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  • Our Nuclear World at Seventy

    This article was originally published by Common Dreams.

    Robert DodgeThis week the world remembers events of 70 years ago. Events that killed instantly over 100 thousand human beings as the U.S. dropped the first atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan on August 6th and 9th respectively. In the days and weeks that followed tens of thousands would also die from injuries suffered by the bomb and “A bomb disease”. From 4:15 pm PST August 5th, the exact moment the bomb was dropped over Hiroshima, there will be planetary vigils remembering the events of those days. If we forget these events we run the risk of repeating them and so must educate those among us who are unaware or uniformed.

    Over the years, the aging Hibakusha survivors of the atomic bombs are a constant reminder as they speak of the horrors they experienced those August days and in the aftermath.

    Unfortunately in the seven decades that have followed, the world has done little to move away from the subsequent use of these weapons and instead moved closer to the brink of destroying civilization and possibly the extinction of our species.

    Witnessing the horrific potential of these weapons mankind had two options that remain with us to this day. The first option was to rid the planet of these weapons and the second was to build more. The world chose the latter. The insane doctrine throughout the Cold War, appropriately called MAD for Mutually Assured Destruction, guaranteed the annihilation of an adversary in the event of any use a nuclear weapon. This resulted in a mythological notion of nuclear deterrence that persists to this day, providing a false sense of security and being the major driver of the arms race resulting in 15,685 nuclear weapons on the planet!

    Following the bombings of Japan and with continued testing we have seen how destructive these weapons were. However, recently we have learned that they are much more dangerous than we had ever imagined. We now know that even a unilateral attack using the weapons of either the U.S. or Russia without retaliation would ultimately result in such catastrophic global climate change that billions would die from starvation and disease including the attacking nation. In effect the MAD doctrine of the Cold War has become the SAD doctrine of Self Assured Destruction ultimately turning any nation that would unleash its nuclear arsenals into suicide bombers and the destroyers of civilization.

    Even a limited regional nuclear war using only 100 Hiroshima size bombs possibly between India and Pakistan, felt by many defense experts to be a vulnerable nuclear hot spot on the planet, would cause death and destruction never imagined. It would kill 20 million people outright but the after effects resulting from global climate change in the days that follow would be catastrophic killing over 2 billion people around the world. These effects would last for over 10 years. Even more remarkably this scenario uses less than ½ of 1% of the global arsenals!

    On this 70th Anniversary of the nuclear age we have an opportunity and responsibility to act. Knowing what we now know, we cannot do nothing. Ultimately our luck will run out with the potential of nuclear war either by accident or intent. We must work together with the majority of nations now numbering 113 who have signed the “Humanitarian Pledge” to ban nuclear weapons by convention just as every other weapon of mass destruction has been banned. All attempts at nonproliferation and diplomacy must be supported including the nuclear deal with Iran. We must demand that our nation join the non-nuclear nations of the world whom we hold hostage and work together to abolish these weapons. We owe this to the Hibakusha, to our children and to future generations.

  • Hiroshima 2015

    On this fateful day, 70 years ago, the first of the only two atomic bombs ever used was dropped on the city of Hiroshima, with a second catastrophic detonation wreaked on Nagasaki on August 9th , killing over 220,000 people by the end of 1945, with many tens of thousands of more dying from radiation poisoning and its lethal after effects over the years.   Yet despite these horrendous cataclysms in Japan, there are still 16,000 nuclear weapons on the planet, all but 1,000 of them held by the US and Russia. Our legal structures to control and eliminate the bomb are in tatters, as the five recognized nuclear weapons states in the Non-Proliferation Treaty—the US, UK, Russia, France, China–cling to their nuclear deterrents, asserting they are needed for their “security” despite the promises they made in 1970, 45 long years ago, to make good faith efforts to eliminate their nuclear arms. This “security” in the form of nuclear “deterrence” is extended by the United States to many more countries in the NATO nuclear alliances as well as to the Pacific states of Japan, Australia, and South Korea. Non-NPT states, India, Pakistan and Israel, as well as North Korea which left the NPT, taking advantage of its Faustian bargain for “peaceful” nuclear power, to make nuclear weapons similarly claim their reliance on nuclear “deterrence” for their security.

    The rest of the world is appalled, not only at the lack of progress to fulfill promises for nuclear disarmament, but the constant modernization and “improvement” of nuclear arsenals with the US announcing a plan to spend one trillion dollars over the next 30 years for two new bomb factories, delivery systems and warheads, having just tested a dummy nuclear bunker-buster warhead last month in Nevada, its B-61-12 nuclear gravity bomb! At this last NPT Review Conference in May, which broke up when the US, UK, and Canada refused to agree to an Egyptian proposal for a conference on a Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone, made to fulfill a 1995 promise as part of the commitments from the nuclear weapons states for an indefinite extension of the 25 year old NPT, the non- nuclear weapons states took a bold step.   South Africa expressed its outrage at the unacceptable nuclear apartheid apparent in the current “security” system of nuclear haves and have nots—a system holding the whole world hostage to the security doctrine of the few.

    In the past two years, after three major conferences with governments and civil society in Norway, Mexico and Austria to examine the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear war, over 100 nations signed up at the end of the NPT to the Austrian government’s Humanitarian Pledge to identify and pursue effective measures to fill the legal gap for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons. There are now 113 countries willing to move forward to negotiate a prohibition and ban on nuclear weapons to stigmatize and delegitimize these weapons of horror, just at the world has done for chemical and biological weapons. See www.icanw.org It is hoped that countries harboring under their nuclear umbrellas will also be pressured by civil society to give up their alliance with the nuclear devil and join the Humanitarian Pledge. This August, as we remember and commemorate around the world the horrendous events in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it’s long past time to ban the bomb! Let the talks begin!!

  • 70 Years After Hiroshima, It’s Time to Confront the Past

    This article was originally published by the Huffington Post.

