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Envision a World without Nuclear Weapons

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Help Prevent US from Starting another Mid-East WAR

May 10, 2019 By Bob Kinsey

President Trump’s march to war with Iran just kicked into high gear. Its about Israel’s fear that Iran might get Nuclear Weapons. OK for them to have though!)

In 2018, the administration’s steps toward war with Iran were unmistakable. From Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from the Iran agreement in spite of Iran’s verifiable compliance, to the reimposition of the full suite of U.S. sanctions lifted under the agreement aimed at crippling Iran’s economy, to national security advisor John Bolton asking the Pentagon for strike options against Iran, the administration wasn’t exactly beating around the bush.

The latest developments, however, should leave no doubt in our minds. The Trump administration wants a war, and soon. We have a path to stop it, but Congress needs to act! Please write your senators and representative today and ask them to support the Prevention of Unconstitutional War with Iran Act.  Tell Congress(Gardner 202-224-5941, Bennet 202-224-5852, Lamborn 202-225-4422) to support the Prevention of Unconstitutional War with Iran Act today!

In April, over strong objections from top Pentagon and CIA officials, the administration took the dangerous and provocative step of designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a branch of Iran’s military, as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO). National security leaders opposed the move because it will do little to hamper the activities of the already-heavily-sanctioned IRGC, while needlessly increasing the risk to U.S. troops in the region. Indeed, their fears were confirmed when Iran reciprocated by designating U.S. Central Command as a terrorist organization, and the U.S. as a state sponsor of terror.

Then last Sunday,

relying on a speculative Israeli intelligence assessment about unspecified Iranian threats to U.S. interests,

John Bolton used the alleged threat and the routine deployment of an aircraft carrier group to the region as an opportunity to threaten Iran with “unrelenting force” should Iran, or any of its proxies, attack U.S. interests in the region. In other words, the administration is expanding the scenarios in which it might attack Iran to include attacks on U.S. interests by Shia militias aligned with Iran, increasing the risk of escalations that could lead to war.

A member of Disabled American Veterans recently wrote a letter to the editor in the New York Times putting our worst fears into words, warning that Trump may intend to use a war with Iran to shore up his reelection campaign. We can’t let that happen.

Tell Congress(Gardner 202-224-5941, Bennet 202-224-5852, Lamborn 202-225-4422) to support the Prevention of Unconstitutional War with Iran Act today!

If all of this gives you a sense of déjà vu, you’re not alone. The Trump administration is building its case for war with Iran with the same dubious narratives of nuclear threats and ties to al Qaeda that brought us the Iraq war. At a recent Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said “There is no doubt there is a connection between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Al-Qaeda. Period, full stop.” Pompeo made that statement in spite of a 2018 study by the New America think tank that found “no evidence of cooperation” between al Qaeda and Iran. When Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) asked Pompeo to rule out using the 2001 war authorization to attack Iran, Pompeo said he’d “prefer to just leave that to lawyers.” And with Iran now reciprocating the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear Agreement by reducing its compliance with the accord, the administration will try to use the specter of an Iranian bomb to drive its case for war home.

The threat of war with Iran is real, but too many people are missing the signs as media reports on the Muller report and Trump’s tax returns bury them in the news cycle. It’s up to us to make sure Congress doesn’t let this White House march us into another catastrophic war of choice.

Please contact your members of Congress today and ask them to support legislation to stop Trump’s march to war with Iran! (Gardner 202-224-5941, Bennet 202-224-5852, Lamborn 202-225-4422)

Thank you for all you do for peace.(Gardner 202-224-5941, Bennet 202-224-5852, Lamborn 202-225-4422)

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Disarmament Quotes

Now, understand, this matters to people everywhere. One nuclear weapon exploded in one city -– be it New York or Moscow, Islamabad or Mumbai, Tokyo or Tel Aviv, Paris or Prague –- could kill hundreds of thousands of people. And no matter where it happens, there is no end to what the consequences might be -– for our global safety, our security, our society, our economy, to our ultimate survival. 

