Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Blog

  • New Year Message from Nobel Peace Laureate, Professor Sir Joseph Rotblat

    In November 2004 the world’s NOBEL PEACE LAUREATES came together to issue a Statement. It began:

    “Two decades ago, the world was swept with a wave of hope. Inspired by the popular movements for peace, freedom, democracy and solidarity, the nations of the world worked together to end the Cold War. Yet the opportunities opened up by that historic change are slipping away. We are gravely concerned with the resurgent nuclear and conventional arms race, disrespect for international law and the failure of the world’s governments to address adequately the challenges of poverty and environmental degradation.”

    Today in the aftermath of the terrible devastation following the Indian Ocean tsunami we see that yet again, in times of desperate need, the world’s nations can act together.

    I believe that the challenges that face the world today, of security, poverty and environmental crisis, as well as the new threat of terrorism, can only be met successfully through a united world working through the United Nations.

    One of the greatest challenges that will face the world in the next decade is the proliferation of nuclear weapons. At the United Nations in New York next May we can act together again to work towards the systematic elimination of these terrible weapons of mass destruction by undertaking to implement fully the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and create a nuclear-weapon-free world for future generations.

    In recognition of the importance of this event the Nobel Peace Laureates gave an undertaking:

    “As an immediate specific task, we commit to work for preserving and strengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. We reject double standards and emphasize the legal responsibility of nuclear weapons states to work to eliminate nuclear weapons. We are gravely alarmed by the creation of new, usable nuclear weapons and call for rejection of doctrines that view nuclear weapons as legitimate means of war-fighting and threat pre-emption.”

    It is my belief, and that of the Nobel Peace Laureates, that the nations of the world must work together again and with a strong civil society. This is the way toward a globalization with a human face and a new international order that rejects brute force, respects ethnic, cultural and political diversity and affirms justice, compassion and human solidarity.

  • Our Responsibility to Wage Peace

    Our Responsibility to Wage Peace

    While peace has always been a desired yet seemingly utopian goal, in the Nuclear Age it has become an imperative. Peace, along with environmental protection, upholding human rights and the alleviation of poverty, stands as one of the foremost imperatives of the 21 st century.

    The creation and use of nuclear weapons was a watershed moment in human history. We obtained weapons which, for the first time, had the capacity to destroy the human species and most other life on the planet. With this power came new responsibility, the responsibility of people everywhere to wage peace. One of the most insightful men of the 20 th century, Albert Camus, noted this almost immediately after the bombing of Hiroshima . “Before the terrifying prospects now available to humanity,” Camus wrote, “we see even more clearly that peace is the only battle worth waging.”

    During the Cold War, powerful nations relied heavily on nuclear deterrence for security. This was a strategy fraught with danger since nuclear deterrence always had grave problems. The success of deterrence was dependent upon avoiding miscommunications, miscalculations, accidents and human irrationality in times of crisis – a nearly impossible task. Deterrence always demanded greater perfection of humans and our systems than we are capable of assuring, particularly in situations where there is zero tolerance for error.

    If nuclear deterrence had problems during the Cold War standoff, its problems dramatically increased in the post-Cold War period. Deterrence simply has no value when applied to non-state extremist groups. It is impossible to deter those who cannot be located or who do not care about the consequences of their acts. The most powerful nuclear arsenals in the world cannot provide an ounce of security against a terrorist group armed with a single nuclear weapon. A truth that has been difficult for the leaders of nuclear weapons states to grasp is that nuclear weapons have far greater utility in the hands of the weak than in those of the strong.

    If the most powerful weapons in the world cannot provide security to the most powerful countries in the world, what are we to do? We must chart a new course toward the creation of a peaceful and nuclear weapons-free world. Because of its history and its economic and military power, the United States must be a leader on the path to peace if we are to achieve peace.

    Waging Peace requires a new way of viewing the world. There is no longer room for policies of US exceptionalism. All nations must adhere to international law, and no nation can stand above the law, including the US . If peace is an imperative of the Nuclear Age, the way to peace is through the strengthening and enforcement of international law, applied equally and fairly to all.

