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  • Sunflower Newsletter: June 2016

    Issue #227 – June 2016

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    • Perspectives
      • Message to the Wall by David Krieger
      • Obama on Nukes: All Talk, No Action by Setsuko Thurlow
      • Speech in Hiroshima by President Barack Obama
    • Nuclear Disarmament
      • Non-Nuclear Nations Discuss Nuclear Arms Ban
    • Nuclear Proliferation
      • U.S. Missile Shield Stirs Up Tensions
      • China Plans Nuclear Submarines
      • Pakistan Seeks Nuclear Suppliers Group Membership
    • Nuclear Waste
      • Complaints of Vapor Exposure Resurface at Hanford Site
      • Settlement Reached in Rocky Flats Homeowners Lawsuit
    • Nuclear Insanity
      • Would the U.S. Drop the Bomb Again?
    • Nuclear Modernization
      • U.S. Modernization Plans Are “Very, Very, Very Expensive”
      • Universities Seek to Manage Sandia Nuclear Weapons Labs
    • Nuclear Zero Lawsuits
      • Update on the Marshall Islands’ Nuclear Disarmament Lawsuits
    • Resources
      • June’s Featured Blog
      • This Month in Nuclear Threat History
      • Lee Butler’s Memoirs
      • Russian Nuclear Forces
    • Foundation Activities
      • Letters to the Editor in The New York Times and Los Angeles Times
      • Refugees and Peace Literacy
      • Noam Chomsky to Receive NAPF Distinguished Peace Leadership Award
      • Report to the UN Secretary-General
    • Quotes

     

    Perspectives

    Message to the Wall

    by David Krieger

    Dear Wall,
    Your polished surface deceives.
    You appear serene, yet you are bursting with anguish and lost potential.
    You are a wall of great sadness.
    You remember the young, whose lives were engulfed in the flames of war.
    They wanted to live and love, but the cruel war stopped them.
    They had lives before the lies of their leaders took them to war.

    To read more, click here.

    Obama on Nukes: All Talk, No Action

    by Setsuko Thurlow

    As a 13-year-old schoolgirl, I witnessed my hometown flattened by a hurricane-like blast, burned in 7,000-degree Fahrenheit heat and contaminated by the radiation of one atomic bomb.

    Miraculously, I was rescued from the rubble of a building, a little more than a mile from ground zero. Most of my classmates in the same room were burned to death. I can still hear their faint voices, calling their mothers for help, and praying to God.

    As I escaped with two other girls, we watched a procession of ghostly figures: grotesquely wounded people whose clothes were tattered or gone. Parts of their bodies were missing. Some were carrying their eyeballs in their hands. Some had their stomachs burst open, their intestines hanging out.

    To read the full op-ed in the New York Daily News, click here.

    Speech in Hiroshima

    by President Barack Obama

    Seventy-one years ago, on a bright, cloudless morning, death fell from the sky and the world was changed. A flash of light and a wall of fire destroyed a city and demonstrated that mankind possessed the means to destroy itself.

    Why do we come to this place, to Hiroshima? We come to ponder a terrible force unleashed in a not so distant past. We come to mourn the dead, including over 100,000 Japanese men, women and children; thousands of Koreans; a dozen Americans held prisoner. Their souls speak to us. They ask us to look inward, to take stock of who we are and what we might become.

    To read the full speech, click here.

    Nuclear Disarmament

    Non-Nuclear Nations Discuss Nuclear Arms Ban

    In May, representatives from more than 60 countries and many civil society organizations met at the United Nations in Geneva to discuss effective legal measures to eliminate all nuclear weapons. Toshiki Fujimori, representative of a Japanese organization of atomic bomb survivors, was one of many speakers at the Open Ended Working Group (OEWG). Fujimori called on member states to conclude a treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons, referring to the weapons as “the devil that could eradicate all life on Earth and destroy the planet.”

    Because all nine nuclear-armed nations refused to join the talks, the states that were present at the OEWG decided they have to move forward towards negotiating a legal ban without the participation of the nuclear nine.  Mexico, Brazil and other countries say they want to start negotiations in the next year on legally banning the weapons, while Japan, Germany and Canada (states under the U.S. nuclear umbrella) favor an approach that aims to promote step-by-step reductions in nuclear arsenals with cooperation from nuclear-armed nations.

    For full coverage of the Open Ended Working Group, visit the Reaching Critical Will website.

    “UN Working Group Discusses Nuclear Arms Ban,” NHK World, May 10, 2016.

    Nuclear Proliferation

    U.S. Missile Shield Stirs Up Tensions

    The United States’ European missile defense shield went live on May 12, almost a decade after Washington’s initial proposal to protect NATO states from Iran’s alleged increasing nuclear capacity. Russia is strongly opposed to the missile defense system, asserting that Iran’s missile program poses no threat to NATO states in Europe. Russia calls the U.S. program a violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty that directly threatens its national security.

    The U.S. stresses that the missile defense shield’s stated aim is not to advance strategic positioning in the case of a Russia-U.S. war, but rather to protect North America and Europe from “rogue states,” such as Iran and North Korea. Russia claims that the real motive behind the missile shield is to neutralize Moscow’s nuclear arsenal long enough for the U.S. to make a first strike on Russia in the event of war. The U.S. dismisses Russia’s view as “strategic paranoia” and blames Moscow for breaking off talks with NATO in 2013.

    Robin Emmott, “U.S. to Switch on European Missile Shield Despite Russian Alarm,” Reuters, May 11, 2016.

    China Plans Nuclear Submarines

    The Chinese military plans to send submarines armed with nuclear missiles into the South China Sea in response to the U.S. military’s expanding presence in the Pacific region. Specifically, the Chinese military worries about the U.S. THAAD missile defense system in South Korea, as well as the U.S. Prompt Global Strike Program, programmed with a hypersonic glide missile capable of hitting targets anywhere in the world within an hour.

    Until now, China has been cautious with its nuclear strategy, stating that it would never be the first to use nuclear weapons, and storing warheads and missiles separately. While China has been developing nuclear submarine technology for decades, this is the first time it will deploy nuclear missiles at sea.

    Julian Borger, “China to Send Nuclear-Armed Submarines Into Pacific Amid Tensions with U.S.,” The Guardian, May 26, 2016.

    Pakistan Seeks Nuclear Suppliers Group Membership

    Pakistan formally applied for entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), after China blocked India’s entry into the 48-member elite group. Pakistan reported that its decision to seek participation reflects Pakistan’s support for international efforts to prevent the proliferation weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery.

    Pakistan’s request for entry comes about only weeks after China contested India’s NSG membership for India’s refusal to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Pakistan, which has also refused to sign the NPT, stresses the need for NSG to adopt a non-discriminatory criteria-based approach for NSG membership. Pakistan claims that it will act in accordance with NSG guidelines to transfer nuclear material, equipment and related technology despite not having signed the NPT.

    “Pakistan Applies for NSG Membership,” The Times of India, May 20, 2016.

