Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: Nuclear Abolition

How the U.S. Turned Three Pacifists Into Violent Terrorists

This article was originally published by Common Dreams.

In just ten months, the United States managed to transform an 82 year-old Catholic nun and two pacifists from non-violent anti-nuclear peace protestors accused of misdemeanor trespassing into federal felons convicted of violent crimes of terrorism. Now in jail awaiting sentencing for their acts at an Oak Ridge, TN nuclear weapons production facility, their story should chill every person concerned about dissent in the US.

Here is how it happened.

In the early morning hours of Saturday June 28, 2012, long-time peace activists Sr. Megan Rice, 82, Greg Boertje-Obed, 57, and Michael Walli, 63, cut through the chain link fence surrounding the Oak Ridge Y-12 nuclear weapons production facility and trespassed onto the property. Y-12, called the Fort Knox of the nuclear weapons industry, stores hundreds of metric tons of highly enriched uranium and works on every single one of the thousands of nuclear weapons maintained by the U.S.

“The truth will heal us and heal our planet, heal our diseases, which result from the disharmony of our planet caused by the worst weapons in the history of mankind, which should not exist. For this we give our lives — for the truth about the terrible existence of these weapons.”
– Sr. Megan Rice

Describing themselves as the Transform Now Plowshares, the three came as non-violent protestors to symbolically disarm the weapons. They carried bibles, written statements, peace banners, spray paint, flower, candles, small baby bottles of blood, bread, hammers with biblical verses on them and wire cutters. Their intent was to follow the words of Isaiah 2:4: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”

Sr. Megan Rice has been a Catholic sister of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus for over sixty years. Greg Boertje-Obed, a married carpenter who has a college age daughter, is an Army veteran and lives at a Catholic Worker house in Duluth Minnesota. Michael Walli, a two-term Vietnam veteran turned peacemaker, lives at the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker house in Washington DC.

In the dark, the three activists cut through a boundary fence which had signs stating “No Trespassing.” The signs indicate that unauthorized entry, a misdemeanor, is punishable by up to 1 year in prison and a $100,000 fine.

No security arrived to confront them.

So the three climbed up a hill through heavy brush, crossed a road, and kept going until they saw the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility (HEUMF) surrounded by three fences, lit up by blazing lights.

Still no security.

So they cut through the three fences, hung up their peace banners, and spray-painted peace slogans on the HEUMF. Still no security arrived. They began praying and sang songs like “Down by the Riverside” and “Peace is Flowing Like a River.”

When security finally arrived at about 4:30 am, the three surrendered peacefully, were arrested, and jailed.

The next Monday July 30, Rice, Boertje-Obed, and Walli were arraigned and charged with federal trespassing, a misdemeanor charge which carries a penalty of up to one year in jail. Frank Munger, an award-winning journalist with the Knoxville News Sentinel, was the first to publicly wonder, “If unarmed protesters dressed in dark clothing could reach the plant’s core during the cover of dark, it raised questions about the plant’s security against more menacing intruders.”

On Wednesday August 1, all nuclear operations at Y-12 were ordered to be put on hold in order for the plant to focus on security. The “security stand-down” was ordered by security contractor in charge of Y-12, B&W Y-12 (a joint venture of the Babcock and Wilcox Company and Bechtel National Inc.) and supported by the National Nuclear Security Administration.

On Thursday August 2, Rice, Boertje-Obed, and Walli appeared in court for a pretrial bail hearing. The government asked that all three be detained. One prosecutor called them a potential “danger to the community” and asked that all three be kept in jail until their trial. The US Magistrate allowed them to be released.

Sr. Megan Rice walked out of the jail and promptly admitted to gathered media that the three had indeed gone onto the property and taken action in protest of nuclear weapons. “But we had to — we were doing it because we had to reveal the truth of the criminality which is there, that’s our obligation,” Rice said. She also challenged the entire nuclear weapons industry: “We have the power, and the love, and the strength and the courage to end it and transform the whole project, for which has been expended more than 7.2 trillion dollars,” she said. “The truth will heal us and heal our planet, heal our diseases, which result from the disharmony of our planet caused by the worst weapons in the history of mankind, which should not exist. For this we give our lives — for the truth about the terrible existence of these weapons.”

Then the government began increasing the charges against the anti-nuclear peace protestors.

The day after the Magistrate ordered the release of Rice, Boertje-Obed, and Walli, a Department of Energy (DOE) agent swore out a federal criminal complaint against the three for damage to federal property, a felony punishable by zero to five years in prison, under 18 US Code Section 1363.

The DOE agent admitted the three carried a letter which stated, “We come to the Y-12 facility because our very humanity rejects the designs of nuclearism, empire and war. Our faith in love and nonviolence encourages us to believe that our activity here is necessary; that we come to invite transformation, undo the past and present work of Y-12; disarm and end any further efforts to increase the Y-12 capacity for an economy and social structure based on war-making and empire-building.”

Now, Rice, Boertje-Obed, and Walli were facing one misdemeanor and one felony and up to six years in prison.

But the government did not stop there. The next week, the charges were enlarged yet again.

On Tuesday August 7, the U.S. expanded the charges against the peace activists to three counts. The first was the original charge of damage to Y-12 in violation of 18 US Code 1363, punishable by up to five years in prison. The second was an additional damage to federal property in excess of $1000 in violation of 18 US Code 1361, punishable by up to ten years in prison. The third was a trespassing charge, a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in prison under 42 US Code 2278.

Now they faced up to sixteen years in prison. And the actions of the protestors started to receive national and international attention.

On August 10, 2012, the New York Times ran a picture of Sr. Megan Rice on page one under the headline “The Nun Who Broke into the Nuclear Sanctum.” Citing nuclear experts, the paper of record called their actions “the biggest security breach in the history of the nation’s atomic complex.”

At the end of August 2012, the Inspector General of the Department of Energy issued at comprehensive report on the security breakdown at Y-12. Calling the peace activists trespassers, the report indicated that the three were able to get as far as they did because of “multiple system failures on several levels.” The cited failures included cameras broken for six months, ineptitude in responding to alarms, communication problems, and many other failures of the contractors and the federal monitors. The report concluded that “Ironically, the Y-12 breach may have been an important “wake-up” call regarding the need to correct security issues at the site.”

On October 4, 2012, the defendants announced that they had been advised that, unless they pled guilty to at least one felony and the misdemeanor trespass charge, the U.S. would also charge them with sabotage against the U.S. government, a much more serious charge. Over 3000 people signed a petition to U.S. Attorney General Holder asking him not to charge them with sabotage.