    The United Nations Charter was created to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” by leaders who had lived through the two devastating world wars of the 20 th century. The Charter prohibits war except in self-defense or upon authorization of the UN Security Council. It is neither lawful nor wise to engage in preventive war, attacking another nation on the assumption that nation may be considering an attack on you. Such actions by powerful nations not only lead to the tragedy and misery of war, but set a precedent that could result in international chaos.

    The United States takes pride in its long-standing ethic of abiding by the law and of upholding the principle that no man stands above the law. The law of the land, according to Article VI, Section 2 of the US Constitution, includes treaties duly signed and ratified by the United States , including therefore the United Nations Charter. We share an obligation to uphold the UN Charter and to help maintain its provisions limiting the use of force.

    Governments do not always do the right thing, nor what is lawful. It is the responsibility of citizens to hold their governments in check and to hold their leaders accountable when they violate the law. The great lesson of Nuremberg after World War II was that no leader, no matter how high his position, stands above international law, and if leaders violate that law, they shall be brought to account. Today, the Principles of Nuremberg have been brought into the Nuclear Age by the creation of an International Criminal Court. Although some 100 countries, including nearly all US allies, are parties to the treaty establishing the Court, the United States withdrew its signature from the treaty and has actively opposed the Court. This represents a great failure of US leadership in the world.

    To make the United States a leading force in the global effort to achieve peace in the 21 st century will require a great effort by US citizens. It will require us to step forward and demand of our government an end to international lawlessness and the active promotion of peace and human rights throughout the world. Peace cannot stand without justice, and justice cannot stand without an active citizenry promoting it. There must be one standard for all, and that standard must be justice for all, as called for by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

    Peace is an ongoing process. It begins with the first step and it does not end. We, all of us alive today, are the gatekeepers to the future. The world we bequeath to our children and grandchildren will depend upon our success in building a more peaceful and decent world. Some 50 years ago, Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein issued an appeal in which they concluded, “Remember your humanity and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise ; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.”

    Let us remember our humanity, choose hope and peace, and accept our own share of responsibility for waging peace now and throughout our lives. Each of us by our daily acts of peace and our commitment to building a better world can inspire others and help create a groundswell for peace too powerful to be turned aside.

    David Krieger is a founder of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org) and has served as its president since 1982. He is a leader in the global movement for a world free of nuclear weapons and is the author of many books and articles on peace in the Nuclear Age.

  • Rethink Missile Defense Plan

    Most Americans would agree that the country faces multiple threats.

    Osama bin Laden remains at large. North Korea is pressing ahead with its nuclear program, and Iran is likely to become the newest member of the nuclear club. In Iraq, the stubborn insurgency takes a daily toll on American forces and has stretched the Army thin.

    Refusing to set priorities in this dangerous world would qualify as the “failure of imagination” the 9/11 Commission warned about. And yet that’s what the White House and Congress are showing as they rush to deploy a faulty missile defense system against a threat that, for now, is relatively low.

    That’s not to say that missile defense is without future value or that the threat is nonexistent. Intelligence sources say North Korea may have an untested missile that could reach the United States, and in time, other countries will acquire that capability. But deploying a missile defense program before it’s proven won’t deter enemies, and it drains funds from more urgent priorities.

    Even if last week’s $85 million test of an interceptor missile had worked – which it didn’t – the White House would still fall short in its rationale for spending $11 billion a year on the system. That’s double what the Clinton administration spent on its policy of “robust research and development” of missile defense, and it comes at a time when the federal deficit is out of control.

    The system being developed would rely on interceptor missiles in California and Alaska and aboard ships to attack enemy missiles at liftoff. Airborne lasers would fire at warheads re-entering the atmosphere.

    As Ronald Reagan learned from his “Star Wars” proposal, a missile defense system wouldn’t stop a massive attack from a super power. It’s intended, instead, to stop a very small number of missiles from rogue nations such as North Korea or Iran.