    Setsuko ThurlowAs the 70th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki approaches, several people have been asking me to share my thoughts about those days in 1945, when our world changed forever. The first thing that comes to mind is an image of my four-year-old nephew Eiji — transformed into a charred, blackened and swollen child who kept asking in a faint voice for water until he died in agony. Had he not been a victim of the atomic bomb, he would be 74 years old this year. This idea shocks me. Regardless of the passage of time, he remains in my memory as a 4-year-old child who came to represent all the innocent children of the world. And it is this death of innocents that has been the driving force for me to continue my struggle against the ultimate evil of nuclear weapons. Eiji’s image is burnt into my retina.

    In June I had the opportunity to visit Berlin and Potsdam to meet German citizens to talk about my experience in Hiroshima. Germans and Japanese experienced a similar historical trauma as aggressor-states in World War II. But there has been a decisively different way that the Japanese and German governments are dealing with their wartime responsibilities.

    Many Japanese people were deeply inspired by the manner in which the German government confronted the past and dealt with wartime atrocities with integrity. Former President Richard von Weizeker’s inspiring speech on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Germany’s surrender touched the conscience of the world, and earned our profound respect when he said “We Germans must look truth straight in the eye — without embellishment and without distortion… There can be no reconciliation without remembrance.”

    The Japanese government should emulate this profound sentiment in confronting the past and dealing with our as yet unresolved relationships with neighboring countries, particularly Korea and China. Tragically, the current Abe administration is seeking to expand Japan’s military role in the region and forsake our much-cherished Peace Constitution.

    And in the United States, a repugnant remembrance is soon to be unveiled. The National Park Service and the Department of Energy will establish the Manhattan Project National Historical Park. Unlike the memorials at Auschwitz and Treblinka, the United States seeks to preserve the history of the once top-secret sites at Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, and Hanford, where international scientists developed the world’s first nuclear bomb, as a sort of celebration of that technological ‘achievement’. Among the first so-called ‘successes’ of this endeavor was creating hell on earth in my beloved Hiroshima.

    As a 13-year-old schoolgirl, I witnessed my city of Hiroshima blinded by the flash, flattened by the hurricane-like blast, burned in the heat of 4000 degrees Celsius and contaminated by the radiation of one atomic bomb.

    Miraculously, I was rescued from the rubble of a collapsed building, about 1.8 kilometers from Ground Zero. Most of my classmates in the same room were burned alive. I can still hear their voices calling their mothers and God for help. As I escaped with two other surviving girls, we saw a procession of ghostly figures slowly shuffling from the centre of the city. Grotesquely wounded people, whose clothes were tattered, or who were made naked by the blast. They were bleeding, burnt, blackened and swollen. Parts of their bodies were missing, flesh and skin hanging from their bones, some with their eyeballs hanging in their hands, and some with their stomachs burst open, with their intestines hanging out.

    Within that single flash of light, my beloved Hiroshima became a place of desolation, with heaps of skeletons and blackened corpses everywhere. Of a population of 360,000 — largely non-combatant women, children and elderly — most became victims of the indiscriminate massacre of the atomic bombing. As of now, over 250,000 victims have perished in Hiroshima from the effects of the blast, heat and radiation. 70 years later, people are still dying from the delayed effects of one atomic bomb, considered crude by today’s standard for mass destruction.

    Most experts agree that nuclear weapons are more dangerous now than at any point in our history due to a wide variety of risks including: geopolitical saber rattling, human error, computer failure, complex systems failure, increasing radioactive contamination in the environment and its toll on public and environmental health, as well as the global famine and climate chaos that would ensue should a limited use of nuclear weapons occur by accident or design. Yet few people truly grasp the meaning of living in the nuclear age.

    This is why I have been overjoyed at witnessing the recent development of a global movement involving Non Nuclear Weapon States and NGOs working together to achieve the elimination of nuclear weapons. This movement has been reframing the problem of nuclear weapons from deterrence credibility and techno-military issues to the issue of humanitarian consequences. The result is a strong push for a nuclear Ban Treaty to begin a process for nuclear disarmament. Norway, Mexico and Austria have collaborated with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and the International Committee of the Red Cross to organize three successful International Conferences on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons.

    At the end of the most recent conference in Vienna last December, the Austrian government unveiled the “Austrian Pledge” to fill the legal gap for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons. Now referred to as the Humanitarian Pledge, it is supported by 113 nations that are calling on Nuclear Weapon States and those who stand with them, to begin a process for nuclear disarmament.

    To repeat the words of Richard von Weizeker: “We must look truth straight in the eye – without embellishment and without distortion.” The truth is, we all live with the daily threat of nuclear weapons. In every silo, on every submarine, in the bomb bays of airplanes, every second of every day, nuclear weapons, thousands on high alert, are poised for deployment threatening everyone we love and everything we hold dear.

    How much longer can we allow the nuclear weapon states to wield this threat to all life on earth? The time has come for action to establish a legally binding framework to ban nuclear weapons as a first step in their total abolition. I passionately urge everyone who loves this world to join the growing global movement. And let us make the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki the appropriate milestone to achieve our goal: to abolish nuclear weapons, and safeguard the future of our one shared planet earth.

  • 2015 Hiroshima Peace Declaration

    In our town, we had the warmth of family life, the deep human bonds of community, festivals heralding each season, traditional culture and buildings passed down through history, as well as riversides where children played. At 8:15 a.m., August 6, 1945, all of that was destroyed by a single atomic bomb. Below the mushroom cloud, a charred mother and child embraced, countless corpses floated in rivers, and buildings burned to the ground. Tens of thousands were burned in those flames. By year’s end, 140,000 irreplaceable lives had been taken, that number including Koreans, Chinese, Southeast Asians, and American prisoners of war.

    Those who managed to survive, their lives grotesquely distorted, were left to suffer serious physical and emotional aftereffects compounded by discrimination and prejudice. Children stole or fought routinely to survive. A young boy rendered an A-bomb orphan still lives alone; a wife was divorced when her exposure was discovered. The suffering continues.

    “Madotekure!” This is the heartbroken cry of hibakusha who want Hiroshima—their hometown, their families, their own minds and bodies—put back the way it was.

