Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: US nuclear policy

  • Open Letter to President Obama

    April 16, 2014

    Dear President Obama,

    During the closing session of the Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague on March 25, 2014, you cited a number of concrete measures to secure highly-enriched uranium and plutonium and strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation regime that have been implemented as a result of the three Nuclear Security Summits, concluding: “So what’s been valuable about this summit is that it has not just been talk, it’s been action.”

    Would that you would apply the same standard to nuclear disarmament! On April 5, 2009 in Prague, you gave millions of people around the world new hope when you declared: “So today, I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” Bolstered by that hope, over the past three years, there has been a new round of nuclear disarmament initiatives by governments not possessing nuclear weapons, both within and outside the United Nations. Yet the United States has been notably “missing in action” at best, and dismissive or obstructive at worst. This conflict may come to a head at the 2015 Review of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).

    We write now, on the eve of the third Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) meeting for the 2015 Review Conference of the NPT, which will take place at UN headquarters in New York April 28 – May 9, 2014, to underscore our plea that your administration shed its negative attitude and participate constructively in deliberations and negotiations regarding the creation of a multilateral process to achieve a nuclear weapons free world.  This will require reversal of the dismal U.S. record.

     

    • The 2010 NPT Review Conference unanimously agreed to hold a conference in 2012, to be attended by all states in the region, on a Middle East Zone Free of Nuclear and other Weapons of Mass Destruction. The U.S. was a designated convener, and a date was set for December 2012 in Helsinki. The Finnish ambassador worked feverishly, meeting individually with all of the countries in the region to facilitate the conference. Suddenly, on November 23, 2012, the U.S. State Department announced that the Helsinki conference was postponed indefinitely.
    • In March 2013, Norway hosted an intergovernmental conference in Oslo on the Humanitarian Impacts of Nuclear Weapons, with 127 governments in attendance. Mexico hosted a follow-on conference in Nayarit, Mexico in February 2014, with 146 governments present. The U.S. boycotted Oslo and Nayarit. Austria has announced that it will host a third conference, in Vienna, late this year.
    • In November 2012, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) established an “Open-Ended” working group open to all member states “to develop proposals to take forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations for the achievement and maintenance of a world without nuclear weapons,” and scheduled for September 26, 2013, the first-ever High-Level meeting of the UNGA devoted to nuclear disarmament. The U.S. voted against both resolutions and refused to participate in the Open-Ended working group, declaring in advance that it would disregard any outcomes.
    • The U.S. did send a representative to the UN “High-Level” meeting, but it was the Deputy Secretary for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance, rather than the President, Vice-President or Secretary of State. Worse, the U.S. joined with France and the U.K. in a profoundly negative statement, delivered by a junior British diplomat: “While we are encouraged by the increased energy and enthusiasm around the nuclear disarmament debate, we regret that this energy is being directed toward initiatives such as this High-Level Meeting, the humanitarian consequences campaign, the Open-Ended Working Group and the push for a Nuclear Weapons Convention.”
    • In contrast, Dr. Hassan Rouhani, the new President of Iran, used the occasion of the High-Level Meeting to roll out a disarmament “roadmap” on behalf of the 120 member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). The roadmap calls for: “early commencement of negotiations, in the Conference on Disarmament, on a comprehensive convention on nuclear weapons for the prohibition of their possession, development, production, acquisition, testing, stockpiling, transfer, use or threat of use, and for their destruction; designation of 26 September every year as an international day to renew our resolve to completely eliminate nuclear weapons;” and “convening a High-level International Conference on Nuclear Disarmament in five years to review progress in this regard.” The NAM roadmap was subsequently adopted by the UNGA with 129 votes in favor. The U.S voted no.

    Meanwhile, your Administration’s FY 2015 budget request seeks a 7% increase for nuclear weapons research and production programs under the Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). NNSA’s “Total Weapons Activities” are slated to rise to $8.2 billion in FY 2015 and to $9.7 billion by 2019, 24% above fiscal year 2014. Your Administration is also proposing a $56 billion Opportunity Growth and Security Initiative (OGSI) to be funded through tax changes and spending reforms. OGSI is to be split evenly between defense and non-defense spending, out of which $504 million will go to NNSA nuclear weapons programs “to accelerate modernization and maintenance of nuclear facilities.” With that, your FY 2015 budget request for maintenance and modernization of nuclear bombs and warheads in constant dollars exceeds the amount spent in 1985 for comparable work at the height of President Reagan’s surge in nuclear weapons spending, which was also the highest point of Cold War spending.

    We are particularly alarmed that your FY 2015 budget request includes $634 million (up 20%) for the B61 Life Extension Program, which, in contravention of your 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, as confirmed by former U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff, General Norton Schwartz, will have improved military capabilities to attack targets with greater accuracy and less radioactive fallout.

    This enormous commitment to modernizing nuclear bombs and warheads and the laboratories and factories to support those activities does not include even larger amounts of funding for planned replacements of delivery systems – the bombers, missiles and submarines that form the strategic triad, which are funded through the Department of Defense.  In total, according to the General Accounting Office, the U.S. will spend more than $700 billion over the next 30 years to maintain and modernize nuclear weapons systems. The James Martin Center places the number at an astounding one trillion dollars. This money is desperately needed to address basic human needs – housing, food security, education, healthcare, public safety, education and environmental protection – here and abroad.

    The Good Faith Challenge

    This our third letter to you calling on the U.S. government to participate constructively and in good faith in all international disarmament forums. On June 6, 2013, we wrote: “The Nuclear Security Summit process you initiated has been a success. However, securing nuclear materials, while significant, falls well short of what civil society expected following your Prague speech.”  In that letter, we urged you to you speak at the September 26, 2013 High-Level Meeting on Nuclear Disarmament at the United Nations; to endorse UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Five-Point Proposal on Nuclear Disarmament; to announce your convening of a series of Nuclear Disarmament Summits; to support extending the General Assembly’s Open-Ended Working Group to develop proposals to take forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations for the achievement and maintenance of a world without nuclear weapons; and to announce that the U.S. would participate in the follow-on conference on the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons in Mexico in early 2014.