    But weigh the program against other threats that compete with it for funding:

    . Loose warheads . A terrorist group obtaining nuclear warheads or chemical and biological weapons from the former Soviet Union’s tattered arsenal could strike the United States by smuggling a bomb across our porous borders. A rogue state might also prefer that method of attack since, unlike a missile, a suitcase bomb leaves no “return address.”

    . New threats . The military has a term for the new threats it faces: asymmetric warfare. Building a military with the size, speed and flexibility to defeat new enemies means restraining spending on old threats such as Cold War-era ballistic missiles.

    . Short-range missiles . The threat from short-range missiles fired by Iran or North Korea is very real, as the Israelis and Japanese well know. But the missile defense program does little to protect U.S. allies or troops stationed abroad.

    As for the ballistic missile threat from rogue nations, the potential danger is real enough to warrant continued research but not premature deployment.

    Deploying a system that repeatedly fails sends a message that missile defense is more about politics than protection. This is not the time for a lapse in imagination.

  • US and Russian Nuclear Missiles are Still on Hair-Trigger Alert

    Just after midnight, in a secret bunker outside Moscow, the warning sirens began to blare. A simple, ominous message flashed on the bunker’s main control panel: Missile Attack!

    It was no drill. A Soviet satellite had detected five U.S. nuclear missiles inbound.

    The control computer ordered a counterstrike, but the bunker commander, a nerdy lieutenant colonel named Stanislav Petrov, acting on a hunch, overrode the computer and told his Kremlin superiors it was a false alarm. The Soviet brass quickly stood down their missiles, saving 100 million Americans from nuclear incineration.

    This brush with Armageddon happened more than two decades ago, but nuclear missiles are still on hair-trigger alert in Russia and the United States. Today, they may be even more vulnerable to an accidental or renegade launch than they were in Petrov’s day.

    “The security of both nations should not be dependent on the heroic act or good judgment of a single individual,” said Sam Nunn, the former senator from Georgia.

    Long active in anti-proliferation efforts such as the Nuclear Threat Initiative, Nunn is leading a campaign to persuade U.S. and Russian leaders to take their thousands of strategic nuclear warheads off hair-trigger alert, a status that remains in effect more than a decade after the Cold War ended.

    “The chances of a premeditated, deliberate nuclear attack have fallen dramatically,” Nunn said in an interview with Knight Ridder. “But the chances of an accidental, mistaken or unauthorized nuclear attack might actually be increasing.”

    In his 2000 election campaign, President Bush called the hair-trigger status “another unnecessary vestige of Cold War confrontation” that creates “unacceptable risks.”

    The first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which took effect 10 years ago this month, doesn’t address hair triggering. Nor does the Treaty of Moscow, which Bush signed with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2002 to reduce the size of the U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals.

    Nunn believes the hair-trigger status has become “the most dangerous element of our force posture.”

    A hair trigger means missiles are launched – either from land or sea [i.e., Trident] – upon the warning of an attack. That is, within about 15 minutes of a confirmed warning. In theory, the assurance that a retaliatory attack would be launched before the missiles could be destroyed would deter either country from trying a nuclear sneak attack.

    “This is the logic of the Cold War – Mutual Assured Destruction,” said Daniil O. Kobyakov, a nuclear expert at the PIR Center, a policy studies institute in Moscow. “De-alerting requires a change in rationale. There’s still a certain inertia on both sides.”

    Nunn and others see that inertia in the Bush administration’s refusal to consider the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and its request – since defeated in the Senate – for some $500 million for research on a so-called “bunker buster” nuclear weapon and low-yield “mini-nukes.”

    Russia, too, has some Cold War inertia to overcome. Putin proudly announced last month that Russia was testing “the newest nuclear missile systems … that other nuclear states do not have.” He offered no further details about the weapons.

    A number of political analysts believe Putin’s comments – which were unprepared remarks made to a group of senior commanders at the Ministry of Defense – were intended to boost military morale and for domestic political consumption.

    “I’m sure it was nothing surprising to the U.S.,” said Kobyakov, noting that the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty obliges each side to provide technical data on any new nuclear weapons.

