for exposing the catastrophic effects of nuclear weapons.

    Well, what seems to be the problem today?

    Nuclear Famine: Two Billion People At Risk?The problem, as a new IPPNW report indicates, is that the world is showing growing symptoms of a terminal illness.  In a nuclear war involving as few as 100 weapons anywhere in the world, the report noted, the global climate and agricultural production would be affected so severely that the lives of more than 2 billion people would be in jeopardy.  Even the use of the relatively small nuclear arsenals of India and Pakistan could cause terrible, long lasting damage to the Earth’s ecosystems.  The ensuing economic collapse and massive starvation would throw the world into chaos.

    And this is just a small portion of the looming nuclear catastrophe.

    Today, some 17,300 nuclear weapons remain in the arsenals of nine nations, and their use would not only dramatically exacerbate climate disruption, but would create almost unbelievable horrors caused by their enormous blast, immense firestorms, and radioactive contamination.

    The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), founded by IPPNW in 2007, reports that a single nuclear weapon, detonated over a large city, “could kill millions of people in an instant.”  Subsequently, many additional people would die of burns and other injuries, disease, and cancer.

    Residents of the United States and Russia, two nations currently engaged in an international brawl, might be particularly interested in the fact that their countries possess over 16,000 nuclear weapons.  About 2,000 of them on hair-trigger alert, ready for use within minutes.  According to the ICAN report, if only 500 of these weapons were to hit major U.S. and Russian cities, “100 million people would die in the first half an hour, and tens of millions would be fatally injured.  Huge swaths of both countries would be blanketed by radioactive fallout.”  Furthermore, “most Americans and Russians would die in the following months from radiation sickness and disease epidemics.”

    These unnerving reports from IPPNW and ICAN are reinforced by warnings from the World Health Organization (WHO).  “Nuclear weapons constitute the greatest immediate threat to the health and welfare of mankind,” that respected international organization has reported.  “It is obvious that no health service in any area of the world would be capable of dealing adequately with the hundreds of thousands of people seriously injured by blast, heat, or radiation from even a single one-megaton bomb.”  The WHO went on to declare:  “To the immediate catastrophe must be added the long-term effects on the environment.  Famine and diseases would be widespread, and social and economic systems would be totally disrupted.”

    Despite the warnings from the medical profession that, in the words of ICAN, “nuclear weapons are the most destructive, inhumane, and indiscriminate instruments of mass murder ever created,” the nine nuclear powers seem in no hurry to get rid of them―or at least to get rid of their own.  The United States has possessed nuclear weapons for almost 69 years; Russia for almost 65.  Despite their repeated promises, in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1970 and in later circumstances, to engage in nuclear disarmament, they still possess about 95 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons.  Both countries, in fact, are now engaged in nuclear “modernization” programs, with the Obama administration proposing to upgrade nuclear weapons and build new nuclear submarines, missiles, and bombers at an estimated cost of somewhere between $355 billion and $1 trillion over the next 30 years.

    Although the other kinds of weapons of mass destruction are banned by treaty, there are no plans by the nuclear powers to negotiate a treaty banning nuclear weapons.  Indeed, given the current U.S.-Russia confrontation, it seems unlikely that there will be progress on much smaller-scale arms control and disarmament agreements.

    That’s the bad news from your doctors.

    The good news is that you and other people around the world aren’t dead yet and that there’s still time to change the destructive behavior of your national leaders.  Actually, some opportunities are opening up along these lines.  At a February 2014 conference in Mexico drawing official representatives from 146 nations (but boycotted by the nuclear powers), there was strong support for a treaty banning nuclear weapons, and the Austrian government will host a follow-up conference later this year.  Also, an international NPT Preparatory Conference will begin in late April and an international NPT Review Conference will be held the following spring.  Meanwhile, two pieces of legislation have been introduced in the U.S. Congress―the SANE Act in the Senate and the Rein-In Act in the House―that would cut the bloated U.S. nuclear weapons budget by $100 billion over the next ten years.  So who knows?  If you and others take some preventive action, you might even avoid the terminal illness that now awaits you.

    Anyway, good luck with it.  You deserve a chance to survive.  In fact, we all do.

    Dr. Lawrence Wittner is Professor of History emeritus at SUNY/Albany.  His latest book is a satirical novel about university corporatization and rebellion, What’s Going On at UAardvark?

  • Arthur N.R. Robinson (1926-2014)

    The world lost a great man today and NAPF lost a long-time member of its Advisory Council, Arthur N.R. Robinson.  He served as both Prime Minister and President of his country, Trinidad and Tobago.  His efforts were instrumental in the creation of the International Criminal Court, demonstrating the extraordinary power of one visionary and determined individual.  In 2002, he received the Foundation’s Distinguished Peace Leadership Award.