But on December 4, 2012, the U.S. filed a new indictment of the protestors. Count one was the promised new charge of sabotage. Defendants were charged with intending to injure, interfere with, or obstruct the national defense of the United States and willful damage of national security premises in violation of 18 US Code 2155, punishable with up to 20 years in prison. Counts two and three were the previous felony property damage charges, with potential prison terms of up to fifteen more years in prison.

Gone entirely was the original misdemeanor charge of trespass. Now Rice, Boertje-Obed, and Walli faced up to thirty-five years in prison.

In a mere five months, government charges transformed them from misdemeanor trespassers to multiple felony saboteurs.

The government also successfully moved to strip the three from presenting any defenses or testimony about the harmful effects of nuclear weapons. The U.S. Attorney’s office filed a document they called “Motion to Preclude Defendants from Introducing Evidence in Support of Certain Justification Defenses.” In this motion, the U.S. asked the court to bar the peace protestors from being allowed to put on any evidence regarding the illegality of nuclear weapons, the immorality of nuclear weapons, international law, or religious, moral or political beliefs regarding nuclear weapons, the Nuremberg principles developed after WWII, First Amendment protections, necessity or US policy regarding nuclear weapons.

Rice, Boertje-Obed, and Walli argued against the motion. But, despite powerful testimony by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, a declaration from an internationally renowned physician and others, the Court ruled against defendants.

Meanwhile, Congress was looking into the security breach, and media attention to the trial grew with a remarkable story in the Washington Post, with CNN coverage and AP and Reuters joining in.

The trial was held in Knoxville in early May 2012. The three peace activists were convicted on all counts. Rice, Boertje-Obed, and Walli all took the stand, admitted what they had done, and explained why they did it. The federal manager of Y-12 said the protestors had damaged the credibility of the site in the U.S. and globally and even claimed that their acts had an impact on nuclear deterrence.

As soon as the jury was dismissed, the government moved to jail the protestors because they had been convicted of “crimes of violence.” The government argued that cutting the fences and spray-painting slogans was property damage such as to constitute crimes of violence so the law obligated their incarceration pending sentencing.

The defense pointed out that Rice, Boertje-Obed, and Walli had remained free since their arrest without incident. The government attorneys argued that two of the protestors had violated their bail by going to a congressional hearing about the Y-12 security problems, an act that had been approved by their parole officers.

The three were immediately jailed. In its decision affirming their incarceration pending their sentencing, the court ruled that both the sabotage and the damage to property convictions were defined by Congress as federal crimes of terrorism. Since the charges carry potential sentences of ten years or more, the Court ruled there was a strong presumption in favor of incarceration which was not outweighed by any unique circumstances that warranted their release pending sentencing.

These non-violent peace activists now sit in jail as federal prisoners, awaiting their sentencing on September 23, 2012.

In ten months, an 82 year old nun and two pacifists had been successfully transformed by the U.S. government from non-violent anti-nuclear peace protestors accused of misdemeanor trespassing into felons convicted of violent crimes of terrorism.

Fran Quigley is an Indianapolis attorney working on local and international poverty issues.

May 15, 2013
A Time for Boldness

This is the transcript of a talk given at a side event hosted on April 26, 2013, by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and Soka Gakkai International entitled “Nuclear Abolition: A Time for Boldness and Hope” at the 2013 Non-Proliferation Treaty PrepCom in Geneva, Switzerland.

First, I thank you for being here today, in this 27th anniversary of the beginning of the Chernobyl catastrophe. Together we honour the memory of its victims, as well as of the victims of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Fukushima.

I thank David Krieger and Rick Wayman for inviting me to this panel and for prompting us to think about an unusual and stimulating subject. The subject of boldness is a surprising subject to choose.

When David offered me the chance to address you on it, I thought he was alluding to the words of Kissinger, Nunn, Shultz and Perry in the “Wall Street Journal” of January 2007. They requested (quote) “a bold initiative consistent with America’s moral heritage”, that is an initiative to go by practical measures to a world free of nuclear weapons. However, I was very surprised. I asked him: “Really? Why me?” He replied: “Because your hunger-strike was a bold action”. That answer only increased my perplexity.

So now, let me put to you the thoughts that resulted from that surprise, and, as David requested, let me use my hunger-strike as a way of raising one or two questions that I’ll try to answer without claiming to solve them. I’ll refer to my own experience in an attempt to draw conclusions that others can use – because, as Hannah Arendt said, it is in specific things that universal things can be readable.

First question: was my hunger-strike really a bold act? What defines the boldness of an action or a person?

Note first that the word “bold” is often used in the military, in games like chess, and generally in context of competition, for example when a yacht in a sailing race chooses a surprising course to sail.

Boldness is often a synonym of courage. But it’s a particular form of courage. It consists, certainly, of confronting a situation that is difficult, painful, scary, even desperate, but not simply by doing one’s duty. Boldness consists in taking the initiative of doing something unusual, unpredictable or unforeseen. Bold people are not content like “ordinary” brave people to resist the course of history, they try to reverse it. They take risks, they strive to overcome adversity by surprising the adversary. And often they win, although success is never guaranteed (otherwise there would be no risk). However, although the risks that the bold take can be considerable, they are still reasoned, calculated risks. Boldness is never madness or foolhardiness. Sometimes bold people make very quick decisions, but they remain nevertheless cool-headed. Their actions are in proportion with their objectives, and that is what gives them a serious chance of success.

Now, if we apply these criteria to my hunger-strike, was it, as David thinks, a bold action? Upon reflection I think it could be.

I needed, in truth, a certain courage: enough to “take the plunge” into unknown waters, for I had never fasted before. I didn’t know I would even get beyond day three, which some fasters had told me is a frightening one. And I still remember the precise minute when I took the plunge by sending off a media release.

It was also an action I took out of desperation. ACDN since it was founded in 1996, and I myself since 1986, had done all we could to involve France in the abolition of nuclear weapons. I shan’t give the details of our activism, just a few “bold” actions: like my candidacy for the Presidential Elections in 2002 or my applications to the Constitutional Council in 2002 and 2012 asking for the main candidates (Chirac and Jospin, then Sarkozy and Hollande) to be excluded because they were preparing crimes against humanity, violating Article VI of the NPT, and not honouring the French Constitution. Moreover, during the 2012 campaign, we wrote to François Hollande seven or eight times without ever getting a reply. Actually, he replied indirectly, in December 2011: he said in an article in the “Nouvel Observateur” that he would continue the nuclear deterrence policy, a presidential prerogative that he intended to assume. In other words this humanist, this socialist declared himself capable of pressing the nuclear button. That was unacceptable. On 15 May, the day he became President, I began my hunger-strike.