    One hundred years after opening as the Hiroshima Prefectural Commercial Exhibition Hall and 70 years after the atomic bombing, the A-bomb Dome still watches over Hiroshima. In front of this witness to history, I want us all, once again, to face squarely what the A-bomb did and embrace fully the spirit of the hibakusha.

    Meanwhile, our world still bristles with more than 15,000 nuclear weapons, and policymakers in the nuclear-armed states remain trapped in provincial thinking, repeating by word and deed their nuclear intimidation. We now know about the many incidents and accidents that have taken us to the brink of nuclear war or nuclear explosions. Today, we worry as well about nuclear terrorism.

    As long as nuclear weapons exist, anyone could become a hibakusha at any time. If that happens, the damage will reach indiscriminately beyond national borders. People of the world, please listen carefully to the words of the hibakusha and, profoundly accepting the spirit of Hiroshima, contemplate the nuclear problem as your own.

    A woman who was 16 at the time appeals, “Expanding ever wider the circle of harmony that includes your family, friends, and neighbors links directly to world peace. Empathy, kindness, solidarity—these are not just intellectual concepts; we have to feel them in our bones.” A man who was 12 emphasizes, “War means tragedy for adults and children alike. Empathy, caring, loving others and oneself—this is where peace comes from.”

    These heartrending messages, forged in a cauldron of suffering and sorrow, transcend hatred and rejection. Their spirit is generosity and love for humanity; their focus is the future of humankind.

    Human beings transcend differences of nationality, race, religion, and language to live out our one-time-only lives on the planet we share. To coexist we must abolish the absolute evil and ultimate inhumanity that is nuclear weapons. Now is the time to start taking action. Young people are already starting petition drives, posting messages, organizing marches and launching a variety of efforts. Let’s all work together to build an enormous ground swell.

    In this milestone 70th year, the average hibakusha is now over 80 years old. The city of Hiroshima will work even harder to preserve the facts of the bombing, disseminate them to the world, and convey them to coming generations. At the same time, as president of Mayors for Peace, now with more than 6,700 member cities, Hiroshima will act with determination, doing everything in our power to accelerate the international trend toward negotiations for a nuclear weapons convention and abolition of nuclear weapons by 2020.

    Is it not the policymakers’ proper role to pursue happiness for their own people based on generosity and love of humanity? Policymakers meeting tirelessly to talk—this is the first step toward nuclear weapons abolition. The next step is to create, through the trust thus won, broadly versatile security systems that do not depend on military might. Working with patience and perseverance to achieve those systems will be vital, and will require that we promote throughout the world the path to true peace revealed by the pacifism of the Japanese Constitution.

    The summit meeting to be held in Japan’s Ise-Shima next year and the foreign ministers’ meeting to be held in Hiroshima prior to that summit are perfect opportunities to deliver a message about the abolition of nuclear weapons. President Obama and other policymakers, please come to the A-bombed cities, hear the hibakusha with your own ears, and encounter the reality of the atomic bombings. Surely, you will be impelled to start discussing a legal framework, including a nuclear weapons convention.

    We call on the Japanese government, in its role as bridge between the nuclear- and non-nuclear-weapon states, to guide all states toward these discussions, and we offer Hiroshima as the venue for dialogue and outreach. In addition, we ask that greater compassion for our elderly hibakusha and the many others who now suffer the effects of radiation be expressed through stronger support measures. In particular, we demand expansion of the “black rain areas.”

    Offering our heartfelt prayers for the peaceful repose of the A-bomb victims, we express as well our gratitude to the hibakusha and all our predecessors who worked so hard throughout their lives to rebuild Hiroshima and abolish nuclear weapons. Finally, we appeal to the people of the world: renew your determination. Let us work together with all our might for the abolition of nuclear weapons and the realization of lasting world peace.

    MATSUI Kazumi
    Mayor
    The City of Hiroshima

  • Sunflower Newsletter: August 2015

    Issue #217 – August 2015

    Follow David Krieger on twitter Click here or on the image above to follow NAPF President David Krieger on Twitter.
    • Perspectives
      • Reflections on the 70th Anniversary of the Atomic Bombings by David Krieger
      • Hibakusha Thoughts on the 70th Anniversary by Shigeko Sasamori and Setsuko Thurlow
    • Nuclear Zero Lawsuits
      • Marshall Islands Files Appeal in Ninth Circuit
      • Numerous Amicus Curiae Briefs in Support of the Marshall Islands
    • U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy
      • Misuse of Taxpayer Funds at Sandia National Laboratory
    • Non-Proliferation
      • Iran and P5+1 Reach Nuclear Deal
    • Nuclear Testing
      • U.S. Conducts Flight Test of New B61-12 Nuclear Bomb
    • War and Peace
      • Japanese Government Seeks to Reinterpret Peace Article in Constitution
    • Nuclear Waste
      • Companies Responsible for Contamination at Rocky Flats
    • Resources
      • August’s Featured Blog
      • This Month in Nuclear Threat History
    • Foundation Activities
      • Sadako Peace Day is August 6
      • Paul Chappell in Sojourner’s Magazine
      • NAPF President David Krieger to Speak in Maui
      • International Youth Summit for Nuclear Abolition
      • Evening for Peace Honoring Setsuko Thurlow
    • Quotes

    Perspectives

    Reflections on the 70th Anniversary of the Atomic Bombings

    by David Krieger

    On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing some 90,000 people immediately and another 55,000 by the end of 1945. Three days later, the United States dropped another atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing some 40,000 people immediately and another 35,000 by the end of 1945. In between these two bombings, on August 8, 1945, the U.S. signed the charter creating the Nuremberg Tribunal to hold Axis leaders to account for crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity.  Under well-established international humanitarian law – the law of warfare – war crimes include using weapons that do not distinguish between civilians and combatants or that cause unnecessary suffering.  Because nuclear weapons kill indiscriminately and cause unnecessary suffering by radiation poisoning (among other grotesque consequences), the U.S. was itself in the act of committing war crimes at Hiroshima and Nagasaki while agreeing to hold its defeated opponents in World War II to account for their war crimes. To read more, click here.

