Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: President Obama

  • Courage in Words, But Not in Action

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    The U.S. Department of Justice is actively seeking to maneuver its way out of a lawsuit filed by the Republic of the Marshall Islands, which seeks to enforce Article VI of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Article VI calls for parties to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament.”

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

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

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

    Twitter: @rickwayman

  • Over Seventy Prominent Scholars and Activists Call on Obama to Take Concrete Action in Hiroshima

    NAPF President David Krieger signed this letter, along with NAPF Advisory Council members Medea Benjamin, Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, Robert Jay Lifton, and NAPF Associates Martin Hellman, Peter Kuznick and Lawrence Wittner.

    May 23, 2016

    President Barack Obama
    The White House
    Washington, DC

    Dear Mr. President,

    We were happy to learn of your plans to be the first sitting president of the United States to visit Hiroshima this week, after the G-7 economic summit in Japan. Many of us have been to Hiroshima and Nagasaki and found it a profound, life-changing experience, as did Secretary of State John Kerry on his recent visit.

    In particular, meeting and hearing the personal stories of A-bomb survivors, Hibakusha, has made a unique impact on our work for global peace and disarmament. Learning of the suffering of the Hibakusha, but also their wisdom, their awe-inspiring sense of humanity, and steadfast advocacy of nuclear abolition so the horror they experienced can never happen again to other human beings, is a precious gift that cannot help but strengthen anyone’s resolve to dispose of the nuclear menace.

    Your 2009 Prague speech calling for a world free of nuclear weapons inspired hope around the world, and the New START pact with Russia, historic nuclear agreement with Iran and securing and reducing stocks of nuclear weapons-grade material globally have been significant achievements.

    Yet, with more than 15,000 nuclear weapons (93% held by the U.S. and Russia) still threatening all the peoples of the planet, much more needs to be done. We believe you can still offer crucial leadership in your remaining time in office to move more boldly toward a world without nuclear weapons.

    In this light, we strongly urge you to honor your promise in Prague to work for a nuclear weapons-free world by:

    • Meeting with all Hibakusha who are able to attend;
    • Announcing the end of U.S. plans to spend $1 trillion for the new generation of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems;
    • Reinvigorating nuclear disarmament negotiations to go beyond New START by announcing the unilateral reduction of the deployed U.S. arsenal to 1,000 nuclear weapons or fewer;
    • Calling on Russia to join with the United States in convening the “good faith negotiations” required by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty for the complete elimination of the world’s nuclear arsenals;
    • Reconsidering your refusal to apologize or discuss the history surrounding the A-bombings, which even President Eisenhower, Generals MacArthur, King, Arnold, and LeMay and Admirals Leahy and Nimitz stated were not necessary to end the war.

    Sincerely,

    Gar Alperowitz, Professor of Political Economy, University of Maryland

    Christian Appy, Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, author of American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity

    Colin Archer, Secretary-General, International Peace Bureau

    Charles K. Armstrong, Professor of History, Columbia University

    Medea Benjamin, Co-founder, CODE PINK, Women for Peace and Global Exchange

    Phyllis Bennis, Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies

    Herbert Bix, Professor of History, State University of New York, Binghamton

    Norman Birnbaum, University Professor Emeritus, Georgetown University Law Center

    Reiner Braun, Co-President, International Peace Bureau

    Philip Brenner, Professor of International Relations and Director of the Graduate Program in US Foreign Policy and National Security, American University

    Jacqueline Cabasso, Executive Director, Western States Legal Foundation; National Co-convener, United for Peace and Justice

    James Carroll, Author of An American Requiem

    Noam Chomsky, Professor (emeritus), Massachusetts Institute of Technology

    David Cortright, Director of Policy Studies, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame and former Executive Director, SANE

    Frank Costigliola, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor, niversity of Connecticut

    Bruce Cumings, Professor of History, University of Chicago

    Alexis Dudden, Professor of History, University of Connecticut

    Carolyn Eisenberg, Professor of U.S. Diplomatic History, Hofstra University

    Daniel Ellsberg, Former State and Defense Department official

    John Feffer, Director, Foreign Policy In Focus,  Institute for Policy Studies

    Gordon Fellman,  Professor of Sociology and Peace Studies, Brandeis University.
    Bill Fletcher, Jr., Talk Show Host, Writer & Activist.

    Norma Field, professor emerita, University of Chicago

    Carolyn Forché, University Professor, Georgetown University

    Max Paul Friedman, Professor of History, American University.

    Bruce Gagnon, Coordinator Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space.

    Lloyd Gardner, Professor of History Emeritus, Rutgers University, author Architects of Illusion and The Road to Baghdad.

    Irene Gendzier, Prof. Emeritus, Department of of History, Boston University

    Joseph Gerson, Director, American Friends Service Committee Peace & Economic Security Program, author of With Hiroshima Eyes and Empire and the Bomb

    Todd Gitlin, Professor of Sociology, Columbia University

    Andrew Gordon, Professor of History, Harvard University

    John Hallam, Human Survival Project, People for Nuclear Disarmament, Australia

    Melvin Hardy, Heiwa Peace Committee, Washington, DC

    Laura Hein, Professor of History, Northwestern University

    Martin Hellman, Member, US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University

    Kate Hudson, General Secretary, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (UK)

    Paul Joseph, Professor of Sociology, Tufts University

    Louis Kampf, Professor of Humanities Emeritus MIT

    Michael Kazin, Professor of History, Georgetown University

    Asaf Kfoury, Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science, Boston University