Let me add that my objective was reasonable and accessible: I did not fast to demand the abolition of all nuclear weapons, or for France to renounce her own weapons, but only to obtain an audience with the new president to expound our arguments and to ask him to organize – for democratic reasons – the referendum that would at last enable the French people to express their opinion … and would enable him to change policy without losing face or breaking his commitments.

On 25 June, day 42 of my hunger-strike, I was in Paris with Luc Dazy – a friend who had joined me in fasting since 1 June – and we were barred by the police from entering the Elysee Palace where we were to have had an audience. We never could find out why. Even the socialist MP of my city – who had herself handed candidate Hollande a letter from me, and who has later signed the Open Letter to the President, even she was not able to find out why.

Must we conclude that this “bold” action was doomed to failure? Frankly I don’t think so. Our hunger-strike was not useless.

On 24 June, the Federal Council of the EELV Party (Europe Ecologie- Les Verts), of which I was a former Councillor, gave me an enthusiastic and impressive welcome (including a standing ovation of one hundred fifty or more people, a minute of applause). On a motion of its president and committee, the Federal Council paid tribute to our action, said they endorsed our struggle, and committed to support it. They wished Luc Dazy and me to stop our hunger-strike, they expressed solidarity with us, and they wished that President Hollande would listen to our requests.

After a solemn debate, the Federal Council decided unanimously with one abstention (quote) “to ask all its representatives in parliament and in government to do all they can to ensure that a bill or a governmental proposal is drawn up without delay with a view to establishing a wide debate and a referendum on the following question:

Do you agree that France should participate with the other states concerned in the complete elimination of nuclear weapons, under mutual and international control that is strict and effective?”

Previously, in October 2011, ACDN and 6 other national organisations working in other fields from ours, such as ATTAC, the Confédération Paysanne or Human Rights League, had organised a big gathering in Saintes. Three hundred people did attend this event and about 150 wrote and discussed a “Charter for a Livable World” which they definitely adopted by consensus. A few later, during the presidential campaign, we proposed this charter to every candidate. François Hollande never answered, but six other candidates answered and three of them explicitly approved, amongst 103 articles, the article 1.2.F. By this approval, Eva Joly (EELV), Philippe Poutou (New Anticapitalist Party) and Jean-Luc Mélenchon (Parti de Gauche, Left Party) – had undertaken to consult the French people by referendum on the aforesaid question. Together these candidates won around 15% of the votes.

Currently, the Greens have around 45 MPs, Senators and MEPs, they have 2 ministers in the French government. If each of them follows up the aforesaid commitment of their own party, it seems that the French people should not be far from deciding by themselves whether they must stop or pursue the archaic and criminal nuclear policies decided in their name by a handful of schizophrenic deciders. According to two polls, one ordered in 2008 by Global Zero, the second ordered in 2012 by the Mouvement de la Paix, more than 80 % of French wish for a world without any nuclear weapons, not even French ones.

So, even if a referendum is never won before being voted, even if our opponents are very strong in the art of manipulating opinion and the media, I think we have to go to a referendum on such an important, decisive and vital issue. If we lose the referendum, we will lose nothing, since for more than 60 years the French nuclear policy has been conducted without any democratic debate and without voting. A defeat of the abolitionist camp would result simply in the continuation of a policy which is already planned. On the other hand, a success would be the beginning of a complete change, a reversal of situation. Let us remember the sentence of Lenin: “When an idea takes over masses, it becomes a historic force”. We have to attempt it, or else admit that we are mere sheep destined to become mutton.

Personally, I’m convinced that the French people are not more intelligent than any other people, but very likely have more good sense than their political leaders, and are perfectly able to decide by themselves on the most important issues. Is that democratic idea a too bold idea? In that case, I accept being called a bold guy.

Friends from abroad, I thank you for supporting in great numbers the Open Letter to the French President. If you have not done it already, please support and sign it now.

Before concluding, I would like to ask and quickly answer a second question: If that hunger-strike was truly “bold”, how did it happen that an eminent figure in the international abolitionist movement, a US citizen, considered it important, whereas in France the national media, with very few exceptions, didn’t even mention it? That paradox deserves explanation.

When an event escapes the attention of most people, including professional observers like journalists who ought to notice, those who do notice need to have been on the lookout for a subject they are already sensitive to. Thus, David has struggled for ages for the abolition of nuclear weapons and like us keeps meeting a sort of wall. He is therefore on the lookout for anything that could open a breach in it. Similarly, it’s because I was interested in international relations and Russian history that I heard, at the very moment in January 1986, Mikhail Gorbachev’s call for “No nuclear weapons by 2000!”. That call, certainly unexpected and bold, was to overturn my life.

Prior sensitization creates a vicious circle for whistle-blowers and activists for causes like ours: by what we say and write and do, we wish to draw public attention to a problem that we deem particularly serious, but the public cannot pay serious attention unless they are already sensitized… In our media-dominated world, journalists play an essential role in informing and sensitizing the public. So we first need to gain their attention, and since the media love anything sensational, that’s where boldness can play a role.

But that’s not enough. For instance, our hunger-strike was well covered by the press, radio and TV in our region, where ACDN and I are already known. That didn’t happen elsewhere, and when TV France 3 of our region asked the national France 3 to film us outside the Elysee Palace, the footage was broadcast in our region but not nationally. Why so? It would be too long to explain, but it could be also an interesting topic by comparing the various situations we are faced with in our different countries.

In conclusion, permit me to ask you two questions without answering them:

First: What enables us now to say that “The Time for Boldness has come”?

And, last question: What kinds of boldness must we manifest in order to respond to the challenges of the present time?

I would have several suggestions to make on that last item; some of them could perhaps interest you. But my time of speaking is over. Generally, I would say: we need to demand with determination our right to have truth, freedom and life.

I heartily thank David and Rick who have permitted me to speak for the first and perhaps for the last time at a side event in this arena. Thank you for your attention.

Jean-Marie Matagne is President of l’Action des Citoyens pour le Désarmement Nucléaire (ACDN) in France.

April 26, 2013
Reflections on Omnicide, Nuclear Deterrence and a Maginot Line in the Mind

This article was originally published by Truthout.

I offer a few reflections in an effort to separate fact from fiction with regard to nuclear weapons, their capacity for devastation and our ability to assure global security by preventing their use.