    Hibakusha Thoughts on the 70th Anniversary

    by Shigeko Sasamori and Setsuko Thurlow

    Shigeko Sasamori, 83, a survivor of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima, said, “People cannot live forever. People die from natural causes such as illness and disease and from natural disasters such as floods, fires, and earthquakes, but war claims the most lives. People start wars. People should stop wars.” Setsuko Thurlow, also 83 and a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing, said, “The first thought that comes to me is the image of my four-year-old nephew Eiji transformed to a charred, blackened child who died in agony. Had he not been a victim of the atomic bomb, he would have been 74 years old this year. This shocked me. Regardless of the passage of time, he remains in my memory as a four-year-old child, who came to represent all the innocent children of the world. This has been the driving, compelling force for me to continue my struggle against the ultimate evil of nuclear weapons. His image is burned into my retina.” To read more, click here.

    Nuclear Zero Lawsuits

    Marshall Islands Files Appeal in Ninth Circuit

    On July 13, the Republic of the Marshall Islands filed an Appeal Brief at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals as part of its Nuclear Zero Lawsuit against the United States. Laurie Ashton, lead attorney for the Marshall Islands in this case, said, “While the United States has the world focused on nonproliferation measures across the globe, it is in flagrant breach of its obligation to negotiate complete nuclear disarmament. It refuses to discuss any timetable whatsoever to achieve nuclear disarmament, and is instead actually modernizing its nuclear arsenal with new capabilities to last decades into the future at a budget of approximately $1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion dollars). The lawsuit brings these breaches to Court, forcing the U.S. to respond in public.” “Marshall Islands Appeals U.S. Court’s Dismissal of Nuclear Zero Lawsuit,” Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, July 13, 2015.

    Numerous Amicus Curiae Briefs in Support of the Marshall Islands

    Six amicus curiae briefs have been filed at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in support of the Marshall Islands’ Nuclear Zero Lawsuit against the United States. Briefs were filed by parties representing a diverse group of interests, including human rights, the environment, religion, labor, medicine, nuclear non-proliferation, peace, science and international law. An amicus curiae letter was submitted by six U.S. mayors. The amicus curiae briefs and letter, along with all other court documents related to the Nuclear Zero Lawsuits, can be accessed online at www.nuclearzero.org/in-the-courts. “Strong Support for Marshall Islands’ Nuclear Zero Lawsuit,” Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, July 21, 2015.

    U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy

    Misuse of Taxpayer Funds at Sandia National Laboratory

    Inspector General Gregory H. Friedman’s November 2014 report has revealed that Sandia National Laboratories illegally lobbied senior Obama administration officials in an attempt to attain an extension on their federal contract to keep Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMC) in control at Sandia. The new contract would extend LMC’s position at Sandia for seven years (with an opportunity for a subsequent 5-year renewal) and grant total revenues in excess of $16 billion. LMC and Sandia’s use of federal funds to influence officials and prevent competition is a violation of federal law and of their contract. In his report, Friedman states this is not the first time that Sandia has engaged in these practices.
    Patrick Malone, “Nuclear Weapons Lab Lobbied with Federal Funds to Block Competition for Lucrative Contract,” Center for Public Integrity, July 8, 2015.

    Non-Proliferation

    Iran and P5+1 Reach Nuclear Deal

    After years of negotiations beginning in 2006, the Iran Nuclear deal was signed on July 14, limiting Iranian nuclear activity in return for the lifting of international economic sanctions. The deal will oblige Iran to remove two-thirds of its installed centrifuges and store them under international supervision, get rid of 98% of its enriched uranium, accept that sanctions would be rapidly restored if the deal were violated, and permanently give the International Atomic Energy Agency access “where necessary when necessary.” In return, international economic sanctions will slowly be lifted, with an arms embargo remaining in place for five years and an embargo on missiles for eight years. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation recently issued an Action Alert in support of the Iran deal, calling on members of the U.S. Congress to approve the deal during its 60-day review period. Click here to take action. Jeremy Bowen, “Iran Nuclear Talks: ‘Historic’ Agreement Struck,” BBC News, July 14, 2015.

    Nuclear Testing

    U.S. Conducts Flight Test of New B61-12 Nuclear Bomb

    The U.S. Air Force and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) have conducted their first development flight test of the B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb.   “Achieving the first complete B61-12 flight test provides clear evidence of the nation’s continued commitment to maintain the B61 and provides assurance to our allies,” said NNSA Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs Dr. Don Cook.   The refurbishments are intended to extend the bomb’s lifespan while also improving its accuracy and efficiency. The B61 has been in use since its creation in the 1960s, and the Pentagon has requested additional funds for the B61’s next life-extension program to continue updates. At $11 billion, this future program would be the most expensive nuclear weapons refurbishment in history. Critics argue that the B61-12 Life Extension Program is unnecessary and provides new military capabilities, contrary to President Obama’s promise not to introduce nuclear weapons with new military capabilities. Mark Prigg, “Air Force Drops Dummy Nuclear Bomb in Nevada in First Controversial Test to Update Cold War Arsenal,” Daily Mail, July 8, 2015.

    War and Peace

    Japanese Government Seeks to Reinterpret Peace Article in Constitution

    In a victory for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his party, the lower house of the Diet approved legislation that would allow Japanese military forces to engage in foreign conflicts for the first time since World War II. The largely unpopular vote, reached as demonstrators protested outside of Parliament, culminates months of debate over Japan’s departure from a 70-year tradition of pacifism. The Diet’s upper house, set to discuss the issue in coming weeks, is expected to vote in favor as well. Abe’s push for the legislation fits into his agenda of leading Japan beyond remorse for its past military actions, and towards a future as an integrated player on the world stage. He claims the bill’s passage will enable Japan to better provide for regional security, citing China’s expansionist aggression as a key concern. Critics argue that the legislation violates Japan’s postwar constitutional charter, which relinquishes the state’s right to “war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.” Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan states: “Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.” Jonathan Soble, “Japan Moves to Allow Military Combat for First Time in 70 Years,” The New York Times, July 16, 2015.