    Peter King, Honorary Associate, Government & International Relations School of Social and Political Sciences, The University of Sydney, NSW

    David Krieger, President, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

    Peter Kuznick, Professor of History and Director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University, is author of Beyond the Laboratory

    John W. Lamperti, Professor of Mathematics Emeritus, Dartmouth College

    Steven Leeper, Co-founder PEACE Institute, Former Chairman, Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation

    Robert Jay Lifton, MD, Lecturer in Psychiatry Columbia University, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, The City University of New York

    Elaine Tyler May, Regents Professor, University of Minnesota, Author of Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era

    Kevin Martin, President, Peace Action and Peace Action Education Fund

    Ray McGovern, Veterans For Peace, Former Head of CIA Soviet Desk and Presidential Daily Briefer

    David McReynolds, Former Chair, War Resister International

    Zia Mian, Professor, Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University

    Tetsuo Najita, Professor of Japanese History, Emeritus, University of Chicago, former  president of Association of Asian Studies

    Sophie Quinn-Judge, Retired Professor, Center for Vietnamese Philosophy, Culture and Society, Temple University

    Steve Rabson, Professor Emeritus of East Asian Studies, Brown University, Veteran, United States Army

    Betty Reardon, Founding Director Emeritus of the International Institute on Peace Education, Teachers College, Columbia University

    Terry Rockefeller, Founding Member, September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows,

    David Rothauser, Filmmaker, Memory Productions, producer of “Hibakusha, Our Life to Live” and “Article 9 Comes to America

    James C. Scott, Professor of Political Science and Anthropology, Yale University, ex-President of the Association of Asian Studies

    Peter Dale Scott, Professor of English Emeritus, University of California, Berkleley and author of American War Machine

    Mark Selden, Senior Research Associate Cornell University, editor, Asia-Pacific Journal, coauthor, The Atomic Bomb: Voices From Hiroshima and Nagasaki

    Martin Sherwin, Professor of History, George Mason University, Pulitzer Prize for American Prometheus

    John Steinbach, Hiroshima Nagasaki Committee

    Oliver Stone, Academy Award-winning writer and director

    David Swanson, director of World Beyond War

    Max Tegmark, Professor of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology;  Founder, Future of Life Institute

    Ellen Thomas, Proposition One Campaign Executive Director, Co-Chair, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (US) Disarm/End Wars Issue Committee

    Michael True, Emeritus Professor, Assumption College, is co-founder of the Center for Nonviolent Solutions

    David Vine, Professor, Department of Sociology, American University

    Alyn Ware, Global Coordinator, Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament 2009 Laureate, Right Livelihood Award

    Dave Webb, Chair, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (UK)

    Jon Weiner, Professor Emeritus of History, University of California Irvine

    Lawrence Wittner, Professor of History emeritus, SUNY/Albany

    Col. Ann Wright, US Army Reserved (Ret.) & former US diplomat

    Marilyn Young, Professor of History, New York University

    Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics & Coordinator of Middle Eastern Studies, University of San Francisco

  • Take Three Gifts on Your Journey

    Mr. President,

    The word is out.

    You will visit Hiroshima in May.

    In Hiroshima, nuclear weapons become real.

    The possibility of destroying civilization
    becomes tangible.

    Visiting Hiroshima is an opportunity to lead the way back
    from the brink.

    Take three gifts to the world on your journey: your courage,
    your humanity, and a proposal to end the insanity.

    Offer to convene the nuclear nine to negotiate a treaty
    to eliminate nuclear weapons.

    Set the world back on course.

    Do it for the survivors.

    And for children everywhere.

  • Obama at Hiroshima

    President ObamaThere are mounting hopes that Barack Obama will use the occasion of the Group of 7 meeting in Japan next month to visit Hiroshima, and become the first American president to do so. It is remarkable that it required a wait of over 70 years until John Kerry became the first high American official to make such a visit, which he termed ‘gut-wrenching,’ while at the same time purposely refraining from offering any kind of apology to the Japanese people for one of the worse acts of state terror against a defenseless population in all of human history. Let’s hope that Obama goes, and displays more remorse than Kerry who at least deserves some credit for paving the way. The contrast between the many pilgrimages of homage by Western leaders, including those of Germany, to Auschwitz and other notorious death camps, and the absence of comparable pilgrimages to Hiroshima and Nagasaki underscores the difference between winning and losing a major war. This contrast cannot be properly accounted for by insisting on a hierarchy of evils that the Holocaust dominates.

    The United States, in particular, has a more generalized aversion to revisiting its darker hours, although recent events have illuminated some of the shadows cast by the racist legacies of slavery. The decimation of native Americans has yet to be properly addressed at official levels, and recent reports of soaring suicide rates suggests that the native American narrative continues to unfold tragically.

    The New York Times in an unsigned editorial on April 12 urged President Obama to make this symbolic visit to Hiroshima, and in their words “to make it count” by doing more than making a ritual appearance. Recalling accurately that Obama “won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 largely because of his nuclear agenda” the editorial persuasively criticized Obama for failing to follow through on his Prague vision of working toward a world free of nuclear weapons. A visit to Hiroshima is, in effect, a second chance, perhaps a last chance, to satisfy the expectation created early in his presidency.