    Nuclear Waste

    Complaints of Vapor Exposure Resurface at Hanford Site

    The Department of Energy (DOE) claims it has been laboring to reduce vapor risks at Hanford site, but Hanford workers suggest otherwise. Over the past month, over 40 workers at the decommissioned nuclear production complex have complained of exposure to noxious chemical vapors. The complaints have emerged amidst the completion of a project at Hanford, focused on emptying a leaking 740,000-gallon underground tank. Some estimates suggest that hundreds of Hanford workers have been affected over time, their symptoms ranging from headaches to cancer.

    In September, a Seattle-based environmental and worker advocacy group, Hanford Challenge, united with Local Union 598 to sue the heavily-contaminated nuclear complex. Despite the legal resurgence of vapor exposure complaints—grievances that date back to the 1990s—DOE continues to dispute all charges.

    The workers list the following demands: the timely fulfillment of recommendations made in a recent tank-farm contractor report, continued medical oversight of both past and present workers, and complete public release of all information relevant to vapor exposure. A non-jury trial seeking improved protection of Hanford workers is scheduled to convene on May 22, 2017.

    John Emshwiller, “New Complaints of Exposures Emerge at Hanford Site,” The Wall Street Journal, May 21, 2016.

    Settlement Reached in Rocky Flats Homeowners Lawsuit

    A $375 million settlement was finally reached in May between Denver-area residents and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Residents near Rocky Flats claimed that a local nuclear weapons production plant released harmful plutonium, devaluing property and damaging health. The settlement, if approved by a federal judge, will end a 26-year lawsuit between homeowners and Dow Chemical Co. and Rockwell International Corp., two corporations responsible for operating the plant for the DOE.

    The lawsuit was filed in 1990, a year after the plant closed due to concerns of safety and environmental impacts, and took years to go to trial. In 2006, a judge ordered the companies to pay $925 million to homeowners for damages to health and property, but the verdict was overturned. The $375 million settlement will address property values, but not health monitoring for affected residents.

    LeRoy Moore of the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center said, “I’m glad that the people in the affected area being finally compensated for loss, but neither of the corporations, Dow or Rockwell, will pay a cent. DOE will pay the bill, which really means we the taxpayers will pay for the careless and harmful operation of the Rocky Flats plant. The corporations were well-paid for the harm they did.”

    John Aguilar, “$375M Settlement Reached in Homeowner Lawsuit Against Rocky Flats,” Denver Post, May 19, 2016.

    Nuclear Insanity

    Would the U.S. Drop the Bomb Again?

    Studies of public opinion polling in the U.S. show that approximately the same percentage of people today would support using nuclear weapons in a hypothetical conflict with Iran as supported President Truman’s use of nuclear weapons against Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

    In the hypothetical situation posed in a poll by YouGov, 59% of respondents backed using a nuclear bomb on an Iranian city, even if the expected number of Iranian civilian fatalities was two million. The authors, Scott Sagan and Benjamin Valentino, said, “Today, as in 1945, the U.S. public is unlikely to hold back a president who might consider using nuclear weapons in the crucible of war.”

    Scott Sagan and Benjamin Valentino, “Would the U.S. Drop the Bomb Again?” The Wall Street Journal, May 19, 2016.

    Nuclear Modernization

    U.S. Modernization Plans Are “Very, Very, Very Expensive”

    Senator John McCain (R-AZ), Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, questioned the continued need for the United States to maintain a nuclear triad given the extraordinary costs of upgrading all of the systems. In a speech at the Brookings Institution, Sen. McCain said, “We’re sort of behind, if you look at some of the estimates as to what it would take to update the triad would it be long range bomber, or missiles, or new submarines, it’s very, very, very expensive. I mean, you look at the cost of this new submarine they want, it’s extremely high. You look at the long-range bomber, we’re looking at tens of billions of dollars, and so we’re going to have to grapple with this. Do we really need the entire triad, given the situation? How do we dispose of this nuclear material in a way that’s not costing us 20 or 30 billion dollars?”

    “New Demands on the Military and the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act,” Brookings Institution, May 19, 2016.

    Universities Seek to Manage Sandia Nuclear Weapons Labs

    As the United States embarks on the beginning phases of its planned $1 trillion, 30-year program to upgrade its nuclear weapons, delivery systems and production facilities, Sandia National Laboratories is accepting bids for new management. Sandia has been managed by Lockheed Martin since 1993, but the contract expires in April 2017.

    Multiple entities are bidding for the management contract, including a consortium called Together Sandia, which includes the Texas A&M University System, the University of Texas System, and the University of New Mexico.

    The University of California has managed Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) since their inception in 1943 and 1952, respectively. Over the past decade, the University of California has been part of for-profit private limited liability companies that manage LANL and LLNL.

    Mark Rockwell, “Sandia Labs Management Contract Officially Up for Grabs,” FCW, May 27, 2016.

    Nuclear Zero Lawsuits

    Update on the Marshall Islands’ Nuclear Zero Lawsuits

    Rick Wayman, Director of Programs at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, recently spoke with Libbe HaLevy, host of the podcast Nuclear Hotseat, about the Marshall Islands’ Nuclear Zero Lawsuits at the International Court of Justice and U.S. Federal Court. He updated listeners on the content of the cases against the United Kingdom, India and Pakistan that are currently before the International Court of Justice, as well as the case against the United States that is pending at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

    They also discussed President Obama’s recent trip to Hiroshima and the image vs. reality of U.S. nuclear weapons policy, and the Don’t Bank on the Bomb report that details the companies and financial institutions involved in the production of nuclear weapons.

    Libbe HaLevy, “Nuclear Hotseat #258,” Nuclear Hotseat Podcast, May 31, 2016.

     Resources

    June’s Featured Blog

    This month’s featured blog is Defusing the Nuclear Threat by Martin Hellman. Dr. Hellman is Professor Emeritus at Stanford University and a NAPF Associate. The blog addresses numerous current nuclear threats with ideas of how to reduce or eliminate the risk. Recent entries include the first nine chapters of a book written by Martin and Dorothie Hellman entitled “A New Map for Relationships: Creating True Love at Home and Peace on the Planet.”

    To read the blog, click here.

    This Month in Nuclear Threat History

    History chronicles many instances when humans have been threatened by nuclear weapons. In this article, Jeffrey Mason outlines some of the most serious threats that have taken place in the month of June, including the first known nuclear weapons-related accident on June 23, 1942 in Leipzig, Germany.

    To read Mason’s full article, click here.

    For more information on the history of the Nuclear Age, visit NAPF’s Nuclear Files website.

    Lee Butler Publishes Memoirs

    General Lee Butler, a four-star U.S. Air Force General and the commander of U.S. nuclear forces from 1991-94, has published a two-volume memoir entitled “Uncommon Cause: A Life at Odds with Convention.” After leaving the Air Force, Butler became an outspoken advocate for nuclear disarmament.

    Gen. Butler has generously provided an e-book version of his memoirs as a free download for readers of NAPF’s Sunflower Newsletter. Click here to access the memoirs.

    Russian Nuclear Forces

    Hans Kristensen and Robert Norris have published an updated analysis of Russia’s nuclear forces in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The authors state, “Russia is in the middle of a broad modernization of its strategic and nonstrategic nuclear forces…. The modernization program reflects the government’s conviction that strategic nuclear forces are indispensable for Russia’s security and status as a great power.”