    Nuclear Waste

    Companies Responsible for Contamination at Rocky Flats

    The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit has ruled that Dow Chemical Co. and Rockwell International Corp. should be held liable for nuisance claims regarding the detrimental misconduct of the Rocky Flats nuclear plant in Colorado. The charges were brought against Dow and Rockwell by local landowners who suffered damages from contaminated soil and water as a result of the plant’s mishandling of highly radioactive waste. The plant was closed in 1989 when FBI raided Rocky Flats and found evidence of the contamination. For the last 25 years, the parties have been embroiled in litigation.   Scott Flaherty, “Major Fallout in Rocky Flats Case,” The National Law Journal, June 29, 2015.

    Resources

    August’s Featured Blog

    This month’s featured blog is the Peace and Health Blog of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). IPPNW, the 1985 Nobel Peace Laureate for its work for the abolition of nuclear weapons, is a leading voice in support of the Marshall Islands’ Nuclear Zero Lawsuits and the international effort to achieve a treaty banning nuclear weapons. Recent titles on the blog include, “What’s Good for Iran is Good for the Nuclear-Armed States,” and “2015 NPT Review Conference Outcome is the Humanitarian Pledge.” 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 August. To read Mason’s full article, click here. This month is the 70th anniversary of the bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  For more information on the history of the Nuclear Age, visit NAPF’s Nuclear Files website.

    Foundation Activities

    Sadako Peace Day is August 6

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation will hold its 21st Annual Sadako Peace Day commemoration event on Thursday, August 6. This year’s event, which falls on the 70th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima, remembers the victims of the U.S. atomic bombings and all innocent victims of war. NAPF Peace Leadership Director Paul K. Chappell will deliver the keynote address. The program also includes music, poetry and reflection. Click here to view the invitation. The event will take place at 6:00 p.m. at the Sadako Peace Garden at La Casa de Maria – 800 El Bosque Road, Montecito, California. The event is free and open to the public.

    Paul Chappell in Sojourners Magazine

    Paul K. Chappell, Peace Leadership Director of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, is featured in the August edition of Sojourners Magazine. Paul was interviewed by Sojourners writer Catherine Woodiwiss on a recent peace leadership lecture tour in Washington, DC. Woodiwiss writes, “Chappell follows a great tradition of 20th century nonviolent thinkers, from Mahatma Gandhi to Dorothy Day to Martin Luther King Jr. For those asking what waging peace looks like in practice, Chappell’s language of active precision calls to mind King’s casting of nonviolence as a ‘powerful and just weapon’ that cuts without wounding.” To read the full Sojourners article, click here. The article was reprinted with permission from Sojourners, (800) 714-7474, www.sojo.net.

    NAPF President David Krieger to Speak in Maui

    David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, will be the featured speaker at an event commemorating the 70th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The event will take place on August 6 at 6:30 pm at the University of Hawaii Maui College. It is organized by Maui Peace Action. Click here to download a flyer with more information.

    International Youth Summit for Nuclear Abolition

    Rick Wayman, NAPF’s Director of Programs, will co-chair the International Youth Summit for Nuclear Abolition in Hiroshima, Japan, on August 30. Organizers expect approximately 300 young people to gather in Hiroshima to learn more about the urgent need to abolish nuclear weapons and to collectively make a “youth pledge” to commit to working for nuclear abolition. Click here for more information about the summit, including registration details and livestream information.

    Evening for Peace Honoring Setsuko Thurlow

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Annual Evening for Peace will take place on October 25, 2015 in Santa Barbara, California. The Foundation will present its Distinguished Peace Leadership Award to Setsuko Thurlow, a survivor of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and an outspoken advocate for the abolition of nuclear weapons. Click here for more information about the Evening for Peace, including sponsorship opportunities, ticket information and details about this year’s honoree.

    Quotes

    “What is good for Iran—and for the other 185 nuclear-weapon-free NPT member states—is good for the nine nuclear-armed states and for the world as a whole. A treaty banning nuclear weapons, negotiated and adopted by non-nuclear states, would send an unmistakable signal to the US, Russia, China, the UK, France, India, Pakistan, Israel, and the DPRK that continuing to possess nuclear weapons is the act of an international outlaw, and that eliminating those arsenals is an obligation that can no longer be deferred.” — International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, in response to the deal struck between Iran and the P5+1.
    “What the Hiroshima survivors are telling us is that no one else should ever go through the experience they suffered. An atomic bombing creates a living hell on Earth where the living envy the dead.” — Tadatoshi Akiba, former mayor of Hiroshima. This quote is featured in the book Speaking of Peace: Quotations to Inspire Action, available online in the NAPF Peace Store.
    “The military capabilities of this weapon stem from a totally fictitious and bizarre idea that the United States can fight and win nuclear wars.” — Theodore Postol, Professor Emeritus of Science, Technology and National Security Policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, referring to the B61-12 nuclear bomb currently being modernized and tested by the United States.

    Editorial Team

    Susanna Faulds Fiona Hayman McKenna Jacquemet David Krieger Carol Warner Rick Wayman

     

  • Reflections on the 70th Anniversary of the Atomic Bombings

    On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing some 90,000 people immediately and another 55,000 by the end of 1945.  Three days later, the United States dropped another atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing some 40,000 people immediately and another 35,000 by the end of 1945.

    David KriegerIn between these two bombings, on August 8, 1945, the U.S. signed the charter creating the Nuremberg Tribunal to hold Axis leaders to account for crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity.  Under well-established international humanitarian law – the law of warfare – war crimes include using weapons that do not distinguish between civilians and combatants or that cause unnecessary suffering.  Because nuclear weapons kill indiscriminately and cause unnecessary suffering by radiation poisoning (among other grotesque consequences), the U.S. was itself in the act of committing war crimes at Hiroshima and Nagasaki while agreeing to hold its defeated opponents in World War II to account for their war crimes.