Former President Barack Obama, April 5, 2009

Viewing Trinity Test July 16,1945: "Now we are all Sons of Bitches"

Kenneth Bainbridge Deputy Director

It is my fervent goal and hope…that we will some day no longer have to rely on nuclear weapons to deter aggression and assure world peace. To that end the United States is now engaged in a serious and sustained effort to negotiate major reductions in levels of offensive nuclear weapons with the ultimate goal of eliminating these weapons from the face of the earth. 

Ronald Reagan, October 20, 1986

[T]he use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender. . . . [I]n being the first to use it, we . . . adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.

5-Star Admiral William D. Leahy Chief of Staff to President's Roosevelt and Truman, leader of Combined US-UK Chiefs of Staff during WWII

It is my firm belief that the infinite and uncontrollable fury of nuclear weapons should never be held in the hands of any mere mortal ever again, for any reason. 

Mikhail Gorbachev, 1995

Through the release of atomic energy, our generation has brought into the world the most revolutionary force since prehistoric man's discovery of fire. This basic force of the universe cannot be fitted into the outmoded concept of narrow nationalisms. For there is no secret and there is no defense; there is no possibility of control except through the aroused understanding and insistence of the peoples of the world. We scientists recognise our inescapable responsibility to carry to our fellow citizens an understanding of atomic energy and its implication for society. In this lies our only security and our only hope - we believe that an informed citizenry will act for life and not for death. 

Albert Einstein, January 22, 1947

Over the past 15 years, the goal of elimination of nuclear weapons has been so much on the back burner that it will take a true political breakthrough and a major intellectual effort to achieve success in this endeavor.

Mikhail Gorbachev, January 31, 2007

There are still thousands of warheads loaded on operational systems and standing on high states of alert on virtually hair-trigger posture. And you have to ask yourself: Why is that? Who is the enemy? What is the threat? 

U.S. General Lee Butler Former Commander in Chief, U.S. Strategic Air Command in 1991-92

We endorse setting the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons and working energetically on the actions required to achieve that goal ... 

George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger and Sam Nunn, January 4, 2007

So far as I can see, the atomic bomb has deadened the finest feeling that has sustained for ages. There used to be so-called laws of war, which made it tolerable. Now we know the truth. War knows no law except that of might. The atomic bomb brought an empty victory but it resulted for the time being in destroying the soul of Japan. What has happened to the soul of the destroying nation is yet too early to see... 

Mahatma Gandhi from The Essential Gandhi, Louis Fisher, ed.

“Everything I did at Kings Bay was a result of my faith and my commitment to challenge the idols whose only purpose is to destroy human life on an unimaginable scale. I went to Kings Bay to use my body to refuse to bow down to these idols. I went to try to bring attention to the idolatry that it is requiring of our nation and its people. I went in a spirit of prayer and repentance. I went in hope that this witness might invite other people to reflect on the obscenity and on the idolatry that it is before God.”

Liz McAlister Kings Bay Protestor 2019

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending he sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children...This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron." --spoken to the American Society of Newspaper Editors 1953

Dwight Eisenhower US President 1953-1961

We are prone to self-righteousness if we call ourselves peacemakers, and yet do not perceive how the peace issue cuts through all the economic and social issues that we often try to keep separate. If the race for nuclear arms is encouraged by our fear of losing the affluent ways of life that we have taken for granted, then we must see how our fears and desires have left so many other human beings naked and hungry.

Malsolm Warford "The Church's Role in a Nuclear Age

A world free of the threat of nuclear weapons is necessarily a world devoid of nuclear weapons…. Nuclear weapons pose an intolerable threat to humanity and our habitat…. Others subscribe to Churchill’s assertion ‘Peace is the sturdy child of terror.’ For me, such a peace is a wretched offspring, a peace that condemns us to live under a dark cloud of perpetual anxiety, a peace that codifies mankind’s most murderous instincts….The beast must be chained, its soul expunged, its lair laid waste.

General Lee Butler Former Commander, Strategic Air Command, April 28, 1996

Elimination of nuclear weapons, so naive, so simplistic, and so idealistic as to be quixotic? Some may think so. But as human beings, citizens of nations with power to influence events in the world, can we be at peace with ourselves if we strive for less? I think not. 

Robert McNamara Former U.S. Secretary of Defense

We seek the elimination one day of nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth. 

Ronald Reagan, Inaugural Address, January 21, 1985

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