    To read the full report, click here.

    Foundation Activities

    Letters to the Editor in The New York Times and Los Angeles Times

    On May 31, NAPF President David Krieger had a letter to the editor published in The New York Times. Dr. Krieger wrote about the differences in how Americans and Japanese view nuclear weapons. He wrote in part, “The view from above the bomb leads to reliance on nuclear weapons and ultimately to an evolutionary dead-end for our species, while the view from beneath the bomb engages our moral decency and leads to abolishing these devices of mass annihilation and preserving the planet for future generations.”

    On May 13, NAPF Director of Programs Rick Wayman had a letter to the editor published in the Los Angeles Times. He wrote in part, “There exists an international legal obligation to pursue — and bring to a conclusion — negotiations on nuclear disarmament. President Obama should dedicate the final months of his presidency to fulfilling this long-delayed obligation. That would be a legacy worth creating.”

    To read both letters, click here.

    Refugees and Peace Literacy

    When Paul K. Chappell, NAPF Peace Leadership Director, spoke about Peace Literacy in mid-May to over 400 students at the International Youth Conference for the Christian Community in Hamburg, Germany, he also addressed a number of young refugees from the Greater Middle East. Some of them spoke English, had been in Germany for a number of months, and they said they were hopeful for the future. They had survived traumatic experiences and while they were hopeful, they knew their future was not guaranteed.

    Chappell has often talked about the “muscle” of hope, and how realistic hope can survive enormous suffering even when trust has been betrayed. Unlike naïve hope which is the result of helplessness, realistic hope grows from the trust we have in ourselves, others, and our ideals. Participation in creating progress is a higher expression of hope.

    To read more, click here.

    Noam Chomsky to Receive NAPF Distinguished Peace Leadership Award

    Noam Chomsky, one of the greatest minds of our time, will be our Distinguished Peace Leader at this year’s Evening for Peace on Sunday, October 23, in Santa Barbara, California.

    We’re calling the evening NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH because that’s what Chomsky is about– truth. He believes humanity faces two major challenges: the continued threat of nuclear war and the crisis of ecological catastrophe. To hear him on these issues will be more than memorable. Importantly, he offers a way forward to a more hopeful and just world. We are very proud to honor him with our award.

    The annual Evening for Peace includes a festive reception, live entertainment, dinner and an awards ceremony. It is attended by many residents of Santa Barbara, peace activists, those interested in our work, local businesses and philanthropists.

    For more information and tickets, click here.

    Report to the UN Secretary-General

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation submitted a report to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. It will make up a portion of the “Report of the Secretary-General to the 71st Session of the General Assembly on the Implementation of the Recommendations of the 2002 UN Study on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Education.”

    NAPF’s report outlines its numerous disarmament education activities that have taken place from July 2014 to June 2016. To read the report, click here.

    Quotes

     

    “We must learn the lessons of history, that we may learn to identify and avoid the paths that lead to war.”

    — Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. This quote appears in the book Speaking of Peace: Quotations to Inspire Action, which is available for purchase in the NAPF Peace Store.

     

    “If you sow a mango seed, you get a mango tree. If you sow maize, you get maize. No exception to this simple law has ever occurred or ever will. By the same token, if you sow the seed of contention, violence and hatred, the harvest will be more violence and more hatred. Society can only change by first changing the attitude of people who live in it and the world can only change by changing the attitude of the nations who constitute it.”

    — Sir James R. Mancham, KBE, former President of Seychelles.

     

    “I have lost my island, my ocean, my culture. I have lost everything about me. Can Obama come and see me? I am like a coconut floating adrift in the ocean with no set course.”

    — Nerje Joseph, a survivor of the March 1, 1954 Castle Bravo nuclear test. That test, at 1,000 times the power of the Hiroshima bomb, was the largest ever exploded by the United States and displaced many people in the Marshall Islands.

     

    “The world has moved on since nuclear subs were first designed and procured — politically, economically and technologically — and it’s time for our politicians to catch up.”

    — Kate Hudson, General Secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, commenting on a new report showing that the cost of replacing Trident, Britain’s nuclear weapons system, has risen to 205 billion GBP ($295 billion USD).

    Editorial Team

     

    Lindsay Apperson
    Ricky Frawley
    Alexis Hill
    Erika Ito
    David Krieger
    Carol Warner
    Rick Wayman

     

  • Courage in Words, But Not in Action

    President ObamaIt takes courage, in the cynical world of U.S. politics, to visit Hiroshima. Nearly 71 years after the United States used a nuclear weapon on that city, killing at least 140,000 people, President Obama has become the first sitting U.S. President to visit Hiroshima.

    The White House vociferously proclaimed that this was not going to be an apology for President Truman’s decision in 1945 to use a nuclear weapon against a largely civilian population. That decision aside, President Obama has plenty of his own actions that he could have apologized for.

    President Obama had the opportunity to actually do something about eliminating nuclear weapons. He not only did not take action, but he took us in the opposite direction. Under plans designed and implemented by his administration, the U.S. is creating new nuclear weapons and delivery systems that – if the Obama administration gets its way – will still be in use in the 2080s.

    This “modernization” program is projected to cost $1 trillion over the next 30 years. The cost will likely be much higher in the end, as so many weapons programs go wildly over budget. More concerning to me, though, is the message that this sends to the rest of the world and the all-but-inevitable new nuclear arms race that will follow.

    The Obama administration’s “modernization” program proposes a full overhaul of every nuclear warhead in the stockpile. In many cases, the new warheads will have new military capabilities, in direct violation of U.S. official policy. The B61-12 Life Extension Program, for example, will endow the B61 nuclear gravity bomb with a variable explosive yield and will include a guided tailfin kit, making it the world’s first “smart” nuclear gravity bomb.

    The Obama administration is pursuing a new generation of nuclear-armed submarines, new nuclear bomber aircraft and new land-based Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. John McCain, the Republican Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, recently questioned the need for the U.S. to continue with this nuclear triad. He said that it is “very, very, very expensive.” That’s three “verys” from a person who for decades has been at the center of the political machine that feeds the insatiable appetite of the military-industrial complex. So, we have the Republican defense hawk and Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee questioning the need for the nuclear triad, and the Nobel Peace Prize-winning President fully on board with the trillion dollar trainwreck.

    This administration is also fully funding construction of a Uranium Processing Facility in Tennessee, which will produce the highly-enriched uranium secondaries that put the “H” in h-bomb. They also continue to seek ways to fund a plan to produce up to 80 plutonium pits per year at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. At this time, there is no demonstrated need (even under the wildly over-ambitious “modernization” programs) for either of these capabilities. The nation’s two premier nuclear weapons laboratories, Los Alamos as well as Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, are run by for-profit entities that seek to maximize shareholder profit.

    This is the reality of U.S. nuclear weapons policy under President Obama.

    The U.S. Department of Justice is actively seeking to maneuver its way out of a lawsuit filed by the Republic of the Marshall Islands, which seeks to enforce Article VI of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Article VI calls for parties 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.”