    In our second letter, dated January 29, 2014, we urged that you direct the State Department to send a delegation to the Mexico conference and to participate constructively; and that your administration shed its negative attitude and participate constructively in deliberations and negotiations regarding the creation of a multilateral process to achieve a nuclear weapons free world. And we called on the United States to engage in good faith in efforts to make the Conference on Disarmament productive in pursuing the objective for which it was established more than three decades ago: complete nuclear disarmament; and to work hard to convene soon the conference on a zone free of WMD in the Middle East promised by the 2010 NPT Review Conference.

    Since our last letter, the U.S. – Russian relationship has deteriorated precipitously, with the standoff over the Crimea opening the real possibility of a new era of confrontation between nuclear-armed powers. The current crisis will further complicate prospects for future arms reduction negotiations with Russia, already severely stressed by more than two decades of post-Cold War NATO expansion, deployment of U.S. missile defenses, U.S. nuclear weapons modernization and pursuit of prompt conventional global strike capability.

    Keeping Our Side of the NPT Bargain

    Article VI of the NPT, which entered into force in 1970, and is the supreme law of the land pursuant to Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, states: “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.”

    In 1996, the International Court of Justice, the judicial branch of the United Nations and the highest and most authoritative court in the world on questions of international law, unanimously concluded: “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.”

    Forty-four years after the NPT entered into force, more than 17,000 nuclear weapons, most held by the U.S. and Russia, pose an intolerable threat to humanity. The International Red Cross has stated that “incalculable human suffering” will result from any use of nuclear weapons, and that there can be no adequate humanitarian response capacity.   Declaring that “our nation’s deep economic crisis can only be addressed by adopting new priorities to create a sustainable economy for the 21st century,” the bi-partisan U.S. Conference of Mayors has called on the President and Congress to slash nuclear weapons spending and to redirect those funds to meet the urgent needs of cities.

    We reiterate the thrust of the demands set forth in our letters of June 13, 2013 and January 29, 2014, and urge you to look to them for guidance in U.S. conduct at the 2014 NPT PrepCom. We stress the urgent need to press the “reset” button with Russia again. Important measures in this regard are an end to NATO expansion and a halt to anti-missile system deployments in Europe.

     

    • We urge you to work hard to fully implement all commitments you made in the Nuclear Disarmament action plan agreed by the 2010 NPT Review Conference and to convene the promised conference on a zone free of WMD in the Middle East at the earliest possible date.
    • We urge you again to take this opportunity to endorse UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Five-Point Proposal on Nuclear Disarmament, to announce your convening of a series of Nuclear Disarmament Summits, and to engage in good faith in efforts to make the Conference on Disarmament productive in pursuing the objective for which it was established more than three decades ago: complete nuclear disarmament.
    • We call on you to declare that the U.S. will participate constructively and in good faith in the third intergovernmental conference on humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons to be held in Vienna late this year.
    • As an immediate signal of good faith, we call on your Administration to halt all programs to modernize nuclear weapons systems, and to reduce nuclear weapons spending to the minimum necessary to assure the safety and security of the existing weapons as they await disablement and dismantlement.

    Mr. President: It’s time to move from talk to action on nuclear disarmament. There have never been more opportunities, and the need is as urgent as ever.

    We look forward to your positive response.

    Sincerely,

    Initiating organizations:

    Jacqueline Cabasso, Executive Director, Western States Legal Foundation
    [contact for this letter: wslf@earthlink.net; (510) 839-5877
    655 – 13th Street, Suite 201, Oakland, CA 94612]

    John Burroughs, Executive Director, Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy

    Kevin Martin, Executive Director, Peace Action

    David Krieger, President, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

    Joseph Gerson, Disarmament Coordinator, American Friends Service Committee (for identification only)

    Alicia Godsberg, Executive Director, Peace Action New York

    Endorsing organizations (national):

    Robert Gould, MD, President, Physicians for Social Responsibility

    Tim Judson, Executive Director, Nuclear Information and Resource Service

    Michael Eisenscher, National Coordinator, U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW)

    Michael McPhearson, Interim Executive Director, Veterans for Peace

    David Swanson, WarIsACrime.org

    Jill Stein, President, Green Shadow Cabinet

    Terry K. Rockefeller, National Co-Convener, United for Peace and Justice

    Hendrik Voss, National Organizer, School of the Americas Watch (SOA Watch)

    Alfred L. Marder, President, US Peace Council

    Robert Hanson, Treasurer, Democratic World Federalists

    Alli McCracken, National Coordinator, CODEPINK

    Margaret Flowers, MD and Kevin Zeese, JD, Popular Resistance

    Endorsing organizations (by state):

    Marylia Kelley, Executive Director, Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment) Livermore, California

    Blase Bonpane, Ph.D., Director, Office of the Americas, California

    Linda Seeley, Spokesperson, San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, California

    Susan Lamont, Center Coordinator, Peace and Justice Center of Sonoma County, California

    Chizu Hamada, No Nukes Action, California

    Lois Salo, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Peninsula Branch, California

    Rev. Marilyn Chilcote, Beacon Presbyterian Fellowship, Oakland, California

    Margli Auclair, Executive Director, Mount Diablo Pleace and Justice Center. California

    Roger Eaton, Communications Chair, United Nations Association-USA, San Francisco Chapter, California

    Dr. Susan Zipp, Vice President, Association of World Citizens, San Francisco, California
    Michael Nagler, President, Metta Center for Nonviolence, California (for identification only)

    Rev. Marilyn Chilcote McKenzie, Parish Associate, St. John’s Presbyterian Church of Berkeley, California (for identification only)

    James E. Vann, Oakland Tenants Union, California (for identification only)

    Vic and Barby Ulmer, Our Developing World, California (for identification only)

    Judith Mohling, Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, Colorado

    Bob Kinsey, Colorado Coalition for the Prevention of Nuclear War

    Medard Gabel, Executive Director, Pacem in Terris, Delaware

    Roger Mills, Coordinator, Georgia Peace & Justice Coalition, Henry County Chapter

    Bruce K. Gagnon, Coordinator, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, Maine