    When it came to specifics as to what Obama might do the Times offered a typical arms control set of recommendations of what it called “small but doable advances”: canceling the new air-launched, nuclear-armed cruise missile and ensuring greater compliance with the prohibition on nuclear testing by its endorsement coupled with a recommendation that future compliance be monitored by the UN Security Council. The Times leaves readers with the widely shared false impression that such measures can be considered incremental steps that will lead the world over time to a nuclear-free world. Such a view is unconvincing, and diversionary. In opposition, I believe these moves serve to stabilize the nuclear status quo and have a negative effect on disarmament prospects. By making existing realities somewhat less prone to accidents and irresponsibly provocative weapons innovations, the posture of living with nuclear weapons gains credibility and the arguments for nuclear disarmament are weakened even to the extent of being irrelevant. I believe that it is a dangerous fallacy to suppose that arms control measures, even if beneficial in themselves, can be thought of as moving the world closer to nuclear disarmament.

    Instead, what such measures do, and have been doing for decades, is to reinforce nuclear complacency by making nuclear disarmament either seem unnecessary or  utopian, and to some extent even undesirably destabilizing. In other words, contrary to conventional wisdom, moving down the arms control path is a sure way to make certain that disarmament will never occur!

    As mentioned, many arms control moves are inherently worthwhile. It is only natural to favor initiatives that cancel the development of provocative weapons systems, disallow weapons testing, and cut costs. Without such measures there would occur a dangerous erosion of the de facto taboo that has prevented (so far) any use of nuclear weaponry since 1945. At the same time it is vital to understand that the taboo and the arms control regime of managing the nuclear weapons environment does not lead to the realization of disarmament and the vision of a world without nuclear weapons.

    Let me put it this way, if arms control is affirmed for its own sake or as the best way to put the world on a path of incremental steps that will lead over time to disarmament, then such an approach is nurturing the false consciousness that has unfortunately prevailed in public discourse ever since the Nonproliferation Treaty came into force in 1970. The point can be expressed in more folksy language: we have been acting for decades as if the horse of disarmament is being pulled by the cart of arms control. In fact, it is the horse of disarmament that should be pulling the cart of arms control, which would make arms control measures welcome as place holders while the primary quest for nuclear disarmament was being toward implementation. There is no reason to delay putting the horse in front of the cart, and Obama’s failure to do so at Prague was the central flaw of his otherwise justly applauded speech.

    Where Obama went off the tracks in my view was when he consigned nuclear disarmament to the remote future, and proposed in the interim reliance on the deterrent capability of the nuclear weapons arsenal and this alleged forward momentum of incremental arms control steps. What is worse, Obama uncritically endorsed the nonproliferation treaty regime, lamenting only that it is being weakened by breakout countries, especially North Korea, and this partly explains why he felt it necessary back in 2009 to consider nuclear disarmament as a practical alternative to a continued reliance on nonproliferation, although posited disarmament more as a goal beyond reach and not as a serious present political option. He expressed this futuristic outlook in these words: “I am not naïve. This goal will not be reached quickly—perhaps not in my lifetime.” He never clarifies why such a goal is not attainable within the term of his presidency, or at least its explicit pursuit.

    In this regard, and with respect to Obama’s legacy, the visit to Hiroshima provides an overdue opportunity to disentangle nuclear disarmament from arms control. In Prague, Obama significantly noted that “..as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act.” [emphasis added] In the 1996 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons, the judges unanimously concluded that there was a legal responsibility to seek nuclear disarmament with due diligence. The language of the 14-0 ICJ finding is authoritative: “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all aspects under strict and effective international control.” In other words, there is a legal as well as a moral responsibility to eliminate nuclear weapons, and this could have made the Prague call for a world without nuclear weapons more relevant to present governmental behavior. The Prague speech while lauding the NPT never affirmed the existence of a legal responsibility to pursue  nuclear disarmament. In this respect an official visit to Hiroshima offers Obama a golden opportunity to reinvigorate his vision of a world without nuclear weapons by bringing it down to earth.

    Why is this? By acknowledging the legal obligation, as embedded in Article VI of the Nonproliferation Treaty, as reinforcing the moral responsibility, there arises a clear imperative to move toward implementation. There is no excuse for delay or need for preconditions. The United States Government could at this time convene a multinational commission to plan a global conference on nuclear disarmament, somewhat resembling the Paris conference that recently produced the much heralded climate change agreement. The goal of the nuclear disarmament conference could be the vetting of proposals for a nuclear disarmament process with the view toward establishing a three year deadline for the development of an agreed treaty text whose preparation was entrusted to a high level working group operating under the auspices of the United Nations, with a mandate to report to the Secretary General. After that the states of the world could gather to negotiate an agreed treaty text that would set forth a disarming process and its monitoring and compliance procedures.

    The United States, along with other nuclear weapons states, opposed in the 1990s recourse to the ICJ by the General Assembly to seek a legal interpretation on issues of legality, and then disregarded the results of its legal findings. It would a great contribution to a more sustainable and humane world order if President Obama were to take the occasion of his historic visit to Hiroshima to call respectful attention to this ICJ Advisory Opinion and go on to accept the attendant legal responsibility on behalf of the United States. This could be declared to be a partial fulfillment of the moral responsibility that was accepted at Prague. It could even be presented as the completion of the vision of Prague, and would be consistent with Obama’s frequent appeals to the governments of the world to show respect for international law, and his insistence that during his presidency U.S. foreign policy was so configured.