    It is plain to see that the U.S. (and the world’s other eight nuclear-armed nations, for that matter) is in breach of these obligations. Instead of arguing the case on the merits, the U.S. is seeking dismissal of the lawsuit on technicalities. Because the U.S. does not accept the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice, U.S. courts were the only option available for the Marshall Islands to hold the U.S. accountable for its broken promises.

    It is tragic that President Obama squandered his visit to Hiroshima, and his entire two terms as President, by failing to take any meaningful action to eliminate nuclear weapons. There are significant efforts happening around the world led by courageous non-nuclear nations and civil society organizations that will undoubtedly bring the world closer to nuclear zero. The President had an opportunity to create a legacy unlike any other in history. Instead, he has continued the legacy like all the others.

    Rick Wayman is Director of Programs at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in Santa Barbara, California. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability and Co-Chair of the “Amplify: Generation of Change” network.

    Twitter: @rickwayman

  • June: This Month in Nuclear Threat History

    June 2, 1992 – An Associated Press article published on this date, authored by Steve Kline and titled “SAC (Strategic Air Command), America’s Nuclear Strike Force is Retired,” quoted then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Colin Powell, “The long bitter years of the Cold War are over.  America and her allies have won – totally, decisively, overwhelmingly.”  Comments:  Many Americans hoped that the ending of the Cold War in December 1991 with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Warsaw Pact Soviet bloc military alliance would result in a new era of a true Peace Dividend.  Although in the ensuing years, U.S. military spending was reduced by a small percentage, the Western military alliance, NATO, not only continued to “contain” Russia but grew in size to include a growing list of Eastern European and Soviet bloc nations.  Even more disappointing was the fact that the expectation of not only many Americans but a large portion of global populations that the world would dramatically demilitarize allowing money previously devoted to bloated military budgets to be converted from “guns to butter” never occurred on a large scale.  A global agenda for rebuilding infrastructure, providing employment particularly to ethnic, religious, and racial minorities in urban areas, educating large numbers of students including the indigent, funding Head Start programs, addressing poverty and disease outbreaks, remediating and cleaning up governmental and corporate toxic wastes (including civilian and military nuclear production and storage sites), and creating nonmilitary solutions to potential future conflict zones (such as the Mideast and Africa) never materialized.  Over the last two and a half decades, the hegemonic U.S. superpower devised a “New World Order” that has helped precipitate wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and elsewhere, destabilized the Middle East, caused China and Russia and other powers to challenge this order with larger than ever global military budgets, triggered a Cold War II, and enhanced a new growth spurt in nuclear weapons and other WMD development.  With the dire economic impact of trillions of Cold War and post-Cold War military dollars spent and the neoliberal speculative mortgage fraud crisis (the 2008 Great Recession) which highlighted an even larger gap between rich and poor, America has unfortunately learned that, like Russia, it too has “lost the Cold War” and the chance for a Peace Dividend. But it is not too late to come to our global senses, renounce nuclear weapons and war and embrace a new paradigm of peaceful rebirth and change.

    June 10, 1960 – Polaris Action, a group of concerned Americans organized by members of the Committee for Non Violent Action held an antinuclear march that began in New York City on June 1 and ended on this date at the gates of the nuclear submarine builder for the U.S. Navy – Electric Boat in Groton, Connecticut.  This group, allied with countless other organizations in the coming years, demonstrated their opposition to the development and deployment of nuclear weapons.  Comments:  There have been many thousands of global protests, vigils, hunger strikes, acts of civil disobedience, and demonstrations over the last seventy years appealing to corporate, military, governmental, political, and other leaders to recognize that eventually the global nuclear Armageddon machine, based on the flawed concept of deterrence, will fail resulting in the likely destruction of human civilization and the possible eradication of the entire human species (and a multitude of other species).  Growing numbers of the world population are recognizing this immense threat and working to dramatically reduce nuclear arsenals with a goal to eliminate them entirely.  (Source:  Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Swarthmore, Pa.  https://www.swarthmore.edu/library/peaceDG001-025/dg017.cnva.xml)

    June 13, 1995 – President Jacques Chirac announced an end to a French moratorium on nuclear testing with a planned series of eight tests in the South Pacific to last from September 1995 to May 1996.  However, worldwide protests forced the French to scale back those tests, although they did explode a 20-kiloton warhead at the Moruroa Atoll.  On January 27, 1996, President Chirac announced that his nation had finished testing, “once and for all.”  In September 1996, France became one of 70 nations, including the U.S., China, and Russia, to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which it later ratified on April 6, 1998.  France conducted a total of 210 nuclear tests in the period from 1960 to 1996 which inflicted extremely harmful short- and long-term health impacts to populations in an immense region of the South Pacific and North Africa.  Increased cancer rates, groundwater contamination, destruction of land and ocean ecosystems, and other detrimental health and environmental impacts still plague global populations decades after over 2,000 nuclear bombs were exploded below ground or in the atmosphere by members of the Nuclear Club.  Comments:  Although President Clinton signed the CTBT on September 24, 1996, the U.S. Senate rejected the treaty on October 13, 1999 by a vote of 51-48.  Few candidates in this 2016 presidential election cycle, Bernie Sanders being the exception, have discussed the threat of nuclear weapons.  No one has addressed the need to join dozens of other nations including Russia (which ratified the CTBT on April 21, 2000) in pushing the Senate to ratify this critical treaty.  This and other critical nuclear issues should be at the forefront of American and global political debate.  The 45th President of the United States should announce that ratification of the CTBT is one of his/her top priorities upon taking office.  (Source:  Jack Mendelsohn and David Grahame, editors.  “Arms Control Chronology.”  Washington, DC:  Center for Defense Information, 2002, pp. 17, 18, 22.)

    June 18, 2000 – America’s Defense Monitor, a half-hour documentary PBS-TV series that premiered in 1987, released a new film, “Radioactive America,” produced by the Center for Defense Information, a non-partisan, nonprofit organization and independent monitor of the Pentagon, founded in 1972, whose board of directors and staff included retired military officers (Rear Admiral Eugene Carroll, Jr.), former U.S. government officials (Philip Coyle, who served as assistant secretary of defense), and civilian experts (Dr. Bruce Blair, a former U.S. Air Force nuclear missile launch control officer).  The program investigated issues associated with the underfunded (then and now) cleanup of current as well as legacy U.S. nuclear weapons production facilities.  The press release for the program noted, “Historically, nuclear weapons production has generated massive amounts of radioactive waste.  Poor disposal and containment practices have allowed toxic nuclear waste to contaminate the soil and groundwater surrounding a plethora of nuclear facilities and weapons laboratories.”  These sites include Fernald, Ohio, Paducah, Kentucky, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, Hanford, Washington, and others too numerous to list here.  Comments:  Today there remain serious concerns about the continuing health and environmental risks of not only these military nuclear sites but of approximately 100 civilian nuclear power reactor sites and the accompanying infrastructure including the government’s flawed Waste Isolation Pilot Plant waste storage site near Carlsbad, New Mexico and other privately managed, mostly nontransparent,  nuclear storage sites.

