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Envision a World without Nuclear Weapons

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Remembering August 6-9

July 1, 2019 By Bob Kinsey

The 74st anniversary of the only use of nuclear bombs is upon us. President and retired General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower was shocked by their use, saying that he was not taught to conduct war in such a manner. US military leaders and theologians condemned its use (the theologians saw it as a sin). Gar Alperowitz’s study, “The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb”, clearly documents that the US leadership knew Japan was ready for surrender months before August 6. There is strong evidence that we used the bomb not to defeat Japan but to send a message to Stalin that the US would dominate the post war world.

“One World or None” (available in the Pike’s Peak Library) contains 15 essays written by scientists who developed the bomb including Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr as well as by Gen “Hap” Arnold who commanded the US Army Air Force bombing campaign against mainland Japan and Walter Lippmann, foremost conservative political writer at the time. All agreed there needed to be an international rule of law enforced by an international body to eliminate nuclear weapons. They believed a nuclear arms race would lead to disaster.

At the end of the Cold War, 25 years ago, Air Force General and commander of Strategic Air Command, “Lee” Butler said that the world narrowly escaped a civilization destroying, planet destroying holocaust by sheer luck or the grace of God. Having examined US Nuclear Weapons Policy and Targeting he judged that both super powers had worked themselves into a state of paranoid fear leaving the world awash in weapons and delivery systems. He believed and still believes they have to be eliminated.

Some have argued that the nuclear arms race deterred the world from another world war but, in fact, millions have been killed in regional conflicts, proxy wars, civil wars and special ops by “intelligence” organizations with conventional weapons sold or given them by the superpowers. By the end of the Cold War the US alone had squandered over 5.5 Trillion dollars of the world’s wealth creating this monstrous nuclear arsenal. Such a sum might have been spent addressing human needs, creating a more just world, creating an International Police to enforce International Law in order to prevent further cruel war and violence.

Those who profit from war and preparations for war and those who celebrate national sovereignty, competition for wealth between nations (races and religions) have managed to turn the best intentioned leaders from hoped for nuclear disarmament. The US refuses to ratify the International Treaty to Ban Nuclear Weapons . Here in Colorado, we have about 40 nuclear armed Minuteman missiles in launch on warning status (less than 20 minutes). A great deal of the Colorado Economy is military spending based.   And finally, in contradiction of Article 6 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty  (wherein the United States pledged to abolish its nuclear weapons) we are budgeting  well  over a Trillion more dollars over 20 years to “modernize” our nuclear weapons arsenal with more “useable” nukes. The US refuses to declare a “No First Use” policy.

US foreign policy selectively condemns other nations’ (Iraq, Iran and N. Korea) nuclear programs, but winks at Israel’s large nuclear arsenal (while supporting Israel’s illegal and immoral occupation in Palestine.) It accuses Russia of violations of nuclear treaties (i.e. Intermediate Range weapons) while pushing the NATO nuclear forces closer to Russian Borders. Isn’t it time for a mental health check? The real threat to our national security and planetary security is the Climate Crisis which will require major cooperation among nation-states in the name of human survival. To quote a famous non-violent peacemaker, “Those who live by the sword shall die by the sword.”

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Filed Under: Perspective Tagged With: Hiroshima, ICAN, US Nuclear Policy

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Disarmament Quotes

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.

"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

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

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

“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

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

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

[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

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

Ronald Reagan, Inaugural Address, January 21, 1985

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

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

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

Kenneth Bainbridge Deputy Director

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

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

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