    President Arthur N.R. Robinson
    Arthur N.R. Robinson received the NAPF Distinguished Peace Leadership Award in 2002.

    Click here to read an article I wrote about him in 2006.  I remember him as a kind, compassionate and decent individual, who loved his family, friends and country, and did his utmost to assure that the Nuremberg Principles were carried forward in the 21st century by means of the International Criminal Court.

  • A New Examination for Missile Launch Officers and the Rest of Us

    David KriegerThe top brass in the US Air Force have indicated that they were shocked and outraged to discover that missile launch officers have been cheating on their examinations and that their superior officers have turned the other way, allowing the cheating to go on. The Air Force has viewed the cheating as a moral failure and has suspended more than 90 of these officers from their missile launch duties.

    This raises important philosophical and practical questions with regard to morality and legality. Which is the greater moral failure: cheating on an examination or being willing to launch nuclear-armed missiles that could lead to the deaths of millions of innocent men, women and children?

    What kind of society would give young officers the task of carrying out illegal orders to destroy cities, countries and even civilization, with all the attendant pain, suffering and death that would be caused?

    The exams on which there was cheating were most likely technical in nature, aimed at finding out whether the missile launch officers understood the technical issues involved in launching their missiles, upon command to do so, and in preventing unauthorized launches. But shouldn’t the officers in charge of launching also be tested on the legal and moral implications of what they are being asked to do in a worst-case scenario?

    With these larger legal and moral issues in mind, a more pertinent examination could be developed that would include True and False questions like these:

     

    1. You are a cog in a nuclear threat system that could lead to tens or hundreds of millions of deaths and bring about the catastrophic destruction of civilization.
    2. The nuclear-armed missiles you are responsible for launching would indiscriminately kill men, women and children, which is illegal under international humanitarian law.
    3. Nuclear weapons cause unnecessary suffering, which is illegal under international humanitarian law.
    4. It is illegal under international humanitarian law to launch a reprisal attack that is disproportionate to an initial attack.
    5. The effects of nuclear weapons detonations cannot be contained in space or time.
    6. US political leaders are failing to pursue negotiations in good faith for nuclear disarmament, as legally required by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
    7. US political leaders are failing to pursue negotiations in good faith for a cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date, as legally required by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
    8. The defense of following orders by Nazi officers was not accepted as a legitimate defense for criminal acts at the Nuremberg trials.
    9. The Nuremberg trials after World War II held the Nazi leaders and officers to account, and some were given death sentences for committing crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
    10. You are not required to carry out illegal orders from a superior officer, and an order to fire your missiles with the consequence of indiscriminately killing men, women and children would be an illegal order.

    These are examination questions not only for missile launch officers to ponder, but for every member of our society to consider. The missile launch officers are only cogs in the US nuclear apparatus of death and destruction. They are not the only responsible parties, but they are instrumental parties to planning and preparation for indiscriminate murder and perhaps the death of all.

    The key responsible parties are political leaders and the people themselves. Only our political leaders, with pressure from the people, can assure that the United States plays a leadership role in pursuing the legal and moral path to achieving the globally necessary number of Nuclear Zero.

    The answers to all the above exam questions are True.

    This article was originally published by Truthout.

  • America’s Peace Ship: The Golden Rule

    Is there an emotional connection between the oceans and the pursuit of peace?  For whatever reason, peace ships have been increasing in number over the past century.

    Probably the first of these maritime vessels was the notorious Ford Peace Ship of 1915, which stirred up more ridicule than peace during World War I.

    Almost forty years later, another peace ship appeared― the Lucky Dragon, a Japanese fishing boat showered with radioactive fallout from an enormous U.S. H-bomb explosion on March 1, 1954, in the Marshall Islands.  By the time the stricken vessel reached its home port in Japan, the 23 crew members were in advanced stages of radiation poisoning.  One of them died.  This “Lucky Dragon incident” set off a vast wave of popular revulsion at nuclear weapons testing, and mass nuclear disarmament organizations were established in Japan and, later, around the world.  Thus, the Lucky Dragon became a peace ship, and today is exhibited as such in Tokyo in a Lucky Dragon Museum, built and maintained by Japanese peace activists.