    June 23, 1942 – The first nuclear weapons-related accident occurred on this date in the city of Leipzig, Germany involving Nazi atomic scientists Werner Heisenberg and Robert Doepel.  While demonstrating Germany’s first neutron propagation experiment, workers checked the atomic pile for a heavy water leak.  During the inspection, air leaked in igniting the uranium powder inside.  The burning uranium boiled the water jacket which generated enough steam pressure to blow the reactor apart.  Burning uranium was dispersed throughout the laboratory which triggered a fire at the facility causing an unknown number of casualties.  While Albert Einstein’s August 1939 letter to President Franklin Roosevelt about the need to weaponize the atom before Nazi scientists could do so had successfully started the ball rolling on the top secret U.S. Manhattan Project, scientists working on the first U.S. atomic pile in Chicago suspected that Germany was ahead of them in the race to build the first atomic bomb.  Even if the Nazis didn’t actually build a bomb, there were fears of German aircraft dropping radioactive dust on cities.  Comments:  Later in the war, when it was discovered that the German atomic bomb project had fizzled, many U.S. and European scientists working on the Manhattan Project spoke out against dropping the bomb on Japanese civilians.  Despite this opposition, the postwar desire to intimidate the Soviets and the accelerated bureaucratic and military momentum to demonstrate a weapon that cost billions of dollars to manufacture trumped moral concerns and even military necessity when the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945.  (Sources:  S.A. Goudsmit.  “Heisenberg on the German Uranium Project.” The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. November 1947 and Spencer R. Weart.  “Nuclear Fear:  A History of Images.”  Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, 1988. p. 89.)

    June 27, 2011 – In one of the twenty known incidents of the attempted illicit sale of Russian bomb-grade fissile materials in the last 25 years since the breakup of the Soviet Union, local police arrested Teodor Chetrus (who was later convicted and sentenced to five years in prison) in the former Soviet city of Chisinau, Moldova.  The buyer, secretly working as an undercover policeman, Ruslan Andropov, deposited $330,000 as an initial payment in exchange for the first of several shipments of highly-enriched uranium totaling 10 kilograms (22 pounds) – enough to power an “implosion-style” nuclear weapon.  Extensive forensic analysis by U.S. and French nuclear scientists have shown that several samples of fissile materials offered up for sale in the past two decades in a number of Western and former Soviet bloc nations have reportedly come from the same stockpile – the Russian nuclear weapons facility known as Mayak Production Association located in Ozersk in the Ural Mountains almost 1,000 miles east of Moscow.  In fact, according to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Deputy Director Anne Harrington, who testified at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces in April 2015, “Of the roughly 20 documented seizures of nuclear explosive materials since 1992, all have come out of the former Soviet Union.”  Ten years earlier at a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing chaired by Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, then-CIA Director Porter Goss responded to a query about whether enough fissile materials had vanished from Russian stockpiles to build a nuclear weapon, “There is sufficient material unaccounted for so that it would be possible for those with know-how to construct a nuclear weapon.”  When asked if he could assure the American people that the missing nuclear materials was not in terrorist hands, Goss replied, “No, I can’t make that assurance.” Although Russian President Putin has steadily cut back his nation’s overall nuclear security cooperation with Washington in 2015-16 on the grounds that it no longer needs U.S. financial or technical assistance to safeguard its fissile material stockpile, a recent CIA report reaffirmed a long-held U.S. position that it is unlikely that Russian authorities have been able to recover all of the stolen nuclear materials.  Comments:  Although some significant progress in securing and protecting nuclear materials from theft or diversion has been allegedly confirmed by Russia and other Nuclear Club nations at the four biennial nuclear security summits (2010-16), much more needs to be accomplished in the United Nations and other international fora to prevent the use of fissile materials to unleash weapons of mass destruction whether the materials diverted come from civilian nuclear plants or military nuclear weapons facilities.  In addition to concerns about the resulting mass casualties and short- and long-term radioactive contamination from such a catastrophe, there is also the frightening possibility that in times of crisis such an attack might inadvertently trigger nuclear retaliation or even precipitate a nuclear exchange.   (Source:  Douglas Birch and R. Jeffrey Smith.  “The Fuel for a Nuclear Bomb is in the Hands of an Unknown Black Marketeer from Russia, U.S. Officials Say.”  Center for Public Integrity, November 12, 2015 reprinted in Courier:  The Stanley Foundation Newsletter, Number 86, Spring 2016, pp. 7-14.)

  • NAPF’s Messages Hit the Mainstream Media

    We’ve had three letters to the editor published in the past six weeks in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post.

    Matter of Perspective
    The New York Times
    May 31, 2016

    As an American who has visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki on many occasions, I believe there is a fundamental difference in the way Americans and Japanese view the bomb. The American perspective is from above the bomb and its symbol, the mushroom cloud. The Japanese perspective is from beneath the bomb.

    The view from above the bomb leads to reliance on nuclear weapons and ultimately to an evolutionary dead-end for our species, while the view from beneath the bomb engages our moral decency and leads to abolishing these devices of mass annihilation and preserving the planet for future generations.

    David Krieger, Santa Barbara, Calif.

    The writer is the president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

    It Isn’t Enough for Obama to Talk About Nuclear Proliferation at Hiroshima
    Los Angeles Times
    May 13, 2016

    Last year, my organization brought Setsuko Thurlow, a survivor of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima, to Santa Barbara to honor her for her lifetime of advocacy for the abolition of nuclear weapons. Thurlow and so many other survivors have dedicated their lives to abolishing nuclear weapons so nobody will again suffer as they did.

    This is the real lesson of Hiroshima. For the White House to propose a modest speech about the importance of nuclear nonproliferation during the first visit to that city by a sitting president is cowardly and misses the point completely. (“Obama will be first U.S. president to visit Hiroshima — but he’ll make no apologies,” May 10)

    Yes, it is important that no additional nations acquire nuclear weapons. But the story of human suffering that Hiroshima tells makes it clear that the 15,000-plus nuclear weapons in the arsenals of a handful of countries must be abolished with urgency.

    There exists an international legal obligation to pursue — and bring to a conclusion — negotiations on nuclear disarmament. President Obama should dedicate the final months of his presidency to fulfilling this long-delayed obligation. That would be a legacy worth creating.

    Rick Wayman, Santa Barbara

    The writer is director of programs for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

    The Meaning of Hiroshima, 70 Years Later
    Washington Post
    April 19, 2016

    Regarding the April 16 editorial “The lessons and legacy of Hiroshima”:

    The leaders of every nation possessing nuclear weapons should be required to visit Hiroshima. This, of course, includes President Obama and whoever is elected as his successor in November. Abstract theories of national security and nuclear deterrence have been stubbornly followed for more than 70 years while willfully turning a blind eye to the very real catastrophic human consequences of nuclear weapons.

    The Post’s call for further reductions in nuclear arsenals is important, but quantitative reductions lose their meaning when the remaining hundreds or thousands of nuclear weapons are made more “usable” and equipped with new military capabilities.