First, today’s nuclear arsenals are capable of omnicide, the death of all. In that sense, nuclear weapons are not really weapons but instruments of annihilation. They place all complex life at risk of extinction.

Omnicide is possible because of the unique capacity of nuclear weapons to cause a “nuclear winter” and to trigger “nuclear famine.” In addition to the ordinary ways that nuclear weapons destroy – blast, fire and radiation – they have the capacity to block sunlight from reaching the earth, shorten growing seasons, and lead to the destruction of crops, resulting in global nuclear famine.

Second, nuclear weapons are justified by their possessors by their belief in the effectiveness of nuclear deterrence.

We must always keep in mind that nuclear deterrence is not a fact; it is a hypothesis about human behavior. It is a hypothesis that posits rational leaders; and it is, in fact, highly irrational to believe that humans will behave rationally at all times under all conditions. How many national leaders are you aware of who always act rationally, regardless of the circumstances?

It is also true that humans are fallible and prone to error, even when they construct elaborate safeguards. Examples of human fallibility are found in the nuclear power plant accidents at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima, and in numerous accidents with nuclear weapons in transport, such as the refueling accident over Palomares, Spain.

As Ban Ki-moon said earlier this year in a speech at the Monterey Institute of International Studies: “Nuclear deterrence is not a solution to international peace and stability. It is an obstacle.”

Third, I urge you to remember the Maginot Line. It was a high-tech wall that French leaders believed would prevent another invasion of their country, as had occurred in World War I. The Maginot Line was highly regarded right up to the time that it failed, catastrophically for France, when the German attackers simply marched around it.

I view nuclear deterrence theory as a Maginot Line in the mind. It is likely to be relied upon right up until the moment it fails, and when it fails it will be catastrophic, far more so than in the French case. Like the original Maginot Line, it will seem clear after the fact that it was destined to fail.

What is missing from the discourse on nuclear armaments among national leaders is political will for nuclear weapons abolition, a sense of urgency and the courage to lead. Mr. Obama spoke in his 2013 State of the Union Address about the US “leading the global effort to secure nuclear materials that could fall into the wrong hands.” The problem with the president’s perspective is that all hands are the wrong hands.

Who will make this clear to Mr. Obama and to the leaders of the other nuclear weapons states? This is a role for the citizens of the nuclear weapon states and for the leaders of middle-power countries. It is necessary if we are to preserve our world and pass it on intact to new generations.

Mr. Obama also said that “our ability to influence others depends on our willingness to lead.” Who will step up and lead on this mostcritical of all issues for humanity’s future?

Strategies for nuclear weapons, based on nuclear deterrence, have been MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). MAD has given way to SAD (Self-Assured Destruction), as today’s arsenals of thermonuclear weapons have the capacity to trigger Ice Age conditions (leading to nuclear famine) that would assure the destruction of the attacking nation, even without retaliation.

We must have the courage to move past MAD and SAD to PASS (Planetary Assured Security and Survival). This will require moving rapidly but surely to the total abolition of nuclear weapons, as required by the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

I urge national leaders and security specialists, as well as the public, to base their strategic thinking, leadership and action regarding nuclear weapons on three basic understandings that separate fact from fiction, truth from hypothesis. First, nuclear weapons are capable of omnicide. Second, nuclear deterrence is only a hypothesis about human behavior, not a fact that can be relied upon for the indefinite future. Third, the Maginot Line was fancy and high-tech and was thought to be foolproof by most security experts, but it failed to provide a defense when it mattered, and its failure was devastating for France.

Nuclear deterrence is a Maginot Line in the mind, and its failure would be devastating, not only to nuclear armed countries, but to people everywhere, as well as to the future of complex life on the planet.

David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

March 14, 2013
Nuclear Weapons Must Be Eradicated for All Our Sakes

This article was originally published by The Guardian.

We cannot intimidate others into behaving well when we ourselves are misbehaving. Yet that is precisely what nations armed with nuclear weapons hope to do by censuring North Korea for its nuclear tests and sounding alarm bells over Iran’s pursuit of enriched uranium. According to their logic, a select few nations can ensure the security of all by having the capacity to destroy all.

Until we overcome this double standard – until we accept that nuclear weapons are abhorrent and a grave danger no matter who possesses them, that threatening a city with radioactive incineration is intolerable no matter the nationality or religion of its inhabitants – we are unlikely to make meaningful progress in halting the spread of these monstrous devices, let alone banishing them from national arsenals.

Why, for instance, would a proliferating state pay heed to the exhortations of the US and Russia, which retain thousands of their nuclear warheads on high alert? How can Britain, France and China expect a hearing on non-proliferation while they squander billions modernising their nuclear forces? What standing has Israel to urge Iran not to acquire the bomb when it harbours its own atomic arsenal?

Nuclear weapons do not discriminate; nor should our leaders. The nuclear powers must apply the same standard to themselves as to others: zero nuclear weapons. Whereas the international community has imposed blanket bans on other weapons with horrendous effects – from biological and chemical agents to landmines and cluster munitions – it has not yet done so for the very worst weapons of all. Nuclear weapons are still seen as legitimate in the hands of some. This must change.

Around 130 governments, various UN agencies, the Red Cross and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons are gathering in Oslo this week to examine the catastrophic consequences of nuclear weapons and the inability of relief agencies to provide an effective response in the event of a nuclear attack. For too long, debates about nuclear arms have been divorced from such realities, focusing instead on geopolitics and narrow concepts of national security.

With enough public pressure, I believe that governments can move beyond the hypocrisy that has stymied multilateral disarmament discussions for decades, and be inspired and persuaded to embark on negotiations for a treaty to outlaw and eradicate these ultimate weapons of terror. Achieving such a ban would require somewhat of a revolution in our thinking, but it is not out of the question. Entrenched systems can be turned on their head almost overnight if there’s the will.

Let us not forget that it was only a few years ago when those who spoke about green energy and climate change were considered peculiar. Now it is widely accepted that an environmental disaster is upon us. There was once a time when people bought and sold other human beings as if they were mere chattels, things. But people eventually came to their senses. So it will be the case for nuclear arms, sooner or later.

Indeed, 184 nations have already made a legal undertaking never to obtain nuclear weapons, and three in four support a universal ban. In the early 1990s, with the collapse of apartheid nigh, South Africa voluntarily dismantled its nuclear stockpile, becoming the first nation to do so. This was an essential part of its transition from a pariah state to an accepted member of the family of nations. Around the same time, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine also relinquished their Soviet-era atomic arsenals.