    Lisa Savage, CODEPINK, Maine

    Natasha Mayers, Whitefield, Maine Union of Maine Visual Artists

    Shirley “Lee” Davis, GlobalSolutions.org, Maine Chapter

    Lynn Harwood, the Greens of Anson, Maine

    Dagmar Fabian, Crabshell Alliance, Maryland

    Judi Poulson, Chair, Fairmont Peace Group, Minnesota

    Marcus Page-Collonge, Nevada Desert Experience, Nevada

    Gregor Gable, Shundahai Network, Nevada

    Jay Coghlan, Executive Director, Nuclear Watch New Mexico

    Joni Arends, Executive Director, Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, New Mexico

    Lucy Law Webster, Executive Director, The CENTER FOR WAR/PEACE STUDIES, New York

    Alice Slater, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, New York

    Sheila Croke, Pax Christi Long Island, chapter of the international Catholic peace movement, New York

    Richard Greve, Co Chair, Staten Island Peace Action, New York

    Rosemarie Pace, Director, Pax Christi Metro New York

    Carol De Angelo, Director of Peace, Justice and Integrity of Creation, Sisters of Charity of New York (for identification only)

    Gerson Lesser, M.D., Clinical Professor, New York University School of Medicine (for identification only)

    Ellen Thomas, Proposition One Campaign, North Carolina

    Vina Colley, Portsmouth/Piketon Residents for Environmental Safety and Security, Ohio

    Harvey Wasserman, Solartopia, Ohio

    Ray Jubitz, Jubitz Family Foundation, Oregon

    Cletus Stein, convenor, The Peace Farm, Texas

    Steven G. Gilbert, PhD, DABT, INND (Institute of Neurotoxicology & Neurological Disorders), Washington

    Allen Johnson, Coordinator, Christians For The Mountains, West Virginia

    cc:

    John Kerry, Secretary of State
    Rose Gottemoeller, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security
    Thomas M. Countryman, Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and
    Nonproliferation
    Susan Rice, National Security Advisor
    Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Advisor
    Samantha Power, Permanent Representative to the United Nations
    Christopher Buck, Chargé d’Affaires, a.i., Conference on Disarmament
    Walter S. Reid, Deputy Permanent Representative to the Conference on Disarmament

  • A New Examination for Missile Launch Officers and the Rest of Us

    David KriegerThe top brass in the US Air Force have indicated that they were shocked and outraged to discover that missile launch officers have been cheating on their examinations and that their superior officers have turned the other way, allowing the cheating to go on. The Air Force has viewed the cheating as a moral failure and has suspended more than 90 of these officers from their missile launch duties.

    This raises important philosophical and practical questions with regard to morality and legality. Which is the greater moral failure: cheating on an examination or being willing to launch nuclear-armed missiles that could lead to the deaths of millions of innocent men, women and children?

    What kind of society would give young officers the task of carrying out illegal orders to destroy cities, countries and even civilization, with all the attendant pain, suffering and death that would be caused?

    The exams on which there was cheating were most likely technical in nature, aimed at finding out whether the missile launch officers understood the technical issues involved in launching their missiles, upon command to do so, and in preventing unauthorized launches. But shouldn’t the officers in charge of launching also be tested on the legal and moral implications of what they are being asked to do in a worst-case scenario?

    With these larger legal and moral issues in mind, a more pertinent examination could be developed that would include True and False questions like these:

     

    1. You are a cog in a nuclear threat system that could lead to tens or hundreds of millions of deaths and bring about the catastrophic destruction of civilization.
    2. The nuclear-armed missiles you are responsible for launching would indiscriminately kill men, women and children, which is illegal under international humanitarian law.
    3. Nuclear weapons cause unnecessary suffering, which is illegal under international humanitarian law.
    4. It is illegal under international humanitarian law to launch a reprisal attack that is disproportionate to an initial attack.
    5. The effects of nuclear weapons detonations cannot be contained in space or time.
    6. US political leaders are failing to pursue negotiations in good faith for nuclear disarmament, as legally required by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
    7. US political leaders are failing to pursue negotiations in good faith for a cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date, as legally required by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
    8. The defense of following orders by Nazi officers was not accepted as a legitimate defense for criminal acts at the Nuremberg trials.
    9. The Nuremberg trials after World War II held the Nazi leaders and officers to account, and some were given death sentences for committing crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
    10. You are not required to carry out illegal orders from a superior officer, and an order to fire your missiles with the consequence of indiscriminately killing men, women and children would be an illegal order.

    These are examination questions not only for missile launch officers to ponder, but for every member of our society to consider. The missile launch officers are only cogs in the US nuclear apparatus of death and destruction. They are not the only responsible parties, but they are instrumental parties to planning and preparation for indiscriminate murder and perhaps the death of all.

    The key responsible parties are political leaders and the people themselves. Only our political leaders, with pressure from the people, can assure that the United States plays a leadership role in pursuing the legal and moral path to achieving the globally necessary number of Nuclear Zero.

    The answers to all the above exam questions are True.

    This article was originally published by Truthout.

  • Human Radiation Experiments in the Pacific

    ” . . . protect the inhabitants against the loss of their lands and resources; protect the health of the inhabitants . . .” (1)

    According to Marshallese folklore a half-bad and half-good god named Etao was associated with slyness and trickery.  When bad things happened people knew that Etao was behind it.  “He’s dangerous, that Etao,” some people said.  “He does bad things to people and then laughs at them.”(2)  Many in the Marshall Islands now view their United States patron as a latter day Etao.

    Castle-Bravo

    Castle Bravo Nuclear ExplosionSixty years ago this month the American Etao unleashed its unprecedented  fury at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands.  It was nine years after the searing and indelible images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that the world first learned about the dangers of radioactive fallout from hydrogen bombs that use atomic Hiroshima-sized bombs as triggers.

    Castle-Bravo, the first in a series of megaton-range hydrogen bomb tests at Bikini Atoll on March first of 1954, was nicknamed “the shrimp” by its designer – Edward Teller – because it was the first deliverable thermonuclear weapon in the megaton range in the U.S. nuclear holster.  We had beaten the Soviets in this key area of nuclear weapons miniaturization when the Cold War was hot and the United States did not need to seek approval from anybody, especially the Marshallese entrusted to them through the U.N.

    At fifteen megatons – 1,000 times the Hiroshima A-bomb – the Bravo behemoth was a fission-fusion-fission [3-F] thermonuclear bomb that spread deadly radioactive fallout over an enormous swath of the central Pacific Ocean, including the inhabited atolls of Rongelap, Rongerik and Utrik in the Marshalls archipelago.  The downwind people of Rongelap [120 miles downwind of Bikini] and Utrik [300 miles east of Bikini] were evacuated as they suffered from the acute effects of radiation exposure.