    Those who doubt this conclusion should consider this hypothetical situation: During World War II, Germany creates two atomic bombs and uses them on British cities, killing tens of thousands of civilians.  Under such circumstances, can you imagine the Nazi leaders who ordered these attacks not being held accountable at Nuremberg for these bombings of civilian targets?

    The U.S. has always publicly justified its use of atomic weapons against Japan on the grounds that they ended the war sooner and saved American lives, but did they?  Many key U.S. military leaders at the time didn’t think so, including Admiral William Leahy and General (later President) Dwight D. Eisenhower.

    Admiral Leahy, President Truman’s Chief of Staff and the top U.S. official presiding over meetings of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote in his 1950 memoir based on his contemporaneous notes and diaries, “[T]he use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender….”  He went on, “[I]n being the first to use it, we…adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.”

    General Eisenhower reported in his memoir a discussion with Secretary of War Henry Stimson, during which he was told of plans to use the atomic bombs on Japan.  Eisenhower wrote, “During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him [Stimson] my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives….”

    In the decades that followed the atomic bombings in 1945, the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in an insane nuclear arms race, reaching some 70,000 nuclear weapons in the world by the mid-1980s.  Despite many accidents, miscalculations and international crises, nuclear weapons have not been used again in warfare.  Today there are still approximately 16,000 in the arsenals of nine countries, with over 90 percent of these in the possession of the U.S. and Russia.  Some 1,800 nuclear weapons remain on hair-trigger alert, ready to be fired within moments of an order to do so.  Most of these weapons are many times more powerful than those that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    Nuclear weapons do not make the U.S. or the world more secure.  On the contrary, they threaten civilization and the human species.  Fortunately, steps may be taken to eliminate this threat.

    The 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty obligates its parties, including the U.S., to engage in negotiations in good faith for a cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and for nuclear disarmament.  In a 1996 Advisory Opinion, the International Court of Justice interpreted this obligation as follows: “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.”

    Because these negotiations have yet to take place, one small and courageous country, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, has brought lawsuits against the nine nuclear-armed countries at the International Court of Justice and in U.S. federal court, seeking court orders for these countries to fulfill their obligations under international law.

    On the 70th anniversary of the use of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it is past time for the U.S. to change course.  Rather than pursue current plans to spend $1 trillion on modernizing its nuclear arsenal, the U.S. should lead the world in negotiations to achieve the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons.  This would make the world safer.  It would also recognize the criminal nature of these weapons and show respect for the survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, many of whom have worked tirelessly to assure that their past does not become someone else’s future.

    This article was originally published by Truthout: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/32073-the-us-should-eliminate-its-nuclear-arsenal-not-modernize-it

  • 2015 Evening for Peace – Independent Insert

  • August: This Month in Nuclear Threat History

    August 5, 1950 – Two separate B-29 bombers were dispatched to Guam for possible deployment against the Chinese in the Korean War, one carrying the dense uranium core and the other aircraft carrying the high explosive outer casing – dual components for the Mark IV nuclear weapon.  After leaving Fairfield Suisun Air Force Base in California, the aircraft carrying the high explosive component developed mechanical problems and was forced to turn around and attempt an emergency landing, which was unsuccessful resulting in an uncontrolled crash landing.  Brigadier General Robert F. Travis was rescued from the crashed plane before the ensuing high explosive blast but he died from crash-related injuries enroute to the hospital (the airbase was later renamed Travis Air Force Base in his honor).  The 5,000 pound high explosive charge became overheated and exploded killing a number of military personnel on the ground near the crash site.  However, in the ensuring years after this and other nuclear incidents, the U.S. military decided that its “improved” safety protocols were sufficient to warrant carrying fully mated nuclear weapons onboard its aircraft allowing the U.S. Strategic Air Command to maintain a daily flight of bombers to a failsafe point located near the borders of the Soviet Union.   Comments:  This is just one of dozens of acknowledged as well as a potentially greater number of still classified nuclear accidents and Broken Arrows that have occurred involving the arsenals of the Nuclear Club nations.  (Sources:  Travis Air Force Base Heritage Center, https://travisheritagecenter.org/html/crash.html and Eric Schlosser. “Command and Control:  Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Incident, and the Illusion of Safety.”  New York:  Penguin Press, 2013.)

    August 5, 1963 – Limited Test Ban Treaty negotiations held in Moscow since July 15th by representatives of the U.S., U.K., and Soviet Union concluded on this date with the signing of a treaty that prohibited nuclear tests in the atmosphere, in outer space, and underwater.   Less than a year after the world came to the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 16-28, 1962, President John F. Kennedy, who first announced these high level talks on the same day as his June 10, 1963 American University speech, and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev were able in an amazingly short period of time to negotiate and sign the LTBT which was entered into force on October 10, 1963.  Comments:  A critical follow-on to the LTBT, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, has still not been ratified by the United States despite decades of progress in the area of verification as illustrated by the fact that there are now almost 300 global detection sites.  Despite the fact that President Bill Clinton was the first to sign the CTBT on September 24, 1996, the U.S. Senate rejected treaty ratification in October 1999.  There is no longer any legitimate excuse for the U.S. not to proceed with ratification.   Encouraging Congress to ratify the CTBT, as well as having that body direct the Pentagon to de-alert hair trigger U.S. strategic nuclear warheads, and begin the accelerated phase out of the U.S. nuclear triad (through bilateral negotiations with Russia) ought to be priority issues in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.  (Source:  Jack Mendelsohn and David Grahame, editors.  “Arms Control Chronology.”  Washington, DC:  Center for Defense Information, 2002, pp. 1, 4, 10, 15.)