    Above all, there is every reason for all governments to seek nuclear disarmament without further delay. There now exists no geopolitical climate of intense rivalry, and the common endeavor of freeing the world from the dangers posed by nuclear weapons would work against the current hawkish drift in the U.S. and parts of Europe toward a second cold war and overcome the despair that now has for so long paralyzed efforts to protect the human interest. As the global approach to nuclear weapons, climate change, and neoliberal globalization should make clear, we are not likely to survive as a species very much longer if we continue to base world order on a blend of state-centric national interests and dominant actor geopolitics. Obama has this rare opportunity to choose the road not often traveled upon, and there is no better place to start such a voyage than at Hiroshima. We in civil society would then with conviction promote his nuclear legacy as ‘From Prague to Hiroshima,’ and feel comfortable that this president has finally earned the honor of the Nobel Peace Prize prematurely bestowed.

  • Modernizing the Opportunities for Nuclear War

    Lawrence WittnerA fight now underway over newly-designed U.S. nuclear weapons highlights how far the Obama administration has strayed from its commitment to build a nuclear-free world.

    The fight, as a recent New York Times article indicates, concerns a variety of nuclear weapons that the U.S. military is currently in the process of developing or, as the administration likes to say, “modernizing.”  Last year, the Pentagon flight-tested a mock version of the most advanced among them, the B61 Model 12.  This redesigned nuclear weapon is the country’s first precision-guided atomic bomb, with a computer brain and maneuverable fins that enable it to more accurately target sites for destruction.  It also has a “dial-a-yield” feature that allows its handlers to adjust the level of its explosive power.

    Supporters of this revamped weapon of mass destruction argue that, by ensuring greater precision in bombing “enemy” targets, reducing the yield of a nuclear blast, and making a nuclear attack more “thinkable,” the B61 Model 12 is actually a more humanitarian and credible weapon than older, bigger versions.  Arguing that this device would reduce risks for civilians near foreign military targets, James Miller, who developed the nuclear weapons modernization plan while undersecretary of defense, stated in a recent interview that “minimizing civilian casualties if deterrence fails is both a more credible and a more ethical approach.”

    Other specialists were far more critical.  The Federation of Atomic Scientists pointed out that the high accuracy of the weapon and its lower settings for destructiveness might tempt military commanders to call for its use in a future conflict.

    General James E. Cartright, a former head of the U.S. Strategic Command and a retired vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, conceded that possessing a smaller nuclear device did make its employment “more thinkable.”  But he supported developing the weapon because of its presumed ability to enhance nuclear deterrence.  Using a gun as a metaphor, he stated:  “It makes the trigger easier to pull but makes the need to pull the trigger less likely.”

    Another weapon undergoing U.S. government “modernization” is the cruise missile.  Designed for launching by U.S. bombers, the weapon—charged William Perry, a former secretary of defense—raised the possibilities of a “limited nuclear war.”  Furthermore, because cruise missiles can be produced in nuclear and non-nuclear versions, an enemy under attack, uncertain which was being used, might choose to retaliate with nuclear weapons.

    Overall, the Obama administration’s nuclear “modernization” program—including not only redesigned nuclear weapons, but new nuclear bombers, submarines, land-based missiles, weapons labs, and production plants—is estimated to cost as much as $1 trillion over the next thirty years.  Andrew C. Weber, a former assistant secretary of defense and former director of the interagency body that oversees America’s nuclear arsenal, has criticized it as “unaffordable and unneeded.”  After all, the U.S. government already has an estimated 7,200 nuclear weapons.

    The nuclear weapons modernization program is particularly startling when set against President Obama’s April 2009 pledge to build a nuclear weapons-free world.  Although this public commitment played a large part in his receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize that year, in succeeding years the administration’s action on this front declined precipitously.  It did manage to secure a strategic arms reduction treaty (New START) with Russia in 2010 and issue a pledge that same year that the U.S. government would “not develop new nuclear warheads.”  But, despite promises to bring the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to the Senate for ratification and to secure further nuclear arms agreements with Russia, nuclear disarmament efforts ground to a halt.  Instead, plans for “nuclear modernization” began.  The president’s 2016 State of the Union address contained not a word about nuclear disarmament, much less a nuclear weapons-free world.

    What happened?

    Two formidable obstacles derailed the administration’s nuclear disarmament policy.  At home, powerful forces moved decisively to perpetuate the U.S. nuclear weapons program:  military contractors, the weapons labs, top military officers, and, especially, the Republican Party.  Republican support for disarmament treaties was crucial, for a two-thirds vote of the U.S. Senate was required to ratify them.  Thus, when the Republicans abandoned the nuclear arms control and disarmament approach of past GOP presidents and ferociously attacked the Obama administration for “weakness” or worse, the administration beat an ignominious retreat.  To attract the backing of Republicans for the New START Treaty, it promised an upgraded U.S. nuclear weapons program.

    Russia’s lack of interest in further nuclear disarmament agreements with the United States provided another key obstacle.  With 93 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons in the arsenals of these two nations, a significant reduction in nuclear weapons hinged on Russia’s support for it.  But, angered by the sharp decline of its power in world affairs, including NATO’s advance to its borders, the Russian government engaged in its own nuclear buildup and spurned U.S. disarmament proposals.

    Despite these roadblocks, the Obama administration could renew the nuclear disarmament process.  Developing better relations with Russia, for example by scrapping NATO’s provocative expansion plan, could smooth the path toward a Russian-American nuclear disarmament agreement.  And this, in turn, would soften the objections of the lesser nuclear powers to reducing their own nuclear arsenals.  If Republican opposition threatened ratification of a disarmament treaty, it could be bypassed through an informal U.S.-Russian agreement for parallel weapons reductions.  Moreover, even without a bilateral agreement, the U.S. government could simply scrap large portions of its nuclear arsenal, as well as plans for modernization.  Does a country really need thousands of nuclear weapons to deter a nuclear attack?  Britain possesses only 215.  And the vast majority of the world’s nations don’t possess any.