    The United States is in the midst of a $1 trillion, 30-year program to modernize all aspects of its nuclear arsenal: the warheads, delivery systems, production facilities and command-and-control system. The other eight nuclear-armed nations are also engaged in modernization efforts. A visit to Hiroshima would underline the moral and humanitarian imperatives to abolish nuclear weapons. This, taken together with the existing legal obligations to pursue in good faith — and bring to a conclusion — negotiations on nuclear disarmament, makes it clear that continuing with business as usual is unacceptable.

    Rick Wayman, Santa Barbara
    The writer is director of programs for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Refugees and Peace Literacy

    Refugees and Peace Literacy

    When Paul K. Chappell, NAPF Peace Leadership Director, spoke about Peace Literacy in mid-May to over 400 students at the International Youth Conference for the Christian Community in Hamburg, Germany, he also addressed a number of young refugees from the Greater Middle East. Some of them spoke English, had been in Germany for a number of months, and they said they were hopeful for the future. They had survived traumatic experiences and while they were hopeful, they knew their future was not guaranteed.

    Chappell has often talked about the “muscle” of hope, and how realistic hope can survive enormous suffering even when trust has been betrayed. Unlike naïve hope which is the result of helplessness, realistic hope grows from the trust we have in ourselves, others, and our ideals. Participation in creating progress is a higher expression of hope.

    “The presence of these recent refugees made our discussion on peace less abstract and more about reality,” Chappell said. “When a face is put on an issue, our empathy can grow.”

    “It is important to recognize our shared humanity. When we understand our shared humanity we can see through the illusions of dehumanization and realize when people are trying to manipulate our human vulnerabilities in order to take advantage of us.”

    Chappell also addressed waging peace, ending war, abolishing nuclear weapons, and our responsibility to animals and creation. “The refugee crisis is an opportunity to put our ideals into action, to see ourselves in those who are fleeing oppression and war. Germany’s empathy for those fleeing from the chaos of war in search of peace is an inspiring example for all of us.”

  • Mensaje al Muro

    Traducción de Ruben D. Arvizu. Click here for the English version.

    Estimado muro,

    Tu superficie pulida engaña.

    Pareces sereno, sin embargo, estás lleno de angustia y potencial perdido.

    Eres un muro de enorme tristeza.

    Tu recuerdas a los jóvenes, cuyas vidas fueron envueltas en las llamas de la guerra.

    Querían vivir y amar, pero la cruel guerra los detuvo.

    Tenían vidas, pero las mentiras de sus líderes los llevaron a la guerra.

    Su error fue confiar.

    Y nunca regresaron con sus seres queridos.

    Muro, sus nombres están tallados en ti.

    Sus corazones se agitan a tu alrededor.

    Estos jóvenes que murieron son centinelas, advirtiendo el peligro.

    Nos recuerdan que la guerra es un juego de tontos.

    Un juego en el que todos pierden.

    A excepción de los comerciantes de armamentos.

    Muro, tú reflejas el precio humano de la guerra.

    Deja que los viejos y canosos paguen el precio, si deben hacerlo.

    Pero, juventud, sé cautelosa con la guerra.

    David Krieger es Presidente de Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

    Ruben D. Arvizu es Director para América Latina de Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

  • Did Hiroshima Awaken the President?

    This article was originally published by the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance.

    There was a lot of talk leading up to President Obama’s visit to Hiroshima, much of it speculating on what he would or should or would not or should not say. I was interviewed by print and television reporters, and that seemed to be the first question out of the box, usually in the context of “Apologize for the bomb?” My answer to that was easy. Having been to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and having hosted hibakusha— survivors of the bombings—half a dozen times or more, I quickly noted that I never heard any request for an apology. For those who were there, and who lived to reflect on that horrific moment, it was never about the past, except insofar as the past informs the present and future. Their request was not for regret, but for commitment; they asked that we join them in making “Never again!” a guarantee by abolishing nuclear weapons from the face of the earth.

    Now the Presidential visit is history. He made a pretty good speech, though Senator Edward Markey’s op-ed about preaching temperance from a barstool warrants even more attention.

    The one thing I feel certain of is that the speech Obama delivered in Hiroshima is among the least important things he did there. At least I hope that is so. If I had been asked to advise the president on his priorities, my top three would have been: Look, Listen, and Feel.

    Look. The visual power of Hiroshima, the physical presence of the dome, the before and after diorama and artifacts in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, the charred schoolgirl’s lunch tin with carbonized rice cannot be fully realized from pictures or descriptions. Like standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon, one can only completely comprehend the scope in person. In the case of Hiroshima, the scene is the opposite of grandeur. But it should be faced.

    Listen. The stories of the hibakusha, told on video and in person, are compelling. They remind everyone who listens that the atomic bomb was not simply an amazing technological achievement or a powerful military weapon; it was a monstrous destroyer of lives and histories and families and pets and culture and hope. It’s use ushered in the nuclear age, when humankind not only stepped into a new technological era, but into a new moral era. Now we are inescapably aware of what we are capable of, and with that knowledge comes a moral imperative—one we have yet to fully, appropriately, and morally meet.

    Feel. The enormity of Hiroshima and the devastating power of the stories can be numbing. Facing Hiroshima means facing something deeply dark in our souls—not just our national soul, but our human souls. I want the weight of Hiroshima to bear down on President Obama; I want him to feel it when he gets back to Washington, DC and sits down to look at his daughters across the breakfast table. I want, at least one morning, for him to notice his watch 8:15, and to think, “It was just this time of day…”

    I am hopeful that the President has done all of these things. He did stand in Hiroshima and acknowledge that he saw it firsthand. He listened. He met with hibakusha, two gentlemen, and spoke privately with them, hugged one of them. And if the catch in his voice when he spoke of children was any indication, he felt the truth of the Bomb. I believe he will look at Sasha and Malia and see in their eyes the hope of the future.

    And it is what he does then, not what he did in Hiroshima, that will be the most important thing.

    If he himself experiences the moral awakening he called for in Hiroshima, he can set in motion the eventual disarmament he so fondly speaks of. He can declare it is not okay anymore to say “maybe not in my lifetime.” He can announce he is abandoning plans for a new $15 billion thermonuclear bomb manufacturing plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee (yes, it’s true—$3 billion has already been spent on the design). He can tell the weaponeers at Lawrence Livermore Lab to stop working on a new warhead for the Long Range Stand-Off cruise missile, and he can tell the pentagon to shut down the LSRO program.

    These first steps would be the first significant actions of this president toward a world free of nuclear weapons. Everything else has been to “reduce the danger,” or to discourage nuclear proliferation, all the while embracing nuclear weapons as the cornerstone of defense policy for the US. The new bomb plant, and the ongoing upgrades and modifications of US warheads, have launched a new global nuclear arms race. Undoing that will take action, not words.

    Taking these bold steps would send a powerful message to the rest of the world, one we promised more than 40 years ago in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Simply put: we are not just talking about a world free of nuclear weapons, not just determined to have one some day—we are going there now. Other nations would follow, because nuclear weapons are as irrational to them as they are to us.