    Later voyages forged an even closer link between ocean-going vessels and peace.  In 1971, Canadian activists, departing from Vancouver, sailed a rusting fishing trawler, the Phyllis Cormack, toward the Aleutians in an effort to disrupt plans for a U.S. nuclear weapons explosion on Amchitka Island.  Although arrested by the U.S. coast guard before they could reach the test site, the crew members not only mobilized thousands of supporters, but laid the basis for a new organization, Greenpeace.  Authorized by Greenpeace, another Canadian, David McTaggart, sailed his yacht, the Vega, into the French nuclear testing zone in the Pacific, where the French navy deliberately rammed and crippled this peace ship.  In 1973, when McTaggart and the Vega returned with a new crew, French sailors, dispatched by their government, stormed aboard and beat them savagely with truncheons.

    During the late 1970s and early 1980s, peace ships multiplied.  At major ports in New Zealand and Australia, peace squadrons of sailboats and other small craft blocked the entry of U.S. nuclear warships into the harbors.  Also, Greenpeace used the Rainbow Warrior to spark resistance to nuclear testing throughout the Pacific.  Even after 1985, when French secret service agents attached underwater mines to this Greenpeace flagship as it lay in the harbor of Auckland, New Zealand, blowing it up and murdering a Greenpeace photographer in the process, the peace ships kept coming.

    Much of this this maritime assault upon nuclear testing and nuclear war was inspired by an American peace ship, the Golden Rule.

    The Golden RuleThe remarkable story of the Golden Rule began with Albert Bigelow, a retired World War II U.S. naval commander.  Appalled by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, he became a Quaker and, in 1955, working with the American Friends Service Committee, sought to deliver a petition against nuclear testing to the White House.  Rebuffed by government officials, Bigelow and other pacifists organized a small group, Non-Violent Action Against Nuclear Weapons, to employ nonviolent resistance in the struggle against the Bomb.  After the U.S. government announced plans to set off nuclear bomb blasts near Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands―an island chain governed by the United States as a “trust territory” for the native people―Bigelow and other pacifists decided to sail a 30-foot vessel of protest, the Golden Rule, into the nuclear testing zone.  Explaining their decision, Bigelow declared:  “All nuclear explosions are monstrous, evil, unworthy of human beings.”

    In January 1958, Bigelow and three other crew members wrote to President Dwight Eisenhower, announcing their plans.  As might be expected, the U.S. government was quite displeased, and top officials from the State Department, the Atomic Energy Commission, and the U.S. Navy conferred anxiously on how to cope with the pacifist menace.  Eventually, the administration decided to ban entry into the test zone.

    Thus, after Bigelow and his crew sailed the Golden Rule from the West Coast to Honolulu, a U.S. federal court issued an injunction barring the continuation of its journey to Eniwetok.  Despite the legal ramifications, the pacifists set sail.  Arrested on the high seas, they were brought back to Honolulu, tried, convicted, and placed on probation.  Then, intrepid as ever, they set out once more for the bomb test zone, were arrested, were tried, and—this time―sentenced to prison terms.

    Meanwhile, their dramatic voyage inspired an outpouring of popular protest.  Antinuclear demonstrations broke out across the United States.  The newly-formed National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy went on the offensive.  Moreover, an American anthropologist, Earle Reynolds, along with his wife Barbara and their two children, continued the mission of the Golden Rule on board their sailboat, the Phoenix.  In July 1958, they entered the nuclear testing zone.  That August, facing a storm of hostile public opinion, President Eisenhower announced that the United States was halting its nuclear tests while preparing to negotiate a test ban with the Soviet Union.

    Even as test ban negotiations proceeded fitfully, leading to the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963 and, ultimately, to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty of 1996, the Golden Rule dropped out of sight.  Then, in early 2010, the vessel was discovered, wrecked and sunk in northern California’s Humboldt Bay.  Contacted by historians about preserving the Golden Rule for posterity, officials at the Smithsonian Museum proved uninterested.  But peace activists recognized the vessel’s significance.  Within a short time, local chapters of Veterans for Peace established the Golden Rule Project to restore the battered ketch.

    Thanks to volunteer labor and financial contributions from these U.S. veterans and other supporters, the ship has been largely rebuilt, and funds are currently being raised for the final stage of the project.  Veterans for Peace hope to take the ship back to sea in 2014 on its new mission: “educating future generations on the importance of the ocean environment, the risks of nuclear technology, and the need for world peace.”

    As a result, the Golden Rule will sail again, restored to its role as America’s most important peace ship.

    Dr. Lawrence Wittner is Professor of History emeritus at SUNY/Albany.  His latest book is a satirical novel about university corporatization and rebellion, What’s Going On at UAardvark?

  • Noam Chomsky: Eliminate All Nuclear Weapons

    This article was originally published by Reader Supported News.