    August 6, 1945 – Colonel Paul Warfield Tibbets piloted the 509th Composite Group’s B-29 Superfortress bomber named Enola Gay, in honor of the pilot’s mother, from Tinian in the Marianas chain of Pacific Ocean islands to Hiroshima, Japan where the enriched uranium-fueled fission bomb code named “Little Boy” was dropped over a city of a quarter million inhabitants at 8:15:17 a.m. local time.  43 seconds after release and 1,850 feet over the city, the bomb exploded (with a yield estimated to be 12-15 kilotons) registering an air temperature, for a fleeting millisecond of 100 million degrees.  In the city below, 5,400 degree temperatures vaporized thousands of human beings, melted granite, clay roof tiles, and gravestone mica for three-quarters of a mile in all directions from the explosion’s epicenter.  A blast wave of 1,100 feet-per-second blew down everyone and everything left standing that was not previously destroyed by the tremendous heat of the explosion.  The firestorm from the blast, as a result of a huge displacement of air, began to flow back to the epicenter at up to 200 miles-per-hour raising radioactive dust and debris into a mushroom cloud.  78,150 died, 13,983 were missing, and 37,425 injured as an immediate result of the blast.  But tens of thousands more would die of horrendous burns and associated direct radiation impacts within days and weeks and from longer-term radiation-caused cancers for decades afterward.  Two days later, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and launched a massive invasion of Manchuria and on August 9th hundreds of thousands more Japanese suffered a second atomic bombing (with a yield estimated to be 21 kilotons), from the plutonium-fueled “Fat Man” warhead, at Nagasaki.  Before the bombings, General and later President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, voiced misgivings about the use of these weapons against Japan, “It wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing…”  More than two and a half months before the nuclear attacks, Leo Szilard and two other Manhattan Project scientists reported that Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, “did not argue that it was necessary to use the bomb against the cities of Japan in order to win the war…Mr. Byrnes’ view was that our possessing and demonstrating the bomb will make Russia more manageable in Europe.”   A few years after the bombings, Admiral William D. Leahy, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and previously chief of staff to President Roosevelt (1942-45) and President Truman (1945-49) publicly stated, “It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan.  The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender…in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages…wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.”  (Sources:  Craig Nelson.  “The Age of Radiance:  The Epic Rise and Dramatic Fall of the Atomic Era.”  New York:  Scribner, 2014, pp. 211-220 and Gar Alperovitz.   “The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb:  And the Architecture of An American Myth.”  New York:  Alfred A. Knopf, 1995, pp. 3-6, 15, 672.)

    August 12, 1953 – Less than four years after their first-ever atomic bomb test on August 29, 1949 and only nine months after the first U.S. thermonuclear test, Mike, which took place at the Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands on November 1, 1952, the Soviet Union exploded their first hydrogen bomb, the RDS-6, with a yield of 400 kilotons at the Semipalatinsk site in Kazakhstan.  This was one of some 456 detonations, equal to about 2,500 Hiroshimas, in the Polygon test area of Soviet Kazakhstan that occurred in the period from 1949 to 1989 which resulted in extremely harmful short- and long-term health impacts to populations in an immense region.  Increased cancer rates, groundwater contamination, 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.  ((Sources:  Jack Mendelsohn and David Grahame, editors.  “Arms Control Chronology.”  Washington, DC:  Center for Defense Information, 2002, pp. 5-6, 24.)

    August 17, 1997 – America’s Defense Monitor, a half-hour documentary PBS-TV series that premiered in 1987, released a new film, “Military Leaders for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons (Program No. 1049).”  It was produced by the Center for Defense Information, a nonpartisan, 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 an assistant secretary of defense), and civilian experts (Dr. Bruce Blair, a former U.S. Air Force nuclear missile launch control officer).  A news release described the film in these terms:  “U.S. Air Force General Lee Butler, formerly in charge of the U.S. Strategic Command, stunned the public and press with his call to abolish nuclear weapons as soon as possible.  He is not alone.  For the first time on television, high-ranking former military leaders such as U.S. Navy Admiral John Shanahan, British Royal Navy Admiral Sir Earle Eberle, and U.S. Army General Andrew Goodpaster, speak openly about the need to eliminate the world’s still formidable nuclear arsenals.”   Comments:  Since this program was first broadcast, over the last two decades, thousands of global military, political, business, legal, scientific, cultural, and artistic leaders have publicly committed to dramatically reducing and eliminating these doomsday weapons.  Many nuclear abolitionists also support an accelerated phase-out of global civilian nuclear power plants over the next decade.   Antinuclear advocates point not only to the high risks of continued and predictable nuclear power accidents like Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima, but also to the tremendously out-of-control civilian and military nuclear sequestration, remediation, and permanent storage conundrum, as well as the terrorist targeting potential, the economic unsustainability of civilian nuclear power, and the potential for nuclear proliferation.

    August 28, 1974 – A newspaper article published on this date in the Montreal Gazette, “Erratic Nixon Might Set Off Nuclear Crisis, Officials Feared,” mentioned an alleged incident in which President Richard Nixon (who resigned from office on August 9, 1974) told a group of Congressional representatives during the time of the Watergate impeachment hearings that, “I could leave this room and in 25 minutes, 70 million people would be dead.”  Comments:  It is terrifying to realize that a usually rational, arms-control-minded commander-in-chief under whose leadership the U.S. reestablished relations with China, negotiated and signed treaties with the Soviet Union including the 1971 Accord on Accidental Nuclear War, the 1972 SALT-I and ABM treaties, and the 1973 Prevention of Nuclear War Agreement, could because of the severe stress he suffered during the Watergate political crisis and the 1973 Mideast War, heightened at times by his overconsumption of alcoholic beverages, have credibly triggered the accidental, unauthorized, or irrational use of nuclear weapons!   The world has dodged nuclear war many times over the last seventy years.   There is no doubt that the human species has been very fortunate but eventually one’s luck runs out.   The only way to ensure that the nuclear trigger is never pulled is to outlaw forever these doomsday weapons.  (Source:  Louis Rene Beres.  “Apocalypse:  Nuclear Catastrophe in World Politics.”  Chicago:  University of Chicago Press, 1980, p. 166.)