    As an international fallout controversy reached a crescendo, a hastily called press conference was held in Washington in mid-March 1954 with Eisenhower and AEC chair Admiral Lewis [“nuclear energy too cheap to meter”] Strauss, his Administration’s top lieutenant in nuclear matters.

    Adm. Lewis Strauss:  “I’ve just returned from the Pacific Proving Grounds of the AEC where I witnessed the second part of a test series of thermonuclear weapons .  .  . For shot one [Bravo] the wind failed to follow the predictions, but shifted south of that line and the little islands of Rongelap, Rongerik and Utrik were in the edge of the path of the fallout . . . The 236 Marshallese natives appeared to me to be well and happy . . .The results, which the scientists at Los Alamos and Livermore had hoped to obtain from these two tests [Bravo and Union] were fully realized.  An enormous potential has been added to our military posture.”  Strauss added the caveat that “the medical staff on Kwajalein have advised us that they anticipate no illness, barring of course, diseases which may be hereafter contracted.” (3)

    Even former Sec. of State Henry Kissinger took note of the significance of Bravo and the new perils associated with widespread radioactive fallout contamination from megaton sized H-bombs, as might happen if the Soviets dropped The Big One on our nation’s capital and the fallout headed up the Eastern Seaboard.  Writing about nuclear weapons and foreign policy in 1957, Kissinger wrote:  “The damage caused by radiation is twofold:  direct damage leading to illness, death or reduced life expectancy, and genetic effects.”(4)

    Almira Matayoshi was one of the Rongelap “natives” referred to by Adm. Strauss.  When I interviewed her in 1981 in Majuro she recounted her experience with Bravo:

    The flash of light was very strong, then came the big sound of the explosion; it was quite a while before the fallout came.  The powder was yellowish and when you walked it was all over your body.  Then people began to get very weak and bean to vomit.  Most of us were weak and my son was out of breath.

    I have pains and much fear of the bomb.  At that time I wanted to die, and we were really suffering; our bodies ached and our feet were covered with burns and our hair fell out.  Now I see babies growing up abnormally and some are mentally disturbed, but none of these things happened before the bomb.  It is sad to see the babies now.(5)

    A persistent puzzle surrounds the question of intentionality.  In a 1982 New York Times interview, Gene Curbow (the former weather technician during Bravo) confessed that the winds did not “shift” according to the official U.S. explanation for the massive contamination during Bravo.  “The wind had been blowing straight at us for days before the test,” said Curbow.  “It was blowing straight at us during the test, and straight at us after the test.  The wind never shifted.”  When asked why it had taken so long to come forth with this important information, Curbow replied “It was a mixture of patriotism and ignorance, I guess.”(6)

    The late Dr. Robert Conard, head of the Brookhaven/AEC medical surveillance team for the islanders, wrote in his 1958 annual report on the exposed Marshallese: “The habitation of these people on Rongelap Island affords the opportunity for a most valuable ecological radiation study on human beings . . . The various radionuclides present on the island can be traced from the soil through the food chain and into the human being.”(7)

    In reference to the exposed Marshallese after Bravo, AEC official Merrill Eisenbud bluntly stated during a NYC AEC meeting in 1956, “Now, data of this type has never been available.  While it is true that these people do not live the way westerners do, civilized people, it is nonetheless also true that they are more like us than the mice.”(8)

    At present, the atoll communities of Bikini, Enewetak, and Rongelap remain sociologically disrupted and uncertain about their future as their contaminated islands and lagoons have yet to be fully repatriated and restored for permanent human habitation.

    Kwajalein

    Following 67 A- and H-bombs at Bikini and Enewetak between 1946-58, the U.S. was not about to let go of its island capture, terminate the AEC-Brookhaven long-term human radiation studies at Rongelap and Utirk,  nor forfeit the valuable “catcher’s mitt” at Kwajalein for monthly incoming ICBMs from Vandenberg air base in California and Kauai.  In 1961 – following a polio outbreak on Ebeye, Kwajalein – Pres. Kennedy ordered a comprehensive review of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands by his Harvard economist friend Anthony M. Solomon, head of the New York Reserve Bank.

    Correspondingly, JFK’s National Security Action Memorandum 145 of April 18, 1962 called for the movement of Micronesia into a permanent relationship with the U.S.(9)

    Through legerdemain and the inherent asymmetry of the relationship, the U.S. took every conceivable  advantage of its island wards, thus setting the stage for the ongoing human and ecological radiation studies and other Pentagon activities in perpetuity.

    To this end the Solomon Report recommended a massive spending program just prior to a future status plebiscite being planned for Micronesia.  “It is the Solomon Mission’s conclusion that those programs and the spending involved will not set off a self-sustaining development process of any significance in the area.  It is important, therefore, that advantage be taken of the psychological impact of the capital investment program before some measure of disappointment is felt.”(10)

    As the Pentagon and AEC used the isolated isles of the Marshalls to perfect its Cold War nuclear deterrent – replete with human subjects for longitudinal radiation studies – let us not forget the Pentagon’s ongoing project of missile defense, aka “Star Wars” at Kwajalein Atoll encompassing the world’s largest lagoon bull’s eye.

    Characterized as “hitting a bullet with a bullet,” ballistic missile defense has always had a reputation for fantasy and wish fulfillment, sold to Pres. Reagan with an exciting and glitzy video designed to parallel the then-sensation called  “Star Wars.”   Kwajalein and the fiction of Ballistic Missile Defense has tragically dumped good money after bad, notwithstanding the huge profits by Boeing, Raytheon, Northrup Grumman,  MIT’s Lincoln Lab, Aerojet, Booz Allen et al.  Between 1962 and 1996 the U.S. spent $100 billion.  And between 1996 and 2012 the total comes to $274 billion and still counting.(11)

    And what do we have to show for our nearly $300 billion missile defense boondoggle?  Last July 4th was also the planned launch date for a test of the BMD program.  The Ground Based Missile Defense system at Kwajalein Atoll failed again, despite the fact that the test was manipulated: “The intercept team knew ahead of time when to expect the incoming missile and all its relevant flight parameters. Such luxury is obviously not available in real-life combat. But even if the $214 million ‘test’ had worked it would not prove much.”(12)

    The collateral damage known as Ebeye Island at Kwajalein is infamously tagged throughout the region as the “slum of the Pacific.”  The appalling conditions on Ebeye for its 15,000 cramped residents and pool of cheap labor for the adjacent missile base are in stark contrast to the southern California-like setting on ten times as large Kwajalein Island for the 3,000 Americans manning the missile base.