    Kobyakov and others believe Putin was probably referring to the Topol-M missile, which has long been in the Russian pipeline, and a sea-launched missile that’s being developed. There are rumors in military circles in Moscow that the new missile could be maneuvered in flight, unlike current ballistic missiles, to foil the Bush administration’s planned national missile defense system. One senior Russian general cryptically called it “a hypersonic flying vehicle.” Government officials in both countries are keen to point out that they’ve stopped targeting each other with their nuclear missiles, although experts say this “de-targeting” is political hokum.

    The old targeting data and missile trajectories are stored in command computers, Kobyakov said. And missiles can be re-targeted in a matter of seconds: A couple of mouse clicks on a computer would put Washington, Miami or Moscow back in the nuclear crosshairs.

    But it’s the danger of accidental or maverick launches that most concerns atomic experts. That danger is heightened, in part, by the decrepit state of Russian defenses.

    “The Russian Early Warning System is essentially useless,” said Theodore Postol, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an expert on early warning issues and technology.

    Holes in Russia’s satellite and radar networks, Postol said, mean U.S. submarines in the North Atlantic can strike Moscow with a two- or three-minute warning for the Russian capital. Launches from the North Pacific could hit the city with no warning at all.

    Postol also said a new Prognoz satellite warning system “may never be in place.”

    Stanislav Petrov, the old bunker commander, the man who saved America back in 1983, nodded his head sadly when told of Postol’s assessment.

    “That’s right, not enough satellites,” he said. “We never had enough.”

  • The Revolt Against the Bush Administration’s Nuclear Double Standard

    In late November, when Congress refused to appropriate money to fund so-called “bunker busters” and “mini-nukes,” this action represented not only a serious blow to the Bush administration’s plan to build new nuclear weapons, but to the administration’s overall nuclear arms control and disarmament policy.

    That policy has been to prevent the development of nuclear weapons by nations the Bush administration considers “evil.” The military invasion of Iraq, like the gathering confrontation with Iran and North Korea, reflects, at least in part, the administration’s obsession with preventing nations potentially hostile to the United States from acquiring a nuclear capability. This focus upon blocking nuclear weapons development in other countries has some legal justification for, in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968, non-nuclear nations agreed not to develop nuclear weapons.

    But the NPT also calls for nuclear nations to rid themselves of the nuclear weapons they possess. Indeed, in the meetings that fashioned the treaty, the non-nuclear weapons states demanded a commitment to nuclear disarmament by the nuclear powers. And they received it — not only in the form of the treaty’s provisions, but in the formal pledges made by the nuclear powers at the periodic treaty review conferences that have been held since the NPT went into effect.

    It is in this area that the Bush administration has revealed itself as the proponent of a double standard. At the same time that it has assailed selected nations for developing nuclear weapons, it has withdrawn the United States from the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, effectively destroyed the START II treaty, and refused to support ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. It has also raised the U.S. nuclear weapons budget to new heights and proposed the building of new U.S. nuclear weapons, including the “bunker busters” and “mini-nukes.” As Senator Kerry pointed out during the recent presidential campaign, this is not the kind of policy that will encourage other nations to abide by their commitments under the NPT.

    The surprising congressional move to block the Bush plan for new nuclear weapons is but one of numerous signs that this double standard cannot be sustained. As a special high-level U.N. panel has just warned: “We are approaching a point at which the erosion of the non-proliferation regime could become irreversible and result in a cascade of proliferation.” Nor is the breakaway from the NPT limited to the non-nuclear nations. Just the other day the Russian government announced its development of a new nuclear missile. Appropriately enough, the U.N. panel condemned the nuclear powers for failing to honor their commitments, and called upon them to restart the nuclear disarmament process.

    Furthermore, of course, terrorists have been actively seeking nuclear weapons, and might well obtain them. Thousands of tactical nuclear weapons — many of them small, portable, and, therefore, ideal for terrorist use — are still maintained by the U.S. and Russian governments. No international agreements have ever been put into place to control or eliminate them. In fact, it remains unclear how many of these tactical nuclear weapons exist or where they are located. In Russia, at least, they are badly guarded and, in the disorderly circumstances of the post-Soviet economy, they seem ripe for sale or theft.