    Given the terrible dangers and costs posed by nuclear weapons, isn’t it time to get back on the disarmament track?

  • The 2015 State of the Union Address: A Major Omission

    When President Obama first took office he was deeply concerned about nuclear disarmament. In 2009, in a speech in Prague he had this to say about nuclear weapons:

    Today, the Cold War has disappeared but thousands of those weapons have not. In a strange turn of history, the threat of global nuclear war has gone down, but the risk of a nuclear attack has gone up. More nations have acquired these weapons. Testing has continued. Black market trade in nuclear secrets and nuclear materials abound. The technology to build a bomb has spread. Terrorists are determined to buy, build or steal one. Our efforts to contain these dangers are centered on a global non-proliferation regime, but as more people and nations break the rules, we could reach the point where the center cannot hold.

    He also said at Prague:

    So today, I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons. (Applause.) I’m not naive. This goal will not be reached quickly — perhaps not in my lifetime. It will take patience and persistence. But now we, too, must ignore the voices who tell us that the world cannot change. We have to insist, “Yes, we can.” (Applause.)

    us-presidential-sealWe might well ask not only what happened to “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,” but what happened to President Obama’s commitment?

    In President Obama’s 2015 State of the Union Address, the only mention of nuclear weapons was in relation to the agreement the Obama administration is seeking to negotiate with Iran. The President promised to veto any additional sanctions placed on Iran, which he said would undermine the negotiations between the US and Iran to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran. President Obama also expressed considerable concern for the dangers of climate change, a clear danger to the environment and the future. But there was no mention in the State of the Union of “America’s commitment” to nuclear disarmament.

    President Obama’s early concerns for nuclear disarmament led to his receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, but he seems to have given up his pursuit of a world without nuclear weapons. He does so to the detriment of all Americans and all people of the world. Nuclear weapons are equal opportunity destroyers – women, men and children. Under Obama’s leadership, America is setting a course to modernize its nuclear infrastructure, weapons and delivery systems. Not only is the expected price tag for the US nuclear modernization program expected to exceed $1 trillion over the next three decades, but such a program endangers all Americans rather than providing them with security.

    In a recent article in The Nation, Theodore Postol, a MIT professor emeritus of science, technology and national security policy, argued, “No rational actor would take steps to start a nuclear war. But the modernization effort significantly increases the chances of an accident during an unpredicted, and unpredictable, crisis – one that could escalate beyond anyone’s capacity to imagine.” Postol concluded, “In a world that is fundamentally unpredictable, the pursuit of an unchallenged capacity to fight and win a nuclear war is a dangerous folly.”

    Mr. President, we live in an unpredictable world, but it is predictable based on history that nuclear weapons and human fallibility are a dangerous and highly flammable mix. Nuclear weapons, including our own, threaten all Americans and all humanity. Don’t give up on the essential quest for a Nuclear Zero world, which you seemed so eager to achieve upon assuming office.

  • Obama Goes Nuclear

    This article was originally published on Counterpunch.

    Is there any chance that President Barack Obama can return to his long-held stand critical of nuclear power? Is he open to hearing from scientists and energy experts, such as Amory Lovins, who can refute the pro-nuclear arguments that have apparently influenced him?

    Obama’s declaration in his State of the Union speech on January 27 about “building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country” marked a significant change for him. His announcement Tuesday on moving ahead on $8.3 billion in federal government loan guarantees to build new nuclear plants and increasing the loan guarantee fund to $54.5 billion was a further major step. Wall Street is reluctant to invest money in the dangerous and extremely expensive technology.

    Before taking office, including as a candidate for president, Obama not only was negative about atomic energy but—unusual for a politician—indicated a detailed knowledge of its threat to life.

    “I start off with the premise that nuclear energy is not optimal and so I am not a nuclear energy proponent,” Obama said at a campaign stop in Newton, Iowa on December 30, 2007. “My general view is that until we can make certain that nuclear power plants are safe, that they have solved the storage problem—because I’m opposed to Yucca Mountain and just dumping…in one state, in Nevada particularly, since there’s potentially an earthquake line there—until we solve those problems and the whole nuclear industry can show that they can produce clean, safe energy without enormous subsidies from the U.S. government, I don’t think that’s the best option. I am much more interested in solar and wind and bio-diesel and strategies [for] alternative fuels.”

    As he told the editorial board of the Keene Sentinel in New Hampshire on November 25, 2007: “I don’t think there’s anything that we inevitably dislike about nuclear power. We just dislike the fact that it might blow up…and irradiate us…and kill us. That’s the problem.”

    Yes, that’s the big problem with splitting the atom—one that has existed since the start  of nuclear power and will always be inherent in the technology. Using the perilous process of fission to generate electricity with its capacity for catastrophic accidents and its production of highly toxic radioactive poisons called nuclear waste will always be unsafe. And it is unnecessary considering the safe energy technologies now available, from solar, wind and other clean sources.

    Just how dangerous it is has been underlined in a book just published by the New York Academy of Sciences, Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment. Written by a team of scientists led by noted Russian biologist Dr. Alexey Yablokov, using health data that have become available since the 1986 accident, it concludes that the fatality total “from April 1986 to the end of 2004 from the Chernobyl catastrophe was estimated at 985,000 additional [cancer] deaths.” This is in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and other countries where Chernobyl’s poisons fell. The toll, they relate, continues to rise.