    August 31, 1946 – Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and journalist John Hersey’s New Yorker article on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, which filled the entire edition of the magazine, lifted the veil on the previously top secret medical and humanitarian consequences of the first use of nuclear weapons on human beings including the devastatingly long-lived effects of gamma ray radiation on survivors as well as the horrendously painful deaths suffered by tens of thousands of men, women, and children in the days, weeks, and months after the August 6 and 9 atomic bombings.  Undeterred by the public and scientific community’s shock and criticism of the U.S. government’s cover-up of these facts, the Pentagon, Atomic Energy Commission (later renamed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission), and other U.S. government agencies continued to secretly carry out decades of human radiation experiments, many on unsuspecting civilian hospital patients, including the exposure of our own soldiers to nuclear test radiation effects, which prompted Congressional representative Edward Markey (D-Mass.) in 1995 to note that, “One of the unfortunate, ironic twists of the Cold War is that the United States did more damage to American citizens in their use of nuclear materials than they ever did to the Soviet Union.”   Comments:  Poet Maya Angelou once wrote, “History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.”  Nuclear weapons must be abolished before the unthinkable happens again.  (Sources:   U.S. Department of Energy.  Assistant Secretary for Environment, Safety, and Health.  “Human Radiation Experiments:  The Department of Energy Roadmap to the Story and the Records.”  Washington, DC:  U.S. Government Printing Office, February 1995 and Center for Defense Information.  America’s Defense Monitor: The Legacy of Hiroshima (Program No. 847).  First aired on WHMM-TV, Howard University Television, and uploaded to PBS-TV and other stations via satellite link on August 6, 1995 and Maya Angelou.  “The Inaugural Poem:  On the Pulse of Morning.”  New York, 1993.  Read by the Poet at the Inauguration of President Bill Clinton.)

  • Strong Support for Marshall Islands’ Nuclear Zero Lawsuit

    For Immediate Release

    Contact:
    Sandy Jones or Rick Wayman
    (805) 965-3443
    sjones@napf.org
    rwayman@napf.org

    STRONG SUPPORT FOR MARSHALL ISLANDS’ NUCLEAR ZERO LAWSUIT

    Groups from all sectors of society offer crucial support for Marshall Islands Appeal

    Santa Barbara, July 21 – Five amicus curiae briefs were filed yesterday in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in support of the Marshall Islands (RMI) and their Appeal of the District Court’s dismissal of the Nuclear Zero Lawsuit. These briefs represent critical support for the RMI in their efforts to appeal the Court’s dismissal.

    Judge Jeffrey White granted the U.S. government’s motion to dismiss the case on February 3, 2015 on jurisdictional grounds. The RMI strongly disagreed with the Court’s decision to dismiss and filed its Notice of Appeal on April 2, 2015 and its Appeal Brief on July 13, 2015.

    The amicus curiae briefs were submitted by the following organizations:

    • Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy
    • Global Justice Center
    • United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America; International Commission for Labor Rights; and Labor and Employment Committee of the National Lawyers Guild
    • Tri-Valley CAREs
    • International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Physicians for Social Responsibility and Pax Christi International.

    These organizations represent a powerful and diverse cross-section of society and indicate widespread support for the Marshall Islands in their quest to attain court enforcement of the obligations of the nuclear-armed nations to pursue negotiations for nuclear disarmament.

    Additionally, Mayors from 6 U.S. cities – Little Rock, Arkansas; Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Rochester, Minnesota; Eugene and Beaverton, Oregon; and Urbana, Illinois – have submitted an amicus curiae letter to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. These Mayors belong to the U.S Conference of Mayors and the international organization, Mayors for Peace.

    Their letter quotes the 2014 Resolution of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, which “…commend the Republic of the Marshall Islands for calling to the world’s attention the failure of the nine nuclear-armed states to comply with their international obligations to pursue negotiations for the worldwide elimination of nuclear weapons, and call on the U.S. to respond constructively and in good faith to the lawsuits brought by the RMI.” Further, the letter cites their 2015 Resolution which “…calls on the President and Congress to reduce nuclear weapons spending to the minimum necessary…and to redirect those funds to address the pressing needs of cities.

    The amicus curiae briefs and letter can be read in their entirety at nuclearzero.org/in-the-courts.

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    Note to editor: to arrange interviews with David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation or Laurie Ashton, lead counsel for the RMI, please call Sandy Jones or Rick Wayman at (805) 965-3443.

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation was founded in 1982. Its mission is to educate and advocate for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons and to empower peace leaders. The Foundation is a non-partisan, non-profit organization with consultative status to the United Nations and is comprised of individuals and groups worldwide who realize the imperative for peace in the Nuclear Age.

  • Twelve Worthy Reasons Not to Waste Billions Modernizing the U.S. Nuclear Arsenal

    1. It is not sane, sensible or rational.

    2. It will not make the U.S. or the world safer or more secure.

    3. It is provocative activity that will trigger existing nuclear-armed countries to modernize their nuclear arsenals and result in new nuclear arms races.

    David Krieger4. It demonstrates U.S. commitment to nuclear weapons rather than to nuclear weapons abolition.

    5. It will make nuclear weapons appear more reliable and accurate and therefore more usable.

    6. It is not necessary for purposes of nuclear deterrence.

    7. It sends a strong message to non-nuclear-armed countries that nuclear weapons have perceived military value, and thus creates an inducement to nuclear proliferation.

    8. It breaches the U.S. obligation in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to negotiate in good faith on effective measures to end the nuclear arms race at an early date.

    9. It breaches the U.S. obligation in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to negotiate in good faith on effective measures for nuclear disarmament.

    10. It is an immoral waste of resources that are desperately needed for meeting basic human needs for food, water, shelter, education and environmental protection.

    11. Despite the $1 trillion price tag already proposed for U.S. nuclear weapons modernization over the next three decades, as with most “defense” plans, original budgets are generally vastly underestimated.

    12. Benefits of U.S. nuclear weapons modernization will go overwhelmingly to enrich “defense” contracting corporations and their executives.