    Likening it to South African apartheid, I recall my first encounter with Kwajalein and Ebeye as a young Peace Corps volunteer in 1976:

    Having spent the afternoon on Kwajalein yesterday left me feeling ashamed to be an American citizen.  The overt segregation of the American civilian and military employees on Kwajalein Island, and the cheap labor pool of Marshallese living on nearby Ebeye Island, makes me realize that racism is not confined to the American south.(13)

    And just to insure the longevity of the asymmetry, the American Etao embedded a little-noticed caveat into the 1963 Limited [Atmospheric] Test Ban Treaty that allows the U.S. to unilaterally resume nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands, despite assurances to the contrary during the 1986 Compact status negotiations.  Safeguard “C,” as the provision is known, also calls for the readiness of Johnston Atoll and Kauai in the Hawaiian archipelago, and Enewetak Atoll in the Marshalls under the auspices of the DOE’s Pacific Area Support Office in Honolulu.(14)

    Several formerly inhabited atolls remain off limits due to lingering radioactivity decades after the last H-bomb shattered the peace on Bikini and Enewetak.  Imagine if the U.S. finally saw fit to do the right thing and pay their past-due $2 billion nuclear legacy bill, a small morsel of the annual Star Wars budget.(15)

    The recently discovered Mexican refugee fisherman on Ebon Atoll in the Marshall Islands drew world attention to these obscure coral formations atop extinct and submerged volcanoes where a continuous culture has survived and nearly thrived for the past two thousand years. And even though Jose Salvador Alvarenga said he had no idea where he was, Uncle Sam has always known where these tiny islands are, strategically located stepping stones in the bowels of the northwestern Pacific leading to Asia’s doorstep, now in the era of the pending Trans Pacific Partnership.

    Undoubtedly the legendary Etao is somewhere lurking in these once-pacific isles savoring the work of its American protégé . . .

    [Addendum:  PBS is sitting on an important 90-minute film about the radiation experiments in the Marshall Islands titled “Nuclear Savage:  The Islands of Secret Project 4.1” by Adam Horowitz.  Please contact PBS and urge them to air “Nuclear Savage,” a documentary film they funded and are keeping from the public’s view.  Also, please see these additional articles about the Marshall Islands: http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/06/01/nuclear-savages and PBS’ attempt to suppress this film.

    Endnotes

    1. United Nations.  Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.  Trusteeship Agreement. URL:  http://www.fsmlaw.org/miscdocs/trustshipagree.htm.  New York.  1947.  Article VI.
    2. Grey, Eve.  Legends of Micronesia.  Book Two. The sly Etao and the sea demon.   1951.  Honolulu:  Office of the High Commissioner.  TTPI, Dept. of Educations.  Micronesian Reader Series.  Pages 35-36.
    3. Adm. Lewis Strauss, chair-AEC.  Press conference about Bravo with Pres. Eisenhower, March 12, 1954, Washington, D.C.  The archival footage may be viewed in this clip @ 1:00-4:30 in Part 3 of O’Rourke’s Half Life.
    4. Henry Kissinger, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy.  Council on Foreign Relations.  Harper Bros.:  New York.  1957.  Page 75.
    5. Interview with Almira Matayoshi conducted by Glenn Alcalay in Feburary 1981 in Majuro, Marshall Islands.  This interview is online: http://archive.is/M5aH
    6. Judith Miller.  “Four veterans suing U.S. over exposure in ’54 atom test.”  New York Times.  Sept. 20, 1982.
    7. Robert Conard, M.D., et al.  March 1957 medical survey of Rongelap and Utrik people three years after exposure to radioactive fallout.  Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, N.Y.  June 1958.  Page. 22.
    8. Merrill Eisenbud.  Minutes of A.E.C. meeting.  U.S.A.E.C. Health and Safety Laboratory.  Advisory Committee on Biology & Medicine.  January 13-14, 1956.  Page 232.
    9. Report by the U.S. Government Survey Mission to the TTPI by Anthony M. Solomon, October 9, 1963.  Page 41.  The Solomon Report is online:  https://archive.org/stream/TheSolomonReportAmericasRuthlessBlueprintForTheAssimilationOf/micronesia3_djvu.txt
    10. Report by the U.S. Government Survey Mission to the TTPI by Anthony M. Solomon, October 9, 1963.  Pages 41-42.  The Solomon Report is online:  https://archive.org/stream/TheSolomonReportAmericasRuthlessBlueprintForTheAssimilationOf/micronesia3_djvu.txt
    11. Stephen Schwartz.  “The real price of ballistic missile defenses.” The Nonproliferation Review.  April 13, 2012.
    12. Yousaf Butt.  “Let’s end bogus missile defense testing.”  Reuters.  July 16, 2013.
    13. Glenn Alcalay.  Journal entry of January 21, 1976.  Aboard the MV Militobi.  Peace Corps Journal, Marshall Islands 1975-77.
    14. David Evans.  “Safeguard ‘C’: U.S. spending millions on plan to re-start Pacific nuclear tests.”  Chicago Tribune.  August 26, 1990.
    15. Giff Johnson.  “At 60, legacy of Bravo still reverberates in Marshall Islands.”  Editorial.  Marshall Islands Journal.  February 28, 2014.

  • Noam Chomsky Joins NAPF Advisory Council

    Santa Barbara, CA – The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is pleased to announce that Professor Noam Chomsky, arguably the single most influential living scholar in the world today, has joined the Foundation’s Advisory Council.

    Professor Chomsky is a world-renowned political theorist and professor emeritus of linguistics at MIT. He was an early and outspoken critic of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and has written extensively on many political issues from a progressive perspective. A philosopher, cognitive scientist, logician, political commentator and activist, he is considered an international voice for equality, human rights, abolishing nuclear weapons and peace.