But today nine nations still consider it their prerogative to possess these ghastly bombs, each capable of obliterating many thousands of innocent civilians, including children, in a flash. They appear to think that nuclear weapons afford them prestige in the international arena. But nothing could be further from the truth. Any nuclear-armed state, big or small, whatever its stripes, ought to be condemned in the strongest terms for possessing these indiscriminate, immoral weapons.

Desmond Tutu is Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town and a member of the NAPF Advisory Council.

March 6, 2013
Who Will Assist the Victims of Nuclear Weapons?
On 30 August 1945 Dr Marcel Junod, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation in Japan, received a chilling cable from an ICRC representative in Hiroshima. The cable read as follows: “Conditions appalling. City wiped out. Eighty percent of all hospitals destroyed or seriously damaged. Inspected two emergency hospitals, conditions beyond description. Effect of bomb mysteriously serious. Many victims apparently recovering suddenly suffer fatal relapse due to decomposition of white blood cells and other internal injuries, now dying in great numbers. Estimated still over one hundred thousand wounded in emergency hospitals located surroundings. Sadly lacking bandaging materials, medicines.”

On his arrival in Hiroshima, Marcel Junod came face-to-face with the grim reality of medical care after an atomic bombing of a city and its medical infrastructure. In addition to the destruction and damage to hospitals mentioned in the cable, the impact on those meant to care for the sick and wounded was equally severe: 90% of Hiroshima’s doctors were killed or injured by the explosion, as were 92% of the city’s nurses and 80% of its pharmacists. There was a desperate need for blood but no possibility of blood transfusions as most potential donors were either dead or injured. To put it bluntly, the city’s capacity to treat victims had been wiped out. As a result, there was little or no health-care provision in the immediate aftermath of the explosion.

This same catastrophic scenario – and more – awaits us if nuclear weapons are ever used again. While the destructive capacity of nuclear weapons increased dramatically during the Cold War, the capacity of States and international agencies to assist the victims did not. As you will hear tomorrow, the ICRC has over the past six years made an in-depth assessment of its own capacity, and that of other agencies, to help the victims of nuclear, radiological, biological and chemical weapons. We have concluded that an effective means of assisting a substantial portion of survivors of a nuclear detonation, while adequately protecting those delivering assistance, is not currently available at national level and not feasible at international level. It is highly unlikely that the immense investment required to develop such capacity will ever be made. If made, it would likely remain insufficient.

In April 2010, my predecessor, Jakob Kellenberger, spoke of this state of affairs in a statement to Geneva’s diplomatic community. In this statement the ICRC made four key points:
- Nuclear weapons are unique in their destructive power, in the unspeakable human suffering they cause, in the impossibility of controlling their effects in space and time, in the risks of escalation they create, and in the threat they pose to the environment, to future generations, and indeed to the survival of humanity.
- It is difficult to envisage how any use of nuclear weapons could be compatible with the rules of international humanitarian law.
- Regardless of their views on the legality of nuclear weapons, States must ensure that they are never again used.
- Preventing the use of nuclear weapons requires fulfilment of existing obligations to pursue negotiations aimed at prohibiting and completely eliminating such weapons through a legally binding international treaty.
We are encouraged by the response to the ICRC’s appeal in 2010. Since then, the 190 States party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons have recognized the “catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons” and the relevance of international humanitarian law in this regard. Those States have also reaffirmed the call made by the United Nations Security Council at its summit in 2009, and by Presidents Obama and Medvedev earlier that year, to move towards a world free of nuclear weapons. In 2011 the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement made a historic appeal on nuclear weapons, in the same vein as that of the ICRC. In it, the Movement undertook to raise awareness among the public, scientists, health professionals and decision-makers of its ongoing concerns and to promote the norm of non-use and the elimination of nuclear weapons among governments and the public. In October 2012 the Movement’s concerns were reflected in a statement made by 34 States to the UN General Assembly’s First Committee.

The ICRC warmly welcomes the Norwegian Government’s initiative to convene this conference on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons. Although nuclear weapons have been debated in military, technical and geopolitical terms for decades, it is astounding that States have never before come together to address their humanitarian consequences.

In our view, no informed political or legal position on these weapons can be adopted without a detailed grasp of the immediate consequences of these weapons on human beings and on medical and other infrastructure. It is also essential to understand the long-term effects on human health and on the genetics of survivors; consequences that have been confirmed by research and have been witnessed and treated for nearly seven decades by the Japanese Red Cross hospitals in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In addition, one cannot ignore the insight offered by modern climate science into the implications of nuclear weapon use for the world’s climate and food production. And last, but by no means least, States must answer the question: Who will assist the victims of these weapons and how? The next two days provide a unique and historic opportunity to begin addressing these fundamental issues.

In closing, I am confident that, as you broach these issues, you will share the ICRC’s commitment to prevent any future use of nuclear weapons. I also hope that you will be driven by the sense of opportunity generated by this conference and by the belief that the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons must be at the centre of the debate. This is an important moment to recognize and understand these consequences, thus ensuring that they are central to future discussions.

And yet, an awareness of the consequences of nuclear weapons will not be enough to definitively prevent the use of and bring about the elimination of nuclear weapons. Public awareness, media interest and the sustained commitment of responsible State authorities are crucial. The international community has not always seized upon opportunities to prevent human suffering. In the case of nuclear weapons, prevention – including the development of a legally binding treaty to prohibit and eliminate such weapons – is the only way forward.

Peter Maurer is President of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
March 6, 2013
Envisioning a World Without Nuclear Weapons

Book Review

ZERO: THE CASE FOR NUCLEAR WEAPONS ABOLITION by David Krieger (published in 2013 by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation); $14.95

I have known David Krieger for the past twenty-five years, and he has never wavered, even for a day, from his lifelong journey dedicated to ridding the world of nuclear weapons and the threat of nuclear war. If I were given to categorization, I would label such an extraordinary engagement with a cause as an instance of ‘benign fanaticism.’ Unfortunately, from the perspective of the human future, it is a condition rarely encountered, posing the puzzle as to why Krieger should be so intensely inclined, given his seemingly untraumatized background. He traces his own obsession back to his mother’s principled refusal to install a nuclear bomb shelter in the backyard of their Los Angeles home when he was 12 years old. He comments in the Preface to ZERO that even at the time he “hadn’t expected” her to take such a stand, which he experienced as “a powerful lesson in compassion,” being especially moved by her unwillingness “to buy into saving herself at the expense of humanity.” (xiv). Nine years later after Krieger graduated from college his mother was again an instrumental force, giving him as a graduation present a trip to Japan to witness first-hand “what two nuclear weapons had done to the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” (xiv) The rest is, as they say, ‘history.’ Or as Krieger puts it in characteristic understatement, “[t]hose visits changed my life.” (xiv)