    Chernobyl was a different design from the nuclear plants which the U.S., France and Japan seek now to build but disasters can also happen involving these plants and they, too, produce the highly toxic nuclear waste poisons. The problem is fission itself. It’s no way to produce electricity.

    Obama has been aware of this. As he stated at a Londonderry, New Hampshire town meeting on October 7, 2007: “Nuclear power has a host of problems that have not been solved. We haven’t solved the storage situation effectively. We have not dealt with all of the security aspects of our nuclear plants and nuclear power is very expensive.”

    He still left the door open to it. His Energy Plan as a candidate stated: “It is unlikely that we can meet our aggressive climate goals if we eliminate nuclear power from the table. However, there is no future for expanded nuclear without first addressing four key issues: public right-to-know, security of nuclear fuel and waste, waste storage, and [nuclear weapons] proliferation.”

    In his first year as president, nuclear power proponents worked to influence him. Among nuclear opponents, there has been anxiety regarding Obama’s two top aides, both of whom have been involved with what is now the utility operating more nuclear power plants than any other in the United States, Exelon.

    Rahm Emanuel, now Obama’s chief of staff, as an investment banker was in the middle of the $8.2 billion merger in 1999 of Unicom, the parent company of Commonwealth Edison of Chicago, and Peco Energy to put together Exelon. David Axelrod, now a senior Obama advisor and formerly chief campaign strategist, was an Exelon consultant. Candidate Obama received sizeable contributions from Exelon executives including from John Rowe, its president and chief executive officer who in 2007 also became chairman of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the U.S. nuclear industry’s main trade group.

    It’s not only been nuclear opponents who have seen a link between Exelon and the Obama administration. Forbes magazine, in its January 18th issue, in an article on John Rowe and how he has “focused the company on nuclear,” displayed a sidebar headlined, “The President’s Utility.”  It read: “Ties are tight between Exelon and the Obama administration,” noting Exelon political contributions and featuring Emanuel and Axelrod with photos and descriptions of their Exelon connections.

    The Forbes article spoke of how last year “Emanuel e-mailed Rowe on the eve of the House vote on global warming legislation and asked that he reach out to some uncommitted Democrats. ‘We are proud to be the President’s utility,’ says Elizabeth Moler, Exelon’s chief lobbyist,” the article went on. “It’s nice for John to be able to go to the White House and they know his name.’”

    Chicago-based Exelon’s website boasts of its operating “the largest nuclear fleet in the nation and the third largest in the world.” It owns 17 nuclear power plants which “represent approximately 20 percent of the U.S. nuclear industry’s power capacity.”

    The climate change or global warming issue is another factor in Obama’s change on nuclear power. An Associated Press article of January 31 on Obama’s having “singled out nuclear power in his State of the Union address and his spending plan for the next budget,” began: “President Barack Obama is endorsing nuclear energy like never before, trying to win over Republicans and moderate Democrats on climate and energy legislation.”

    MSNBC’s Mike Stuckey on February 9 reported about “Obama’s new support for nuclear power, which some feel may be a down payment for Republican backing on a climate change bill.”

    After the “safe, clean nuclear power” claim, Michael Mariotte, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, declared: “Politically, Obama likely was simply parroting the effort being led by Senators John Kerry, Joe Lieberman and Lindsay Graham to gain support for a climate bill by adding massive subsidies for nuclear power, offshore oil and ‘clean’ coal. But recycling George W. Bush energy talking points is no way to solve the climate crisis or develop a sustainable energy policy…Indeed, Obama knows better. Candidate Obama understood that nuclear power is neither safe nor clean.”

    Climate change has been used by those promoting a “revival” of nuclear power—there hasn’t been a new nuclear plant ordered and built in the U.S. in 37 years—as a new argument. In fact, nuclear power makes a substantial contribution to global warming considering the overall “nuclear cycle”—uranium mining and milling, conversion, enrichment, fuel fabrication and the disposition of radioactive waste, and so on.

    Climate change is also one argument for pushing atomic energy of  another major influence on Obama on nuclear power, Steven Chu, his Department of Energy secretary. Chu typifies the religious-like zeal for nuclear power emanating for decades from scientists in the U.S. government’s string of national nuclear laboratories. Chu was director of one of these, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, before becoming head of DOE.

    First established during World War II’s Manhattan Project to build atomic weapons, the laboratories after the war began promoting civilian nuclear technology—and have been pushing it unceasingly ever since. It has been a way to perpetuate the vested interest created during World War II.  The number of nuclear weapons that could be built was limited because atomic bombs don’t lend themselves to commercial distribution, but in pushing food irradiation, nuclear-powered airplanes and rockets, atomic devices for excavation and, of course, nuclear power, the budgets and staffs of the national nuclear laboratories could be maintained, indeed increase.

    That was the analysis of David Lilienthal, first chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, which preceded the Department of Energy. Lilienthal in his 1963 book Change, Hope, and the Bomb wrote: “The classic picture of the scientist as a creative individual, a man obsessed, working alone through the night, a man in a laboratory pushing an idea—this has changed. Now scientists are ranked in platoons. They are organization men. In many cases the independent and humble search for new truths about nature has been confused with the bureaucratic impulse to justify expenditure and see that next year’s budget is bigger than last’s.”