    David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, said, “We are excited to have Professor Chomsky as a member of the Foundation’s Advisory Council. He is one of the world’s wise men. The depth of his knowledge about the complex and varied crises that confront humanity is more than impressive. He is a truth teller to those in power, to other intellectuals and to the people of the world.”

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation was founded in 1982. Its mission is to educate and advocate for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons and to empower peace leaders.

    Other members of the Foundation’s Advisory Council include such luminaries as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Jane Goodall, Queen Noor of Jordan, Daniel Ellsberg, Bianca Jagger and
    The Dalai Lama.

    Professor Chomsky was recently in Santa Barbara to deliver the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 13th Annual Frank K. Kelly Lecture on Humanity’s Future. His lecture, entitled “Security and State Policy” was delivered to a capacity audience at the Lobero Theatre and also live audio streamed courtesy of KCSB. On that occasion, Professor Chomsky was presented with the Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

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

  • Building the Morale of Missileers

    A recent news story in the Global Security Newswire stated, “Top U.S. military leaders are personally reaching out to missileers at the Montana base that has become ground zero for an Air Force probe into exam cheating.”  It went on, “Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Saturday called six launch officers during their shifts at underground launch control centers, according to a Pentagon press story. Speaking on the phone calls for roughly an hour, the defense chief voiced his assurance that the launch officers were up to the task of carrying out the U.S. nuclear mission, said Pentagon officials.” (Hagel, Air Force Brass Reach Out to Montana Missile Officers, GSN, February 4, 2014)

    One can only imagine what was said in those morale building talks.

    Hagel: Howdy, missileer, this is Chuck.  How’s everything down in your bunker?

    Missile Launch Officer: Just fine, sir, lit up like a shopping mall. Chuck who?

    Hagel: The Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel.

    MLO: Nice of you to call, sir.  I wasn’t expecting it.  Are you calling to give the order to turn my key?

    Hagel: No, nothing like that.  I just want to check in with you and see how your morale is doing.

    MLO: My morale is sky high, sir.

    Hagel: You’re not taking drugs, are you?

    MLO: Not now, sir.  I’m studying up for my next proficiency test.

    Hagel: I hope you know that you’re doing this country a great service.

    MLO: By studying for my proficiency test?

    Hagel: Well, there’s that, but I’m proud of you for being willing to turn your key when ordered and attack our enemies.

    MLO: Thank you, sir.  I’m ever vigilant, waiting for my orders.

    Hagel: That a boy.  Of course, we hope those orders will never come, but we must be ready 24 hours a day.

    MLO: Yes, sir, I couldn’t be readier.  I dream about being able to blow up the world.

    Hagel: That may be carrying it just a bit too far.

    MLO: Gotcha, Chuck, I don’t really dream about it.  Maybe I daydream about it sometimes.  But I’m ready to do it, for my country.

    Hagel: That’s the spirit, young man.  It sounds like your morale is just fine.

    MLO: Just give me the orders, and I’ll be ready.

    Hagel: What could I do to boost your morale even higher?

    MLO: Maybe you could have some movies for us while we’re on duty.  It gets awfully boring down here.

    Hagel:  Why not?  What’s your favorite movie, son?

    MLO: Dr. Strangelove, sir.  It’s the favorite of all the missile launch officers.

    Hagel: Son, it’s been good talking to you.

    MLO: And perhaps some munchies with the movies.

    Hagel: As I said, it’s been good talking with you.

    MLO: And allow us to bring dates into the bunkers for the movies.

    Hagel: That’s not going to happen.

    MLO: And perhaps an occasional visit by the president or first lady.

    Hagel: That’s unlikely.

    MLO: Sir, you’re wrecking my morale.

    Hagel: I’ve got to get on with my next call.

    MLO: I don’t feel like studying anymore.

    Hagel: Please, son.

    MLO: Call again any time.

    This article was originally published by Truthout.

    David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Speech in House of Representatives

    Earl BlumenauerMr. Speaker, before turning to the subject at hand, I really hope that people look at the CBO report that was referenced by my good friend from Pennsylvania, and you will find that the 2 million people who would no longer be working, are not going to increase unemployment. The unemployment rate will be lower. There are people who are trapped in the workforce now because they can’t afford health care. The Affordable Care Act will actually enable some people to retire who want to retire or stop working a second job. Read the report and find out that this is actually a very positive signal.

    But, Mr. Speaker, I am here today to reference something else that was in the newspapers. The papers are filled with scandal about the nuclear weapons program. The real scandal is not the cheating or drug use by people with their finger on the nuclear button. The scandal is that these people are there on the job at all, with these nuclear weapons; jobs and nuclear weapons that should no longer exist.

    Don’t get me wrong. The alleged drug use by the people who stand watch daily with a finger on the nuclear trigger, or that were cheating on their proficiency exams, is outrageous, but it is scandalous that we are frozen in time linked to a nuclear Cold War past and committed to wildly wasteful spending.

    These are weapons that have never been used in 69 years, that did not deter the 9/11 attackers, and cannot help us in our major strategic challenges today. They have never been used in battle since World War II, but they have almost been used by miscalculation and mistake.

    In Eric Schlosser’s recent book called “Command and Control,” there are terrifying examples of what were termed “broken arrows,” nuclear mishaps.

    A nuclear bomb was accidentally released over South Carolina, landing in Walter Greg’s backyard, leaving a 75-foot wide, 30-foot crater, leveling his home. Luckily, it failed to trigger the nuclear explosion.

    In North Carolina, a B-52 fell into a tailspin carrying two hydrogen bombs, each 250 times more powerful than Hiroshima.

    There were numerous instances when our bomber fleet, which used to be on the runway idling, on alert 24/7, was prone to catching on fire while packed with nuclear bombs.

    A few years ago, there was a B-52 which flew across the country unknowingly carrying six nuclear-armed air-launched missiles.

    By no stretch of the imagination, do we need these 450 intercontinental ballistic missiles on alert, plus nuclear armed bombers, all on top of our nuclear submarine-based missiles? We don’t need a fraction of this weaponry. At most, we need perhaps one scaled-down system. There is nobody left to deter. We are competing in Russia in the Winter Olympics right now.