    Who would oppose the President? Some right-wing hawks, no doubt, who think the best foreign policy for the United States is to bully the world into doing things our way. But not all of them—Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, Sam Nunn, William Perry, almost every living former National Security Adviser, hundreds of Generals and Admirals around the globe, including the former head of NATO’s Strategic Forces, General Lee Butler, and General James “Hoss” Cartwright, four star Marine general who served as Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General Charles Horner, four star Air Force general. All of these men have called for the United States to take concrete steps toward nuclear disarmament. They are not Pollyannas. They understand the risks and rewards of nuclear weapons more than most people on the planet; their careers have required them to contemplate policy and use in practice, and not just in theory.

    So, what I want from my President now is this: take some time to let Hiroshima sink in. And then use your new knowledge as the platform from which you step out to walk the walk, leading us toward a world free of nuclear weapons, the world of Never Again.

  • Obama Does Right By Meeting Hibakusha, Describing Atrocities, & Recognizing Victims in Hiroshima– Makes Epic Fail By Not Reducing Nuclear Arsenal

    A group of 30 young people from 23 countries met in Hiroshima in August 2015 to work together for the abolition of nuclear weapons.
    A group of 30 young people from 23 countries met in Hiroshima in August 2015 to work together for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

    In August, 2015, thirty youth leaders from twenty-three countries met in Hiroshima in the hopes of strengthening solidarity and making a breakthrough toward ridding the world of nuclear weapons. We held the International Youth Summit for Nuclear Abolition over three days which culminated in a Youth Pledge, and a year-long action plan to collaborate to abolish nukes. Since then, we’ve continued to collaborate under the banner of ‘Amplify: Generation of Change’, and have taken many actions globally, toward our cause.

    When we initially heard that President Obama would become the first sitting US President to visit Hiroshima, we hoped that it would signify a change or at least be a reflective experience. That it was. But the American President left out the most important part– he failed to offer any concrete plan to reduce the US nuclear arsenal, which is the largest in the world.

    Like President Obama, about 9 months ago, we visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and like many before us, laid a wreath in remembrance. Like President Obama, we had the chance to meet with resilient Hibakusha (a-bomb survivors) who have dedicated the rest of their days to world peace.

    Unlike President Obama, we do not have the authority to announce a dramatic reduction in the nuclear weapons or a u-turn on the United States’ plan to invest over $1 trillion in “modernizing” its nuclear arsenal over the next three decades. If we could, we would, without a doubt, because we believe that actions speak louder than words on nuclear policy and securing a peaceful tomorrow.

    In the last year, we, youth activists from around the world, have witnessed first-hand the failure of international players, including the United States, to fulfill their existing nuclear disarmament obligations, despite existing mandates by international law. Many of us who were part of the International Youth Summit to Abolish Nuclear Weapons have participated directly in and around global efforts like the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, the First Committee meetings on Disarmament and International Security, the Marshall Islands International Court of Justice cases, and the Open Ended Working Group on Nuclear Disarmament, where the U.S. leaders clearly and repeatedly demonstrated a lack of willingness to move forward in nuclear disarmament discussions.

    Today, in Hiroshima, the President said: “[A]mong those nations like my own that hold nuclear stockpiles, we must have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them… We can chart a course that leads to the destruction of these stockpiles.”

    But among the many important points and references he made, President Obama did not lay out any plan or proposal for disarmament. Why not?

    If one thing isn’t obvious in today’s global climate, let us be perfectly blunt: young people are beyond tired of empty promises and nice words without the action or political will to back them up. If President Obama wants to make his final months meaningful, he must immediately and unilaterally take steps to reduce the US’s nuclear arsenal, which threatens all life on earth, while encouraging other nuclear powers to do the same. Without concrete signs of progress on nuclear abolition, the President’s trip to Hiroshima seems like mere political theater, like we have seen many times before, by many different world leaders. We simply don’t have the patience for lip service or macabre legacy tour.

    We are glad that President Obama took our call to attend Peace Memorial Park, to meet with Hibakusha, and to recognize the atrocities of the past and the suffering of victims. Unfortunately, he failed to take action on what should have been the most important part of his visit and speech; to declare concrete and measurable steps that would guarantee a future where impending nuclear winter is no longer a threat. Calling for nuclear disarmament while planning to spend $1TRILLION on “upgrading” the US nuclear arsenal over the next thirty years is hypocritical and extends the danger that nuclear warheads already pose, to future generations.

    Today, the President acknowledged the horrors caused by the US-Atomic-bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the learning that has come from it. But that is not enough. We will not take his calls seriously until we see that the US is working earnestly to ensure that these tragedies can never happen again. Younger and future generations are the biggest stakeholders in nuclear abolition will not stand by and allow President Obama’s visit to Hiroshima to be another missed opportunity, where lofty language casts a tall shadow of cynicism over the truth on the ground.

  • On President Obama’s Hiroshima Visit

    This article was originally published by Common Dreams.

    Robert DodgePresident Obama will be the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima since the bombing 71 years ago in 1945.

    Japan seeks not an apology or reparation but an awareness and intimate connection to the common humanity we all share and that is at once threatened by the continued existence of nuclear weapons.

    Any nation that continues to keep these weapons is not more secure or powerful but rather a bully ready to threaten others and indeed themselves.

    “In Hiroshima, we don’t need another speech. We need a new nuclear weapons policy.”

    Current scientific and medical research has drawn an even closer connection between nuclear war and catastrophic climate change. We now recognize that a small regional nuclear war for example between Pakistan and India using 100 Hiroshima size bombs and representing less than ½% of the global nuclear arsenals would put at risk the lives of 2 billion people on the planet from the global famine that would follow.

    The weapons on a single U.S. Trident submarine can produce this same disaster. The U.S. has 14 of them, plus a fleet of land based missiles and strategic bombers.

    The old adage of MAD for Mutually Assured Destruction is now better termed SAD for Self Assured Destruction as whomever would unleash such an attack would put their own people at risk from this climate change becoming defacto suicide bombers.

    We must ignore the voices who continue to promote the myth of nuclear deterrence which in reality is the greatest driver of the arms race. They do so out of ignorance on the effects of these weapons, suicidal ideation or financial gain from the purveyors of these weapons of extinction.

    The continued existence of these weapons comes at a heavy financial cost as well.  Currently we are spending $4 million dollars an hour on nuclear weapons and the Obama administration proposes the U.S. spend $1 trillion dollars over the next 30 years to pursue a second nuclear arms race which in turn will encourage the other nuclear powers to follow our lead and do likewise.  These current and proposed massive expenditures rob future generations of critical funds needed to address their basic needs including the threat of climate change.

    It is important for President Obama to meet with Hibakusha, survivors of the attack and listen to what they are saying. For more than seven decades the Hibakusha have tried to make the world understand the full horror of what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to make sure that nuclear weapons are never used again. Like survivors of the Nazi Holocaust they have, over and over again, made themselves relive the most painful experiences imaginable in the hope that others will not have to suffer their fate. For decades nuclear armed states have talked about these weapons as though they were playing some abstract game of chess. The Hibakusha make flesh and blood the real nature of nuclear war.

    President Obama came to office offering the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons, but since the successful negotiation of the New START treaty which was a major step in that direction, his administration has seemingly abandoned that goal.