    The revolt against the Bush administration’s double standard could come to a head in May 2005, when an NPT review conference opens at the United Nations, in New York City. Nuclear and non-nuclear nations are sure to exchange sharp barbs about non-compliance with NPT provisions. Furthermore, more than a hundred mayors from the Mayors for Peace Campaign, which has drawn together the top executives from 640 cities around the world, are expected to come to the U.N. to lobby for nuclear disarmament. They will be joined by United for Peace and Justice, the largest peace movement coalition in the United States, and over 2,000 organizations in 96 different countries. Together, they have launched Abolition Now, a campaign calling on heads of state to begin negotiations in 2005 on a treaty to eliminate all nuclear weapons.

    Ultimately, then, the Bush administration might be forced into accepting a single standard for dealing with the threat posed by nuclear weapons — one designed to lead to a nuclear-free world. Certainly, there are plenty of signs that people and nations around the globe believe that what is sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander.

    Mr. Witnner is Professor of History at the State University of New York, Albany. His latest book is Toward Nuclear Abolition (Stanford University Press).

    This article was originally published by the History News Network.

  • Rights: Billion Children Under Threat, Says Unicef

    Poverty, conflict and HIV/AIDS are the biggest threats to children’s lives in developing countries, says a new Unicef report.

    “Poverty does not come from nowhere: war does not emerge from nothing; AIDS does not spread by choice of its own,” United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) director Carol Bellamy said at the launch of the 10th ‘State of the World’s Children’ report in London. “These are our choices.”

    Half of all children in the world suffer from extreme deprivation, Bellamy said. “When that many children are robbed of childhood, our shared future is compromised.”

    Unicef says in the report ‘Children Under Threat’ that 956 billion dollars were spent last year on military and war supplies. An additional 40-70 billion dollars a year could finance the Millennium Development Goals, she said.

    “Too many governments are making informed, deliberate choices that actually hurt childhood,” Bellamy said.

    The annual Unicef report into the living conditions of 2.2 billion children was produced by a research team from the London School of Economics (LSE) and the University of Bristol working together with Unicef.

    The report sets out seven areas of essential needs for children: food, safe water, healthcare, education, sanitation, shelter, and information.

    “Over one billion children were found to suffer from at least one form of severe deprivation of human needs and 635 million to suffer from two or more deprivations,” said Peter Townsend from the LSE at the launch.

    The team found that one in six children is hungry and one in five does not have access to safe water. Healthcare is delivered only to one in seven children. Governments in industrialised countries spend an average of 15 percent of their budget on health. In developing countries the figure drops to one percent.

    Conflicts are one of the major causes of deprivation, the report says. Half of 3.6 million people killed in wars since 1990 were children.

    Not only do conflicts displace communities from their home, with an aftermath of hunger, diseases and psychological distress affecting especially children, but in many cases youths and children are forced to become combatants, the report says.

    “In today’s wars where civilians have become the prime targets, we have to accept responsibility for the fact that children are suffering when we go to battle,” Bellamy said.

    HIV/AIDS is increasingly threatening young people: it has become the largest killer of people aged 15-49 in the developing world, while there are now 15 million AIDS orphans worldwide, the report says.

    But poverty is not experienced only in developing countries. In many developed countries the number of poor children increased notably in the last decade, the report says.

    “Children experience poverty differently than adults, and whether or not their families are poor, these children can and should be provided with basic services,” Townsend said.

    Unicef, which has an annual budget of 1.6 billion dollars, is working to improve the living conditions of children, providing early childhood and maternal care, immunisation programmes, education to girls and extra care in case of HIV/AIDS.

    “The elimination of poverty can be financed,” Townsend said. “Cash transfers offer a model of the strategy by which these rights can be delivered.”