    Lilienthal wrote about the “elaborate and even luxurious [national nuclear] laboratories that have grown up at Oak Ridge, Argonne, Brookhaven” and the push to use nuclear devices for “blowing out harbors, making explosions underground to produce steam, and so on” which show “how far scientists and administrators will go to try to establish a nonmilitary use” for nuclear technology.

    Chu, like so many of the national nuclear laboratory scientists and administrators, minimizes the dangers of radioactivity. If they didn’t, if they acknowledged how life-threatening the radiation produced by nuclear technology is, their favorite technology would crumble.

    A major theme of Chu, too, is a return to the notion promoted by the national nuclear laboratories in the 1950s and 60s of “recycling” and “reusing” nuclear waste. This way, they have hoped, it might not be seen as waste at all. The concept was to use radioactive Cesium-137 (the main poison discharged in the Chernobyl disaster) to irradiate food, to use depleted uranium to harden bullets and shells, and so on. In recent weeks, with Obama carrying out his pledge not  to allow Yucca Mountain to become a nuclear waste dump, Chu set up a “blue-ribbon” panel on radioactive  waste—stacked with nuclear power advocates including Exelon’s John Rowe—that is expected to stress the “recycling” theory.  

    “We are aggressively pursuing nuclear energy,” declared Chu in January as he announced DOE’s budget plan—which included an increase in the 2011 federal budget in monies for nuclear loan guarantees to build new nuclear plants cited by Obama Tuesday. “We are, as we have repeatedly said, working hard to restart the American nuclear power industry.”

    The $8.3 billion in loan guarantees Obama announced Tuesday is to come from $18.5 billion in guarantees proposed by the George W. Bush administration and authorized by Congress in 2005. “My budget proposes tripling the loan guarantees we provide to help finance safe, clean nuclear facilities,” said Obama Tuesday, referring to the DOE plan which would add $36 billion and bring the loan guarantee fund to $54.5. And this despite candidate Obama warning about “enormous subsidies from the U.S. government” to the nuclear industry.

    The $8.3 billion in loan guarantees is to go toward the Southern Company of Atlanta constructing two nuclear power reactors in Burke, Georgia. These are to be AP1000 nuclear power plants designed by the Westinghouse nuclear division (now owned by Toshiba) although in October the designs were rejected by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission as likely being unable to withstand events like tornadoes and earthquakes.

    Obama’s change of stance on nuclear power has led to an earthquake of its own politically. MoveOn, the nonprofit advocacy group that has raised millions of dollars for Democratic candidates including Obama, gauged sentiment of his State of the Union speech by having10,000 MoveOn members record their views. Every few seconds they pressed a button signaling their reactions—ranging from “great” to “awful.” When Obama got his line on energy, the overwhelming judgment was awful. “The most definitive drop in enthusiasm is when President Obama talked about nuclear power and offshore drilling,” said Ilyse Hogue, MoveOn’s director of political advocacy. “They’re looking for clean energy sources that prioritize wind and solar.”

    “Safe, clean nuclear power—it’s an oxymoron,” said Jim Riccio, nuclear policy analyst for Greenpeace USA. “The president knows better. Just because radiation is invisible doesn’t mean it’s clean.”

    “From a health perspective, the proposal of the Obama administration to increase federal loan guarantees for new nuclear reactors poses a serious risk to Americans,” said Joseph Mangano, executive director of the Radiation and Public Health Project. “Adding new reactors will raise the chance for a catastrophic meltdown. It will also increase the amount of radioactive chemicals routinely emitted from reactors into the environment—and human bodies. New reactors will raise rates of cancer—which are already unacceptably high—especially to infants and children. Public policies affecting America’s energy future should reduce, rather than raise, hazards to our citizens.”

    As to government loan guarantees, “The last thing Americans want is another government bailout for a failing industry, but that’s exactly what they’re getting from the Obama administration,” said Ben Schreiber, the climate and energy tax analyst of Friends of the Earth.

    “It would be not only good policy but good politics for Obama to abandon the nuclear loan guarantee program,” said Mariotte of NIRS.

    After Obama’s Tuesday declaration on loan guarantees, Paul Gunter, director of the Reactor Oversight Project of the organization Beyond Nuclear, said: “Unfortunately, the president’s decision is fuel for opposition to costly and dangerous nuclear power. It signals a widening of a divide as the administration steps back from its promise for a change in energy policy and those of us who are committed to a change.”

    “We are deeply disturbed by President Obama’s decision,” said Peter Wilk, executive director of Physicians for Social Responsibility. “Not only does this put taxpayers on the hook for billions, it prioritizes a dirty, dangerous, and expensive technology over public health.  From the beginning to the end of the nuclear fuel cycle, nuclear reactors remain a serious threat to public health and safety.  From uranium mining waste to operating reactors leaking radioactivity to the lack of radioactive waste solutions, nuclear power continues to pose serious public health threats.”

    Nuclear opponents have been disappointed in a lack of access to the Obama White House of those with a critical view on nuclear power—who could counteract the pro-nuclear arguments that Obama has been fed. Will President Obama open himself to hearing from those who question nuclear power?

    Obama has credibility trouble already. New York Times columnist Bob Herbert wrote on January 26:

        “Who is Barack Obama? Americans are still looking for the answer…Mr. Obama may be personally very appealing, but he has positioned himself all over the political map…Mr. Obama is in danger of being perceived as someone whose rhetoric, however skillful, cannot always be trusted. He is creating a credibility gap for himself, and if it widens much more he won’t be able to close it.”