    A small portion of one of these delivery systems is all the nuclear deterrence we could ever possibly need. The larger and more complex the infrastructure is not just more expensive, but more prone to mistake.

    We are talking about upwards of $700 billion over the next 10 years in operations, modernization, new systems, new nuclear submarines. It is outrageous. It is dangerous. Let me put that in context. $750 billion is more than the Federal Government will spend on education in its entirety in the next 5 years.

    It is time for Congress and the American people to put an end to this.
    Earl Blumenauer is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Portland, Oregon.

  • The Endless Arms Race

    Lawrence WittnerIt’s heartening to see that an agreement has been reached to ensure that Iran honors its commitment, made when it signed the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to forgo developing nuclear weapons.

    But what about the other key part of the NPT, Article VI, which commits nuclear-armed nations to “cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament,” as well as to “a treaty on general and complete disarmament”? Here we find that, 44 years after the NPT went into force, the United States and other nuclear powers continue to pursue their nuclear weapons buildups, with no end in sight.

    On January 8, 2014, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced what Reuters termed “ambitious plans to upgrade [U.S.] nuclear weapons systems by modernizing weapons and building new submarines, missiles and bombers to deliver them.” The Pentagon intends to build a dozen new ballistic missile submarines, a new fleet of long-range nuclear bombers, and new intercontinental ballistic missiles. The Congressional Budget Office estimated in late December that implementing the plans would cost $355 billion over the next decade, while an analysis by the independent Center for Nonproliferation Studies reported that this upgrade of U.S. nuclear forces would cost $1 trillion over the next 30 years. If the higher estimate proves correct, the submarines alone would cost over $29 billion each.

    Of course, the United States already has a massive nuclear weapons capability — approximately 7,700 nuclear weapons, with more than enough explosive power to destroy the world. Together with Russia, it possesses about 95 percent of the more than 17,000 nuclear weapons that comprise the global nuclear arsenal.

    Nor is the United States the only nation with grand nuclear ambitions. Although China currently has only about 250 nuclear weapons, including 75 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), it recently flight-tested a hypersonic nuclear missile delivery vehicle capable of penetrating any existing defense system. The weapon, dubbed the Wu-14 by U.S. officials, was detected flying at ten times the speed of sound during a test flight over China during early January 2014. According to Chinese scientists, their government had put an “enormous investment” into the project, with more than a hundred teams from leading research institutes and universities working on it. Professor Wang Yuhui, a researcher on hypersonic flight control at Nanjing University, stated that “many more tests will be carried out” to solve the remaining technical problems. “It’s just the beginning.” Ni Lexiong, a Shanghai-based naval expert, commented approvingly that “missiles will play a dominant role in warfare, and China has a very clear idea of what is important.”

    Other nations are engaged in this arms race, as well. Russia, the other dominant nuclear power, seems determined to keep pace with the United States through modernization of its nuclear forces. The development of new, updated Russian ICBMs is proceeding rapidly, while new nuclear submarines are already being produced. Also, the Russian government has started work on a new strategic bomber, known as the PAK DA, which reportedly will become operational in 2025. Both Russia and India are known to be working on their own versions of a hypersonic nuclear missile carrier. But, thus far, these two nuclear nations lag behind the United States and China in its development. Israel is also proceeding with modernization of its nuclear weapons, and apparently played the key role in scuttling the proposed U.N. conference on a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East in 2012.

    This nuclear weapons buildup certainly contradicts the official rhetoric. On April 5, 2009, in his first major foreign policy address, President Barack Obama proclaimed “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” That fall, the UN Security Council — including Russia, China, Britain, France, and the United States, all of them nuclear powers — unanimously passed Resolution 1887, which reiterated the point that the NPT required the “disarmament of countries currently possessing nuclear weapons.” But rhetoric, it seems, is one thing and action quite another.

    Thus, although the Iranian government’s willingness to forgo the development of nuclear weapons is cause for encouragement, the failure of the nuclear nations to fulfill their own NPT obligations is appalling. Given these nations’ enhanced preparations for nuclear war — a war that would be nothing short of catastrophic — their evasion of responsibility should be condemned by everyone seeking a safer, saner world.

    This article was originally published by the History News Network.

    Lawrence S. Wittner (lawrenceswittner.com) is Professor of History emeritus at SUNY/Albany. His latest book is a satirical novel about university corporatization, What’s Going On at UAardvark?

  • Avoiding Needless Wars, Part 10: Iran

    Martin HellmanThe interim agreement to freeze Iran’s nuclear program has been praised by some as a diplomatic breakthrough and condemned by others as a prelude to nuclear disaster. A full appraisal must wait until we see what the follow-on agreements, if any, look like. In the meantime, here’s my take:

    1. The only alternative to negotiations is a military strike powerful and sustained enough to not only destroy Iran’s current nuclear program but also to prevent its resurrection. Such actions are impossible in the current political climate — and probably in any environment.

    Domestically, Americans are tired of wars, and our budget is already highly stressed. Internationally, we’ve developed a reputation as a bull in a china shop, so an American attack would be met with howls of indignation. It also would reinvigorate terrorism against Israel as Iran totally unleashed Hezbollah and Hamas.

    A strike which prevented Iran from ever developing a nuclear weapons would not be surgical or short lived and might be impossible. At a minimum, it would require hundreds of thousands of American “boots on the ground” for years on end, and cost trillions of dollars. It probably would cost tens of thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousands of Iranian lives.

    Even with that level of effort, an American invasion probably would fail to achieve its objective since Iran would be a more powerful adversary than either Iraq or Afghanistan, both of which have failed to produce anything that might be called an American victory.

    In 2010, TIME magazine explained why then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates advised against attacking Iran: “Military action, Gates warned, would solve nothing; in fact it would be more likely to drive Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.”

    Gates’ warning was echoed last year by former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. James Cartwright: “If they [the Iranians] have the intent, all the weapons in the world are not going to change that. … They can slow it down. They can delay it, some estimate two to five years. But that does not take away the intellectual capital.”

    Also last year, Yuval Diskin, a former head of Israel’s internal security agency, Shin Bet, warned that, contrary to its intention, attacking Iran might accelerate its nuclear program.

    While a military strike is the only alternative to negotiations, the above arguments show that it is not a viable option. Diplomacy is our only real option, so the question becomes how to practice it most effectively.