    The United States has refused to join the growing Open Ended Working Group of over 140 nations supporting a nuclear weapons ban treaty just as other weapons from chemical to biologic and land mines have been banned.

    If the President is serious about seeking a world free of nuclear weapons, we must change course. We need to abandon the trillion dollar nuclear spending spree and embrace instead the international movement to eliminate nuclear weapons and the existential threat to human survival that they pose.

    In Hiroshima, we don’t need another speech. We need a new nuclear weapons policy.

    We have a choice – to continue down the path of a second nuclear arms race or to abide by our legal treaty obligations as required under Article VI of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty and to move toward nuclear disarmament.

    So, we the people implore you, Mr. President, as you process your experience, the choice is clear. You have the opportunity to make history. Choose life Mr. President. The world longs for your leadership on this issue. This is our prescription for survival.

    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

  • President Obama’s Speech in Hiroshima

    President ObamaSeventy-one years ago, on a bright, cloudless morning, death fell from the sky and the world was changed. A flash of light and a wall of fire destroyed a city and demonstrated that mankind possessed the means to destroy itself.

    Why do we come to this place, to Hiroshima? We come to ponder a terrible force unleashed in a not so distant past. We come to mourn the dead, including over 100,000 in Japanese men, women and children; thousands of Koreans; a dozen Americans held prisoner. Their souls speak to us. They ask us to look inward, to take stock of who we are and what we might become.

    It is not the fact of war that sets Hiroshima apart. Artifacts tell us that violent conflict appeared with the very first man. Our early ancestors, having learned to make blades from flint and spears from wood, used these tools not just for hunting, but against their own kind. On every continent, the history of civilization is filled with war, whether driven by scarcity of grain or hunger for gold; compelled by nationalist fervor or religious zeal. Empires have risen and fallen. Peoples have been subjugated and liberated. And at each juncture, innocents have suffered, a countless toll, their names forgotten by time.

    The World War that reached its brutal end in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was fought among the wealthiest and most powerful of nations. Their civilizations had given the world great cities and magnificent art. Their thinkers had advanced ideas of justice and harmony and truth. And yet, the war grew out of the same base instinct for domination or conquest that had caused conflicts among the simplest tribes; an old pattern amplified by new capabilities and without new constraints. In the span of a few years, some 60 million people would die — men, women, children no different than us, shot, beaten, marched, bombed, jailed, starved, gassed to death.

    There are many sites around the world that chronicle this war — memorials that tell stories of courage and heroism; graves and empty camps that echo of unspeakable depravity. Yet in the image of a mushroom cloud that rose into these skies, we are most starkly reminded of humanity’s core contradiction; how the very spark that marks us as a species — our thoughts, our imagination, our language, our tool-making, our ability to set ourselves apart from nature and bend it to our will — those very things also give us the capacity for unmatched destruction.

    How often does material advancement or social innovation blind us to this truth. How easily we learn to justify violence in the name of some higher cause. Every great religion promises a pathway to love and peace and righteousness, and yet no religion has been spared from believers who have claimed their faith as a license to kill. Nations arise, telling a story that binds people together in sacrifice and cooperation, allowing for remarkable feats, but those same stories have so often been used to oppress and dehumanize those who are different.

    Science allows us to communicate across the seas and fly above the clouds; to cure disease and understand the cosmos. But those same discoveries can be turned into ever-more efficient killing machines.

    The wars of the modern age teach this truth. Hiroshima teaches this truth. Technological progress without an equivalent progress in human institutions can doom us. The scientific revolution that led to the splitting of an atom requires a moral revolution, as well.

    That is why we come to this place. We stand here, in the middle of this city, and force ourselves to imagine the moment the bomb fell. We force ourselves to feel the dread of children confused by what they see. We listen to a silent cry. We remember all the innocents killed across the arc of that terrible war, and the wars that came before, and the wars that would follow.

    Mere words cannot give voice to such suffering, but we have a shared responsibility to look directly into the eye of history and ask what we must do differently to curb such suffering again. Someday the voices of the hibakusha will no longer be with us to bear witness. But the memory of the morning of August 6th, 1945 must never fade. That memory allows us to fight complacency. It fuels our moral imagination. It allows us to change.

    And since that fateful day, we have made choices that give us hope. The United States and Japan forged not only an alliance, but a friendship that has won far more for our people than we could ever claim through war. The nations of Europe built a Union that replaced battlefields with bonds of commerce and democracy. Oppressed peoples and nations won liberation. An international community established institutions and treaties that worked to avoid war and aspire to restrict and roll back, and ultimately eliminate the existence of nuclear weapons.

    Still, every act of aggression between nations; every act of terror and corruption and cruelty and oppression that we see around the world shows our work is never done. We may not be able to eliminate man’s capacity to do evil, so nations – and the alliances that we’ve formed – must possess the means to defend ourselves. But among those nations like my own that hold nuclear stockpiles, we must have the courage to escape the logic of fear, and pursue a world without them.

    We may not realize this goal in my lifetime. But persistent effort can roll back the possibility of catastrophe. We can chart a course that leads to the destruction of these stockpiles. We can stop the spread to new nations, and secure deadly materials from fanatics.

    And yet that is not enough. For we see around the world today how even the crudest rifles and barrel bombs can serve up violence on a terrible scale. We must change our mindset about war itself – to prevent conflict through diplomacy, and strive to end conflicts after they’ve begun; to see our growing interdependence as a cause for peaceful cooperation and not violent competition; to define our nations not by our capacity to destroy, but by what we build.

    And perhaps above all, we must reimagine our connection to one another as members of one human race. For this, too, is what makes our species unique. We’re not bound by genetic code to repeat the mistakes of the past. We can learn. We can choose. We can tell our children a different story – one that describes a common humanity; one that makes war less likely and cruelty less easily accepted.

    We see these stories in the hibakusha – the woman who forgave a pilot who flew the plane that dropped the atomic bomb, because she recognized that what she really hated was war itself; the man who sought out families of Americans killed here, because he believed their loss was equal to his own.

    My own nation’s story began with simple words: All men are created equal, and endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Realizing that ideal has never been easy, even within our own borders, even among our own citizens.

    But staying true to that story is worth the effort. It is an ideal to be strived for; an ideal that extends across continents, and across oceans. The irreducible worth of every person, the insistence that every life is precious; the radical and necessary notion that we are part of a single human family -– that is the story that we all must tell.

    That is why we come to Hiroshima. So that we might think of people we love — the first smile from our children in the morning; the gentle touch from a spouse over the kitchen table; the comforting embrace of a parent – we can think of those things and know that those same precious moments took place here seventy-one years ago. Those who died – they are like us. Ordinary people understand this, I think. They do not want more war. They would rather that the wonders of science be focused on improving life, and not eliminating it.

    When the choices made by nations, when the choices made by leaders reflect this simple wisdom, then the lesson of Hiroshima is done.

    The world was forever changed here. But today, the children of this city will go through their day in peace. What a precious thing that is. It is worth protecting, and then extending to every child. That is the future we can choose – a future in which Hiroshima and Nagasaki are known not as the dawn of atomic warfare, but as the start of our own moral awakening.