    Prof. Noam Chomsky lecturing at a NAPF eventProfessor Noam Chomsky, the world-renowned political theorist and Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at MIT, recently delivered the prestigious Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s (NAPF) 13th Annual Frank K. Kelly Lecture on Humanity’s Future. His lecture, entitled “Security and State Policy” was delivered to a capacity audience at the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara, California on February 28th. After his lecture, Chomsky was also presented the foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

    David Krieger, President of NAPF, stated, “He is one of the world’s wise men. The depth of his knowledge about the complex and varied crises that confront humanity is more than impressive. He is a truth teller to those in power, to other intellectuals, and to the people of the world.” Professor Chomsky has recently joined the Advisory Council of NAPF, which also includes members Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Jane Goodall, Queen Noor of Jordan, Daniel Ellsberg, Bianca Jagger, and H.H. the Dalai Lama.

    In his lecture Chomsky pointed out, “It is hard to contest the conclusion of the last commander of the Strategic Air Command, General Lee Butler, that we have so far survived the nuclear age by some combination of skill, luck, and divine intervention, and I suspect the latter in greatest proportion.”

    For a full transcript of his Frank K. Kelly lecture, click here.

    Before Prof. Chomsky’s lecture, I conducted a phone interview with him in which he addressed some of today’s important nuclear issues.

    ~ Jane Ayers

    Q: General Lee Butler, the former commander in chief of the Strategic Air Command, retired his post in 1996, calling for the worldwide abolition of nuclear weapons. I interviewed him at the time, and he emphasized his concern about the fragility of the world’s nuclear first alert systems, and especially with Russia. At that time he called for total abolition of nuclear weapons, yet now years later promotes a responsible global reduction of nuclear dangers. Are you concerned about the fragility of the first alert systems?

    Chomsky: Yes, he also pointed out that the 1960 U.S. nuclear war plan, called the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP), was the most outrageous document in human history, except perhaps for the Russian counterpart, which we knew nothing about. This U.S. nuclear war plan, if our first alert system had alerted a Soviet strike, would have delivered 3200 nuclear weapons to 1060 targets in the Soviet Union, China, and allied countries in Asia and Europe. Even with the end of the Cold War, because of the ongoing superpower nuclear arms race, Gen. Butler bitterly renounced the current nuclear programs/systems as a death warrant for the species.

    Q: In his address at the National Press Club in February, 1998, Gen. Butler referred to “the grotesquely destructive war plans and daily operational risks” of our current nuclear systems, and emphasized “a world free of the threat of nuclear weapons is necessarily a world devoid of nuclear weapons.” He also referred to the “mind-numbing compression of decision-making under the threat of a nuclear attack.” Do you think these concerns are still valid today?

    Chomsky: Yes, General Lee Butler recanted his whole career, and gave elegant speeches about the numbers of nuclear missiles devoted to nuclear deterrence being an abomination. Yes, the current nuclear dangers still remain quite high.

    Q: During the Bush administration, in August of 2007, there was the unauthorized movement of nuclear bombs from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. Six AGM-129 Advanced Cruise Missiles (ACMs), each loaded with W80-1 nuclear warheads, were moved and left unprotected for 36 hours, violating the strict checks and balances of nuclear weapons storage. Investigations later concluded that the nuclear weapons handling standards and procedures had not been followed. Are these the kind of dangers you are referring to?

    Chomsky: How dangerous the first alert system is remains only a tiny portion of the overall dangers. To understand more of the dangers of nuclear weapons, definitely read journalist Eric Schlosser’s book, “Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety.” (Eric Schlosser is National Security Correspondent for The Nation Magazine.) In his book, there are many details of near-accidents that have happened, and that could have been catastrophic. The possibilities of close calls due to human error were probably even worse on the Russian side. There have been many times we have been extremely near to having a nuclear war.

    The U.S. has an automated response system with data coming in about possible missile attacks. However, it is still left to civilians to make the major decision to destroy the world, and usually with just a few minutes to make that decision. To launch a nuclear war is essentially in the hands of the president. We can’t survive something like that, and especially with so many other nuclear powers worldwide. With India and Pakistan, the same tensions can easily blow up in that region.

    We also have to address these issues of unauthorized movement of nuclear bombs, and also the reality of simple human error. The record is hair-raising. There are very high standards worldwide that can’t be met, or aren’t being met, and there is too much room for human error. There have also been many circumstances where the authorization to launch missiles have been delegated to lower-level commanders. Even though there is a two-person requirement, if one does lose control and wants to destroy the world, then the fate of the world is the hands of the other person.

    Q: The Obama administration is calling for a reduction of troops across the board (Army, Navy, Air Force, etc.), and emphasizes that the U.S. now has so much might and strength from U.S. missile technology, that we no longer need so many troops. What do you think of this?