    2. Given that diplomacy is our only viable option, we need to recognize that our past negotiating position – and the one Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu is demanding be reinstated – is a non-starter.

    There’s no way Iran will dismantle its centrifuges and the rest of its nuclear program based on American promises of sanctions relief, especially when those promises might be rescinded by a new administration in 2015, over-ridden by Congress, or nullified by an Israeli attack.

    Our broken promises to Gaddafi add to Iran’s mistrust. In 2003, when he gave up his nuclear weapons program, President Bush promised that this good behavior would be rewarded. Yet, in 2011, our airstrikes played a key role in toppling and murdering Gaddafi.

    Iran also mistrusts us because we aided Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War, even though we knew he was using chemical weapons – an action we later used as part of our tortured logic for deposing him.

    For diplomacy to work, we will have to prove that we have experienced a fundamental change of heart with respect to Iran and are prepared to follow through on the promises we make.

    3. Iran appears to be only months away from being able to make at least a crude nuclear weapon. While there’s plenty of blame to go around, Israel and the US need to stop putting all of the onus on Iran and recognize that we, too, played a part in creating the current mess.

    Repeatedly threatening to attack Iran, including with nuclear weapons (a possibility threatened in President Obama’s 2010 Nuclear Posture Review) would have made even the most rational Iranian leaders seek a deterrent. And their leadership over the last 30 years has often been far from rational. Fortunately, the current leadership appears more reasonable, and that’s an opening we need to test. If, instead, we maintain a bellicose posture, we will pull the rug out from under the moderates and empower the hardliners in Iran. Former CIA analyst Paul Pillar recently warned that American and Israeli hawks who mistrust diplomacy may be intentionally trying to strengthen hard-liners in Iran since they, too, oppose diplomacy.

    While our intention was to halt nuclear proliferation, we have actually encouraged it – particularly in Iran and North Korea – with our militarized approach to foreign affairs.

    I don’t like leaving Iran so close to having a nuclear capability, but the alternatives appear  far worse. It’s time to admit that our Iranian policy thus far has been a disaster and try something new – real diplomacy.

    Suggestions for Further Reading

    Harvard’s Belfer Center has a summary of the best arguments both pro and con on the interim agreement.

    Dr. Abbas Milani, Co-Director of the Iran Democracy Project at Stanford’s Hoover Institution has an excellent article assessing Iran’s new president Hassan Rouhani.

    Handout #5 from my Stanford seminar on “Nuclear Weapons, Risk, and Hope” applies critical thinking to North Korea and Iran. All handouts are accessible from my Courses Page.

    This article was originally published by Defusing the Nuclear Threat.

  • Are Nuclear Weapons Really the U.S.’s Instruments of Peace?

    David KriegerThere are serious problems with communications in a society when mainstream media sources, such as the Washington Post, will publish articles touting nuclear weapons as instruments of peace and ignore serious rebuttals.  The Post recently published an op-ed, “Nuclear weapons are the U.S.’s instruments of peace,” by Robert Spalding, a Military Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.  The title really speaks for itself.  The article can be read here.

    I sent a response to the Washington Post in the form of a letter to the editor, but it was not published by them.  My letter, which is under their 200-word limit, sought to point out some of the fallacies in Mr. Spalding’s op-ed.  Here it is:

    “Robert Spalding’s enchantment with nuclear weapons would keep the US prepared to refight the Cold War for decades.  But nuclear weapons do not make the U.S. more secure.  Rather, they make us targets, and they spur nuclear proliferation.   A major nuclear war would destroy civilization and possibly all complex life on the planet.  A regional nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan using 50 Hiroshima-size nuclear weapons each on the other side’s cities would put enough soot into the stratosphere to block warming sunlight, shorten growing seasons, cause crop failures and result in a billion deaths worldwide.

    “Nuclear deterrence is not foolproof because we humans, despite our best efforts, are fallible, as convincingly demonstrated at Fukushima.  Spalding is dead wrong.  It is not only through strength that peace can be obtained; it is also through diplomacy, cooperation, international law and a generosity of spirit in our foreign policy.  Nuclear weapons are illegal, immoral and ultimately uncontrollable.  They are a path not to peace, but to catastrophe.  In our own interests, the US should lead in negotiating their elimination from the planet.”

    Nuclear weapons place at risk everyone we love and everything we treasure.  They have no place in a civilized society, and US leaders should be doing all they can to fulfill our obligation under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to pursue negotiations for their total elimination from the planet.  But this will not happen if the mainstream media provides a one-sided view that “nuclear weapons are the U.S.’s instruments of peace.”  They are hardly that, and our continued reliance upon them will encourage nuclear proliferation and eventually result in nuclear war by accident or design.

  • US Plans Nuclear Missile Test On Day of UN Disarmament Meeting

    Santa Barbara, CA – Just hours after the conclusion of the International Day of Peace on September 21st, the United States conducted a test of an unarmed Minuteman III Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). The missile was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California to the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

    The Air Force has also announced it plans to test another Minuteman III missile in the early morning hours of September 26th.  Later that same day, the United Nations General Assembly will be holding its first-ever High-Level Meeting on Nuclear Disarmament.

    “These tests are acts of arrogance, actually hubris of the highest order,” said David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. He continued, “Instead of participating at the Presidential level in the UN High-Level Meeting, the US is sending its missiles flying. What kind of example of leadership is this from President Obama, a Nobel Peace Laureate who has eloquently stated that America has a ‘commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.’?”

    Krieger further commented, “The UN High-Level Meeting on Nuclear Disarmament offers an exceptional opportunity for US leadership. But will we grasp that opportunity? President Obama should call off the missile test scheduled for September 26th.  He should personally attend the UN High-Level Meeting on Nuclear Disarmament where he can play a constructive role in moving the world toward zero nuclear weapons.”

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    For further comment, contact David Krieger at dkrieger@napf.org or Sandy Jones at sjones@napf.org or (805) 965-3443.

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation — The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s mission is to educate and advocate for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons and to empower peace leaders.  Founded in 1982, the Foundation is comprised of individuals and organizations worldwide who realize the imperative for peace in the Nuclear Age. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is a non-partisan, non-profit organization with consultative status to the United Nations.  For more information, visit www.wagingpeace.org.