  • The Nobel War Lecture

    In accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, President Obama, one of the world’s great orators and purveyors of hope, gave a speech that must reflect the divisions within himself and his personal struggles to reconcile them.  It was a surprising speech for the occasion.  Rather than a speech of vision and hope, it was a speech that sought to justify war and particularly America’s wars.  The speech was largely an infomercial for war, touting not only its necessity but its virtues, and might well be thought of as the “Nobel War Lecture.”

    How troubling it is to see this man of hope bogged down by war, not only on the ground but in his mind.  As he put it, “I am the Commander-in-Chief of a nation in the midst of two wars.”  One of these wars he seeks to end, but the other he has made his own by recently committing 30,000 additional troops and justifying it as “an effort to defend ourselves and all nations from further attacks.”  The president persists despite his recognition that “[i]n today’s wars, many more civilians are killed than soldiers; the seeds of future conflicts are sewn, economies are wrecked, civil societies torn asunder, refugees amassed, and children scarred.” 

    Where was the vision that was so hopeful in Barack Obama the campaigner for the presidency?  Has a year in office reduced him to a “reality” from which he cannot raise his sights to envision a more peaceful future – one without war or Predator drone attacks, one in which international cooperation in intelligence gathering and law enforcement could bring terrorists to justice? 

    The president tells the world, “I did not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war.”  This is certain.  He tells his audience, “We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes.  There will be times when nations – acting individually or in concert – will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.”    Perhaps his decision to bow to the generals and increase the US presence in the war in Afghanistan is weighing heavily on him.  Perhaps he seeks a way to find it both “necessary” and “morally justified.” 

    President Obama acknowledges his debt to Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., leading proponents of nonviolence, but he cannot find a way to follow their example.  He finds instead that “as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone.”  From the lofty visions and practical actions of Gandhi and King, the president brings us down to earth, to his reality that in his position he is fated to carry on with war.  “So yes,” he tells us, “the instruments of war have a role to play in preserving the peace.”

    What does he offer in the stead of peace?  He argues that there must be standards governing the use of force.  Yes, this is long established, although not often adhered to.  One such standard is no use of force without the approval of the United Nations, except in self-defense to repel an imminent attack.  But America and its NATO allies often take war into their own hands, ignoring this rule of international law to which all states are bound.

    Having justified war, the president offers three paths to building “a just and lasting peace.”  First, he argues for “alternatives to violence that are tough enough to change behavior.”  This makes sense so long as it is applied to all states equally without double standards.  Second, he argues that peace must be based upon human dignity and human rights.  Of course, this is so.  Of course, America should stand for human rights rather than torture and the worst abuse of all – aggressive war.  Third, he makes the point that a just and lasting peace must also be based upon freedom from want.  There is nothing to argue with here.  Why not use our resources to help eliminate poverty and hunger and expand education and healthcare throughout the world, rather than pour these resources into waging war?

    President Obama barely mentioned nuclear disarmament in his speech.  When he did, he reiterated his commitment to upholding the Non-Proliferation Treaty, calling it “a centerpiece” of his foreign policy.  He then moved quickly to pointing a finger at Iran and North Korea.  “Those who seek peace,” he said, “cannot stand idly by as nations arm themselves for nuclear war.”  He is right; no nation should arm itself for nuclear war, including the United States and the other eight nations that have already done so.

    The President might have built a strong, positive and hopeful speech on the need to rid the world of nuclear weapons, instruments of omnicide, but he chose instead to offer up a laundry list of reasons for war.  When it came to peace, his message, sadly, was No, we can’t.

  • 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.

  • Is It Just War?

    This article was originally published on the Waging Peace Today blog

    In accepting the Nobel Peace Prize today in Oslo, Norway, President Obama invoked the idea of “just war” to rationalize his escalation of the war in Afghanistan and the continued drone attacks against the people of Pakistan. The president rightly stated that certain criteria must be met for a war to be considered “just,” but did not proceed to examine his criteria as they relate to the wars he is continuing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    President Obama’s definition of a “just war,” according to his Nobel acceptance speech is a war that:

    1. Is waged as a last resort or in self-defense;
    2. Uses proportional force;
    3. Spares civilians from violence whenever possible.

    Even a cursory glance at this definition of a “just war” shows that what the US is doing in Afghanistan falls far short.

    Waged as a last resort or in self-defense

    This criterion was a stretch when the US invaded in 2001, but eight years later it’s downright silly. No other means of putting an end to this conflict have been reasonably attempted. Ongoing refusal by the United States to pursue a diplomatic solution through negotiations with the Taliban shows that this war has never been a “last resort.”

    Uses proportional force

    Since the 2001 invasion, the US Air Force has dropped around 31 million pounds of bombs on Afghanistan. There are countless examples of disproportionate force used, such as an aerial bombing raid in response to celebratory gunfire at a wedding.

    Spares civilians from violence whenever possible

    Sending drones to fire missiles at Pakistani villages, a strategy that has increased dramatically under President Obama’s watch, is a sure way to injure, traumatize and kill many civilians. In Afghanistan, estimates range from 12,000 to 32,000 civilians killed as a result of the current war. Over 200,000 are known to be living in Internally Displaced Persons camps in Afghanistan. With the upcoming escalation of US and NATO troops, deaths of both Afghan civilians and foreign troops are certain to rise.

    A war of choice with diplomacy “off the table” is not just. War is not peace, regardless of how you spin it.