    Chomsky: A reduction to the amount in the world today? Well, the two major wars, the Bush wars, have been winding down so a lesser amount of troops are needed now. We are also letting go of numbers of troops that we needed to fight two wars simultaneously. We have the biggest military budget in the world, and it is equal to the rest of the world’s military budget combined. War-making is now being transferred to other domains, i.e., drone warfare, etc.

    In The New York Times recently, there was a debate about whether the U.S. should murder [with drones] an American in Pakistan. In the article, there is no question raised about killing of non-Americans. These citizens in other countries are all apparently fair game. For example, if anyone is holding their cell phone that day, the drone can easily kill them. But when an action like that occurs, it immediately creates more terrorists. The irony is that while fighting terrorism, we are carrying out a version of a global terrorist campaign ourselves, and are also creating additional dangers for our own country.

    So we are now utilizing a new form of warfare with the use of drones. Drones are assassinating people worldwide, without these people being proven guilty first in a court of law. They are just killed by a drone. Gone. Our president decides it.

    In addition, with the reduction of numbers of overall troops, it still causes an increase of Special Forces operations on the ground. So what kind of operations are they doing now? Read Jeremy Scahill’s book, “Dirty Wars.” [Jeremy Scahill is National Security Correspondent for The Nation Magazine.] He points out how all of these operations are causing the United States to be the most feared country in the world.

    Recently, there was an international poll conducted by a major polling organization in which they asked, “Which country is the greatest threat to world peace?” “The U.S.” was answered the most. The whole world sees us that way nowadays. Around the world, the U.S. is viewed as its own terrorist operation, and these actions create anger in other countries. It is becoming a self-generating system of terrorism itself (while fighting terrorism). Even if the U.S. reduces the number of soldiers needed for the invasion of other countries, we still continue to use drones now too. It creates a lot of anger worldwide against the U.S. when innocent citizens internationally are continually being killed, and/or no court of law is first ruling the suspected terrorists are guilty before being killed by the drones.

    Q: A Russian armed intelligence-gathering vessel, the Victor Leonov SSV-175 Warship, conducted a surprise visit to Cuba on the same day Russia announced plans to expand their global military presence – establishing permanent bases in Cuba, Nicaragua, Vietnam, and Singapore. Amid the rising tensions with Putin over the Ukraine, do you think the U.S. could have another version of the Cuban Missile Crisis, or an escalation of war in the Ukraine, especially with NATO troop movement in Eastern Europe?

    Chomsky: Ukraine is one issue right now that is very sensitive. Cuba is another target of US campaigns against it. The U.S. has conducted major, official governmental campaigns against Cuba, especially financial warfare, for fifty years. The former Cuban Missile Crisis was to deter an invasion of the U.S.

    The sudden presence of a Russian ship in Cuba at the beginning of the Ukraine situation was probably a symbolic move. Russia is surrounded by U.S. military bases and nuclear missiles. We have one thousand military bases around the world with nuclear missiles aimed at all our potential enemies. The country of Ukraine is split right now: Western-oriented and Russian-oriented. It’s located on the Russian border, so there are major security issues for Putin. Ukraine has the only naval base leading to water (the Black Sea) in Crimea, so from Russia’s point of view, the Ukraine situation is a security threat to them, especially with NATO moving into Eastern Europe. If the Ukraine joins the EU, then Russia will have hostile relations at their border. Ukraine has historically been part of the Russian empire, so with the demands being made right now by the U.S., and Russia’s counter-demands, and with the presence of Russian troops, the clash might even blow up to a threat of a major war, which of course, could lead to a nuclear missile confrontation.

    Q: Is nuclear disarmament really possible?

    Chomsky: It is very possible to take away the nuclear threats to mankind and human survival. In the case of eliminating all nuclear weapons worldwide, it only takes everyone agreeing to do it. We know what can be done to eliminate the nuclear weapons threats to humankind. The U.S., like all nuclear nations, has an obligation of good faith efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons entirely.

    However, with environmental catastrophes, it is not so obvious what the world must do to avoid the accumulative dangers. But one important measure of what to do is to realize that the longer we delay stopping the use of fossil fuels, the worse the worldwide environment will be that we are leaving to our grandchildren. They just won’t be able to deal with it later. However, with nuclear weapons, we can most definitely disarm, and we have a responsibility to do this.

    Jane Ayers is an independent journalist (stringer with USA Today, Los Angeles Times, etc.), and Director of Jane Ayers Media. She can be reached at JaneAyersMedia@gmail.com or www.wix.com/ladywriterjane/janeayersmedia.