On a psychological level, I remain perplexed by two opposite observations: we still lack the key that unlocks the mystery of Krieger’s unwavering dedication and why so few others have been similarly touched over the years. What ZERO does better than any of Krieger’s earlier books on nuclear weapons, and indeed more comprehensively and lucidly than anyone else anywhere, is to provide the reader with the reasons for thinking, feeling, and acting with comparable passion until the goal of abolishing the totality of nuclear weaponry is finally reached. Krieger himself extensively explores and laments the absence of widespread anti-nuclear dedication and tries to explain it by calling attention to a series of factors: ignorance, complacency, deference to authority, sense of powerlessness, fear, economic advantage, conformity, marginalization, technological optimism, tyranny of experts. (90-92) The argument of the book, concisely developed in a series of short essays is reinforced by some canonical documents in the struggle over the decades to rid the world of nuclear weaponry, including Obama’s Prague Speech of 2009, the Einstein/Russell Manifesto of 1955, and Joseph Rotblat’s Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech of 1995.

Krieger’s approach as an author is multi-layered, and includes analytic critiques of conventional strategic wisdom that finds a security role for nuclear weapons, a worked out conception of how a negotiated international treaty could safely by stages move the world toward the zero goal of abolition, poems that seek to recapture the various existential horrors of nuclear war, essays of appreciation for the courage, commitment, and insight of the hibakusha (Japanese survivors of the 1945 atomic attacks), and a concerted inquiry into what needs to happen to make nuclear disarmament a viable political project rather than nothing more than a fervent hope. For a short book of 166 pages this is a lot of ground to cover, but Krieger manages to do it with clarity, a calm demeanor, and an impressive understanding and knowledge of all aspects of this complex question of how best to deal with nuclear weapons given the realities of the early 21st century.

Krieger is not afraid to take on critics, even those who tell him that his quest is ‘silly’ because the nuclear genie, a favorite metaphor of liberal apologists for the status quo, is out of the bottle, and cannot be put back. Krieger acknowledges that the knowledge is now in the public domain, and cannot be eliminated, but makes a measured and informed case for an assessment that the nuclear disarmament process poses far fewer risks than does retaining the weaponry, and that retaining the weaponry exposes humanity to what he believes to be the near certainty that nuclear weapons will be used in the future with likely apocalyptic results. For Krieger the stakes are ultimate: human survival and the rights of future generations. In other words, given his strongly held opinion that the weaponry will be used at some point in the future with disastrous results, there is for him no ethically, politically, and even biologically acceptable alternative to getting rid totally of nuclear weapons. Krieger argues both from a worldview that regards nuclear weapons as intrinsically wrong because of the kind of suffering and devastation that they cause and consequentially because of their threat to civilization and even species survival.

Ever since I have known David Krieger he has been deeply influenced by Albert Einstein’s most forceful assertion: “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” Krieger even gifts his readers with an imagined dialogue between Einstein and the most celebrated interrogator of all time, Socrates. In their exchange, Socrates is convinced by Einstein that the necessary adjustments “won’t come from our leaders.”(85) Socrates gets the point in a manner that unsurprisingly resonates with Krieger: “Then the people must be awakened, and they must demand an end to war, and a world free of nuclear weapons.” (85) There is a certain ambiguity in this statement when placed in the larger context of Krieger’s thought and work: is it necessary to end war as a social institution in order to get rid of nuclear weapons? In one way, most of Krieger’s efforts seem to separate nuclear weapons from the wider context of war making, but from time to time, there is a fusion of these two agendas.

Krieger realizes that changing our modes of thinking is a necessary step toward zero but it is not sufficient. He also believes that we cannot achieve a world without nuclear weapons unless we act “collectively and globally” (97) to create a sustainable future. In the end, there is some ground for hope: “We have the potential to assert a constructive power for change that is greater than the destructive power of the weapons themselves.” In effect, Krieger is telling us that what we can imagine we can achieve, but not without an unprecedented popular mobilization of peace minded people throughout the entire planet. Above all, Krieger wants to avoid a counsel of despair: “We must choose hope and find a way to fight for the dream of peace and the elimination of nuclear weapons. Achieving these goals is the great challenge of our time, on their success rests the realization of all other goals and for a more and decent world.” (105). Certainly Krieger has founded and brilliantly administered the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation over the course of more than 25 years maintaining faith of its growing band of followers with this uplifting vision. Such single mindedness is probably essential to motivate people of good will to support the endeavor, and to keep his own compass fixed over time, even in the face of many discouragements, on the destination he has identified as the one sanctuary capable of ensuring a desirable future for humanity. Although sharing all of Krieger’s assessments, values, and visions, I am both less hopeful and not as focused, being committed to other indispensable policy imperatives (addressing the global challenge of climate change) and to more proximate ends that involve current injustices (seeking realization of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people; seeking a UN Emergency Peace Force to intervene to protect vulnerable people facing humanitarian or natural catastrophes), but I would not for a minute encourage Krieger to dilute his anti-nuclear posture. This country and the world needs his message and dedication, and at some point, there may emerge a conjuncture of forces that is unexpectedly receptive to the vision of a world without nuclear weapons and even entertains the prospect of ending the war system as the foundation of national and global security. I can only pray that it will not emerge in the aftermath of some intended or accidental use of nuclear weapons, which seems sadly to be the only alarm bell that is loud enough to have an awakening effect for the sleeping mass of humanity.

From my vantage point such an anti-nuclear moment is not yet visible on the horizon of possibilities. After all, the Kissinger, Shultz, Nunn, and Perry call a few years ago for abolition, emanating from these high priests of political realism, despite being widely noticed at the time, had no lasting impact on the pro-nuclear consensus that guides the policymaking elites of the nine nuclear weapons states, and most of all the American establishment. And then Barack Obama’s 2009 call in Prague for a world without nuclear weapons, although qualified and conditional, was essentially abandoned even in the recent articulation of the president’s goals for his second term. Presumably, Obama’s advisory entourage pushed him to concentrate his energy on attainable goals such as immigration and tax reform, protecting entitlements, and retreating from the several fiscal cliffs, and not waste his limited political capital on the unattainable such as nuclear disarmament and a just peace between Israel and Palestine. Short-term political calculations within the Beltway almost always trump long-term visionary goals, “and so it goes,” as Kurt Vonnegut taught us to say in our helplessness in the face of the unyielding cruelty of human experience.