    In Mexico, the programme ‘Oportunidades’ (Opportunities) provides cash directly to mothers to pay for food, children’s school needs and basic healthcare. Similar programmes have been developed successfully in Brazil and South Africa.

    “We are working everyday to try to make a difference in these areas,” Bellamy told IPS. “We commit ourselves, not just talk, but we need to engage more partners – governments, NGOs, funding partners and kids themselves.”

    One Unicef campaign in Nigeria seeks to get young people involved in policy-making as a strategy to inform children and young people of their rights, and involve them in change. With about 75 percent of the population of Nigeria under 35 years of age, a Children and Young People’s Parliament is representative enough to interact with the National Parliament to propose laws.

    “Thanks to support from Unicef, we proposed the compulsory immunisation of every child under five years old and the compulsory use of insecticides in schools against malaria,”18-year-old Dayo Israel-Abdulai from the youth parliament told IPS. “Both proposals have become laws.”

  • Increasing the Nuclear Threat: A Letter to the Editor of the Washington Post

    In his Nov. 16 op-ed piece, “New Threats, Old Weapons,” retired Adm. Robert R. Monroe said that to have a more effective deterrent against rogue states and terrorist groups, we need a new generation of nuclear weapons.

    His notion that a leaner nuclear arsenal will deter rogue states and terrorist groups from using nuclear weapons to harm us presumes that we are dealing with reasonable adversaries. Given the tactics that terrorists use, that is a naive assumption.

    Further, the Bush administration’s January 2002 Nuclear Posture Review stresses the importance of being prepared to use nuclear weapons in an offensive manner and against a wider range of countries, even those that are not nuclear. In my view, the president’s initiatives to develop additional nuclear weapons are not about deterrence but about adding a tool to our military arsenal.

    Adm. Monroe said that we must have nuclear weapons with “greatly increased accuracy,” “specialized capabilities” and “tailored effects.” But according to Stanford University physicist Sidney Drell, the effects of even a small nuclear bunker buster would be disastrous. A one-kiloton weapon detonated 20 to 50 feet underground would dig a crater the size of Ground Zero and eject a million cubic feet of radioactive debris into the air.

    Our reopening the nuclear door to a new generation of weapons will only encourage proliferation. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent statement that Russia is developing new nuclear missile systems is testimony to that effect.

    This year Congress eliminated funding for new nuclear weapons programs in the recent appropriations bill. This was the right move because, to make our nation safer from nuclear threats, the best investment we could make is to secure nuclear materials at facilities around the world while insisting that other nations follow us down the path of nonproliferation.

    Dianne Feinstein U.S. Senator (D-Calif.) Washington

  • News Media in the 60th Year of the Nuclear Age

    Top officials in Washington are now promoting jitters about Iran’s nuclear activities, while media outlets amplify the message. A confrontation with Tehran is on the second-term Bush agenda. So, we’re encouraged to obliquely think about the unthinkable.

    But no one can get very far trying to comprehend the enormity of nuclear weapons. They’ve shadowed human consciousness for six decades. From the outset, deception has been key.

    Lies from the White House have been part of the nuclear rationalizing process ever since August 1945. President Harry Truman spoke to the American public three days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Calling the civilian-filled Japanese city a “military base,” Truman said: “The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians.”

    Actually, U.S. planners had sought a large urban area for the nuclear cross hairs because – as Manhattan Project director Gen. Leslie Groves later acknowledged – it was “desirable that the first target be of such size that the damage would be confined within it, so that we could more definitely determine the power of the bomb.” Thirty-five years later, when I looked at the U.S. Energy Department’s official roster of “Announced United States Nuclear Tests,” the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were on the list.

    We’re now six decades into the Nuclear Age. And we’re farther than ever, it seems, from a momentously difficult truth that Albert Einstein uttered during its first years, when the U.S. government still held a monopoly on the split atom. “This basic power of the universe cannot be fitted into the outmoded concept of narrow nationalisms,” he wrote. “For there is no secret and there is no defense; there is no possibility of control except through the aroused understanding and insistence of the peoples of the world.”

    Today, no phrase could better describe U.S. foreign policies – or American media coverage – than “narrow nationalisms.” The officials keep putting on a proudly jingoistic show, and journalists report it without fundamental challenge.

    So, any whiff of sanity is conspicuous. Just before Thanksgiving, when the House and Senate voted to cut funding of research for a new line of tactical nuclear weapons including “bunker buster” warheads, the decision was reported as the most significant victory for arms-control advocates since the early 1990s. That’s because the nuclear-weapons industry has been running amok for so long.

    While Uncle Sam continues to maintain a nuclear arsenal capable of destroying life on Earth, the American finger-wagging at Iran is something righteous to behold.

    Current alarms, wailing about an alleged Iranian program to develop nuclear weapons, are being set off by the same Bush administration officials who declared that an invasion of Iraq was imperative because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. As we now know, he didn’t. But that hasn’t stopped the Bush team from launching the same kind of media campaign against Iran – based on unverified claims by Iranian exiles with a track record of inaccuracy and a clear motive to pull Washington into military action. Sound familiar?

    We ought to be able to recognize what’s wrong with U.S. officials who lecture Iran about the evils of nuclear-arms proliferation while winking at Israel’s arsenal, estimated to include 200 nuclear weapons.

    When Einstein called for “the aroused understanding and insistence of the peoples of the world,” he was describing a need that news media ought to help fill. But instead, mostly we get the official stories: dumbed-down, simplistic, and – yes – narrowly nationalistic. The themes are those of Washington’s powerful: our nukes good, our allies’ nukes pretty good, unauthorized nukes very bad.

    That sort of propaganda drumbeat won’t be convincing to people who doubt that a Christian Bomb is good and a Jewish Bomb is good but an Islamic Bomb is bad. You don’t have to be an Einstein to understand that people are rarely persuaded by hypocritical messages along the lines of “Do as we say, not as we do.”

    Norman Solomon is co-author, with Reese Erlich, of ” Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn’t Tell You. ” His columns and other writings can be found at ” Killing Our Own: The Disaster of America’s Experience With Atomic Radiation ” (Delacorte Press, 1982), a book by Harvey Wasserman and Norman Solomon, is online at: http://www.ratical.org/radiation/KillingOurOwn

  • UK’s Failure on Nuclear Obligation: Letter to the Times of London Editor

    Sir, You take Iran to task for stalling on nuclear agreements (leading article, November 24) and you conclude: “Iran wants to be taken seriously by the international community, yet does not take its international obligations seriously. One is not possible without the other.”

    How very true.

    All the five “recognised” nuclear states: USA, Russia, UK, France and China, have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and thus (under Article VI) committed themselves to the abolition of their nuclear arsenals.

    Yet they have done nothing to show that they take their international obligations seriously.

    The UK is formally committed to nuclear disarmament, but it will not implement it as long as other states keep nuclear weapons. In the institution designated to deal with this issue, the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, nobody is taking the initiative. The subject has been stalled for years, and is not even put on the agenda.

    With the re-election of George W. Bush, his nuclear policy – which includes the development of new nuclear warheads and their first-use, even pre-emptively if need be – is very likely to be pursued, leading to a new nuclear arms race.

    An initiative to implement the NPT is urgently needed and, for the reason stated above, the UK should feel obliged to take it.

    Yours faithfully, JOSEPH ROTBLAT, (President Emeritus of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs), 8 Asmara Road, West Hampstead, NW2 3ST. pugwash@mac.com November 24

  • Dreams

    Dreams

    “If you can dream it, you can do it.” — Walt Disney

    Of course, such words may inspire, but can dreams really be unlocked?

    If you can dream the wind, can you really make the leaves tremble?

    If you can dream the rain, can you really soak the parched earth or make the rivers swell and rush to the sea?

    If you can dream the moon, can you really move the tides and cast your shadow on the earth?

    If you can dream peace, can you make young men, boys really, disobey the generals and lay down their arms?

    Yes, it’s unlikely, but someone has to dream of making the leaves tremble, the rivers swell, the tides move, and the young men

    find better uses for their only lives.