In the end, after this adventure of response to the life and work of a dear friend, admired collaborator, and inspirational worker for peace and justice, I can only commend David Krieger’s ZERO to everyone with the slightest interest in what kind of future we are bestowing upon our children and grandchildren. The book can be obtained via the following two links: it is preferred that ZERO is ordered through the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation at its online Peace Store:https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com/menu/store/books/zero_the_case.htm

It can also be ordered at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Zero-Nuclear-Weapons-AbolitionVolume/dp/1478342846/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1361902143&sr=8-2&keywords=zero+krieger

Richard Falk is Professor Emeritus at Princeton University and NAPF Senior Vice President.

February 27, 2013
Abolishing Nuclear Arms: It Can Be Done

This article was originally published on CNN Opinion

When President Obama called for a world free of nuclear weapons in Prague, Czech Republic, this spring, many dismissed this part of his speech as idealistic rhetoric.

But the abolition of nuclear weapons is not an unrealistic fantasy. It is a practical necessity if the American people are to have a secure future. President Obama should use his Nobel speech this week to reaffirm his commitment to this essential and obtainable goal.

It is essential because a world armed with nuclear weapons is simply too dangerous for us to countenance. Since the end of the Cold War we have tended to act as though the threat of nuclear war had gone away. It hasn’t. It is only our awareness of this danger that has faded. In fact, there are some 25,000 nuclear weapons in the world today; 95 percent of them are in the arsenals of the United States and Russia.

Just this past weekend, the START treaty limiting the number of U.S. and Russian warheads expired. Negotiators in Geneva, Switzerland, have not yet been able to work out the details of a follow-up treaty.

We must hope they will be able to agree to deep reductions. A recent study by Physicians for Social Responsibility showed that if only 300 of the weapons in the Russian arsenal attacked targets in American cities, 90 million people would die in the first half hour. A comparable U.S. attack on Russia would produce similar devastation.

Further, these attacks would destroy the entire economic, communications and transportation infrastructure on which the rest of the population depends for survival. In the ensuing months the vast majority of people who survived the initial attacks in both countries would die of disease, exposure and starvation.

The destruction of the United States and Russia would be only part of the story. An attack of this magnitude would lift millions of tons of soot and dust into the upper levels of the atmosphere, blocking out sunlight and dropping temperatures across the globe.

In fact, if the entire Russian and U.S. strategic arsenals were involved in the fighting, average surface temperature worldwide would fall 10 degrees Centigrade to levels not seen on Earth since the depth of the last ice age 18,000 years ago.

For three years there would not be a single day in the Northern Hemisphere free of frost. Agriculture would stop, ecosystems would collapse and many species, perhaps even our own, would become extinct. This is not just some theoretical scenario; it is a real and present danger.

On January 25, 1995, we came within minutes of nuclear war when Russian military radar mistook a Norwegian-U.S. scientific rocket for a possible attack on Moscow. President Yeltsin, a man reportedly suffering from alcoholism and other major medical problems, was notified and given five minutes to decide how to respond.

Then as now, both the United States and Russia maintained a policy of “launch on warning,” authorizing the launch of nuclear missiles when an enemy attack is believed to be under way. We don’t know exactly what happened in the Kremlin that morning, but someone decided not to launch Russian missiles and we did not have a nuclear war.

January 25, 1995, was five years after the end of the Cold War. There were no unusual crises anywhere in the world that day. It was a relatively good day in a time much less dangerous than our own. And we almost blew up the world. That was 15 years ago and the United States and Russia still maintain more than 2,000 warheads on high alert ready to be launched in 15 minutes and to destroy each other’s cities 30 minutes later.

Nuclear weapons are the only military threat from which U.S. armed forces cannot protect us. It is urgently in our national security interest to eliminate these instruments of mass annihilation from the arsenals of potential adversaries. If we have to get rid of our own nuclear weapons to achieve this, it is a deal well worth making.

Make no mistake, the elimination of nuclear weapons is an attainable goal. These bombs are not some force of nature. They are the work of our hand. We built them and we can take them apart.

Some governments falsely see these weapons as safeguards of their security. It will not be easy to convince them that true safety requires that we abolish them. Nor will it be easy to design the verification regime needed to assure that the weapons are dismantled and that no new weapons are built. Yet national security experts in the United States and around the world say that it can be done and it must be done.

If politics is the art of the possible, then statesmanship is the art of the necessary. And if ever there was a time that cried out for statesmanship it is now.

There are many important issues that demand our attention — health care reform, energy policy, creating more jobs — but none is as urgent as eliminating the threat of nuclear war.

Ira Helfand, MD, is a past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, the U.S. affiliate of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, recipient of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize.

February 5, 2013
The Man in the TNT Vest

This article was originally published at the Nuclear Risk website

Imagine a man wearing a TNT vest were to come into the room and, before you could escape, managed to tell you that he wasn’t a suicide bomber. He didn’t have the button to set off the explosives. Rather, there were two buttons in very safe hands. One was with President Obama and the other was with President Medvedev, so there was nothing to worry about. You’d still get out of that room as fast as you can!

Just because we can’t see the nuclear weapons controlled by those two buttons, why do we stay in this room? As we would if confronted by the man in the TNT vest, we need to be plotting a rapid escape. Instead, we have sat here complacently for roughly 50 years, trusting that because Earth’s explosive vest hasn’t yet gone off, it never will.

Before society will look for an escape route, we have to overcome its mistaken belief that threatening to destroy the world is somehow risk free. Changing societal thinking is a huge task, but as with achieving the seemingly impossible goals of ending slavery and getting women the vote, the first step in correcting this misperception is for courageous individuals to speak the truth: The nuclear emperor has no clothes — except for that stupid vest!

You have an advantage that the abolitionists and the suffragettes did not. You can propagate the needed message to all your friends merely by emailing them a link to this page http://nuclearrisk.org/email21.php, or whatever you think would be most effective. While communicating with friends may seem trivial compared to the immense task we face, as explained in the resource section below, at this early stage of the process it is the essential action. I hope you will consider doing that, so that Earth’s explosive vest can become but a distant nightmare to future generations.

Illustration is ©2009 NewsArt.com

Martin E. Hellman is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and Professor Emeritus at Stanford University. His current project applies risk analysis to nuclear deterrence, and is described in detail at NuclearRisk.org.

February 4, 2013
Outlawing Nuclear Weapons: Time for a New International Treaty?
Is it time for a new international treaty that would outlaw nuclear weapons? The short answer to this question is, Yes, it is time. Actually, it is past time. The critical question, however, is not whether we need a new international treaty. We do. The critical question is: How do we achieve the political will among the nuclear weapon states to begin negotiations for a new international treaty to outlaw and eliminate all nuclear weapons?

The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Is Failing

The NPT has reciprocal obligations. The nuclear weapon states seek to hold the line against proliferation of nuclear weapons to other countries. In return, the non-nuclear weapon states rely upon Article VI of the NPT to level the playing field. Article VI contains three obligations:

“Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

None of these obligations have been fulfilled. Negotiations in good faith have not been pursued on any of the three obligations.

It has been 42 years since the treaty entered into force, and the nuclear arms race continues. All of the NPT nuclear weapon states are modernizing their arsenals. They have not negotiated in good faith to end the nuclear arms race at an early date.

Nor have the NPT nuclear weapon states negotiated in good faith to achieve nuclear disarmament. They have not acted with a sense of urgency to achieve the goal of nuclear disarmament in all its aspects. They have not made a commitment to zero nuclear weapons.

Finally, the NPT nuclear weapon states have not negotiated in good faith on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control. Since the NPT entered into force in 1970, there have been no negotiations on general and complete disarmament.

The NPT nuclear weapon states seem perfectly comfortable with their failure to fulfill their obligations under Article VI of the NPT. Given this lack of political will to achieve any of the three Article VI obligations, the prospects for a new international treaty are dim if states continue with business as usual. That is why the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation called for bold action by the non-nuclear weapon states in its Briefing Paper for the 2012 Preparatory Committee Meeting for the 2015 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference. The Briefing Paper concluded:

“It is necessary to ensure that nuclear weapons will not be used again as instruments of war, risking the destruction of civilization, nuclear famine and the extinction of most or all humans and other forms of complex life. Exposing the dangers of launch-on-warning nuclear policies and the dysfunctional and counterproductive nature of nuclear deterrence theory is essential for awaking policy makers and the public to the imperative goal of achieving a world free of nuclear weapons. It is a goal that demands boldness by all who seek a sustainable future for humanity and the planet. The non-nuclear weapon states that are parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty have both the right and the responsibility to assert leadership in assuring that the nuclear weapon states fulfill their obligations for good faith negotiations for complete nuclear disarmament.”

The Premises of Bold Action

Bold action by the non-nuclear weapon states would be based upon the following premises:
1. There needs to be a sense of urgency to eliminate the risks posed by nuclear weapons, nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism.
What Would Constitute Bold Action?

The non-nuclear weapon states need to demonstrate to the nuclear weapon states that they are serious about the need for a new international treaty, which would be the means to fulfill the NPT Article VI obligations. UN General Assembly Resolutions are not getting the job done. They are not being taken seriously by the nuclear weapon states; nor are exhortations by the UN Secretary-General and other world leaders. Bold action by non-nuclear weapon states, in descending order of severity, could include these options:
1. Declaring the NPT null and void as a result of the failure of the nuclear weapon states to act in good faith in fulfilling their Article VI obligations.
Conclusion

At the outset, I posed this question: How do we achieve the political will among the nuclear weapon states to begin negotiations for a new international treaty to outlaw and eliminate all nuclear weapons? The answer is that the non-nuclear weapon states must unite and pressure the nuclear weapon states by bold action.

Fifty years after the Cuban Missile Crisis and more than 20 years after the end of the Cold War, we are approaching a critical time in the Nuclear Age. Our technological genius threatens our human future. Too much time has passed and too little has been accomplished toward achieving a world free of nuclear weapons.

Bold action is needed to move the nuclear weapon states to fulfill their obligations under Article VI of the NPT. I favor the first two actions listed above: a boycott and legal action. I fear that, unless such actions are taken soon by non-nuclear weapon states to pressure the nuclear weapon states to act in good faith, the likelihood is that business as usual will continue, and states will end up choosing the more extreme remedies of the third and fourth actions listed above: withdrawal from the NPT or deeming it null and void. Should this be the case, we will lose the only existing treaty that obligates its members to nuclear disarmament and also the likelihood of achieving a new international treaty to ban and eliminate nuclear weapons.
November 26, 2012
We All Have a Role to Play

Vaya aquí para la versión española.

Nuclear weapons are game-changing devices. They are more than weapons. They are annihilators, capable of causing catastrophic damage to cities and countries. They have the destructive power to bring civilization to its knees. They could cause the extinction of most or all complex life on the planet.

One of the great moral leaders of our time, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, wrote: “Nuclear weapons are an obscenity. They are the very antithesis of humanity, of goodness in this world. What security do they help establish? What kind of world community are we actually seeking to build when nations possess and threaten to use arms that can wipe all of humankind off the globe in an instant?”

Nuclear weapons threaten the very future of humankind. They are immoral and illegal. They cause indiscriminate harm and unnecessary suffering. Their damage cannot be contained in either time or space. Their existence demands a response from us. We must unite, as never before, to protect against this overriding technological threat of our own making or face the consequences.

But, you may ask, what can you do?

First, you can take the threat seriously and recognize that your own involvement can make a difference. This is not an issue that can be left to political leaders alone. They have dealt with it for over two-thirds of a century, and the danger persists.

Second, join with others in working for a more peaceful and nuclear weapon-free world. The voices of citizens can make a difference, and the aggregation of those voices an even greater difference. Citizens must stand up and speak out as if the very future depends upon what they say and do, because it does.

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation provides many ways to amplify the voices of citizens. We believe that a path to a world free of nuclear weapons lies through US leadership, and the path to US leadership lies through an active and involved citizenry. You can keep up to date with our monthly Sunflower e-newsletter and you can participate in pressing for change through our Action Alert Network.

Third, become a peace leader, one who holds hope and wages peace. Never lose hope, and actively work to build a more peaceful world. Live with compassion, commitment, courage and creativity. Do your part to build a world you can be proud to pass on to your children and grandchildren and all children of the future, a beautiful planet free of the threat of nuclear annihilation.

If you are a painter, paint. If you are a writer, write. If you are a singer, sing. If you are a citizen, participate. Find a way to give your talents to building a better world in which the threat of war and nuclear devastation does not hang over our common future – a world in which poverty and hunger are alleviated, children are educated, human rights are upheld, and the environment is protected. These are the great challenges of our time and each of us has an important role to play.

November 12, 2012