At 1 PM members of the Colorado Community will Address City Council urging them to pass the below resolution endorsing the UN Treaty to Ban Nuclear Weapons. You are invited to sign on by 12:45 to speak in this regard.
Proposed Resolution for Colorado Springs City Council
September 26, 2019 International dDay for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
Whereas, the United Nations General Assembly has on the table for signature a Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty crafted by the International Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons (ICAN, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient for its efforts) showing that the majority of countries worldwide are ready to end the danger posed by nuclear weapons by starting negotiations for a treaty banning all nuclear weapons,
But whereas the United States Government has been the primary instigator of resistance to this treaty, instead reaffirming in 2016, via the Warsaw Declaration on Transatlantic Security, its NATO commitment to nuclear weapons, and in the Communiqué included a return to cold war style language on nuclear sharing.
And whereas the United States Congress has approved a $1.7 Trillion dollar nuclear weapons “modernization” program, including capacity for cold war levels of new plutonium pit production, when studies show no deterioration in current stockpile of pits, thus demonstrating bad faith with regard to its commitment in the Non-Proliferation Treaty to timely elimination of its own nuclear weapons arsenal,
And whereas the United States is the only nation to have actually used nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not out of necessity to win a Japanese surrender but as a means to show the USSR that the US would dominate events in Post War Europe, (See Gar Alperowitz, “The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb”),
And. whereas the United States has already spent well over $6 trillion dollars over the past 74 years on a nuclear arsenal and yet also spends more than all its so called enemies on other military systems per year,
And, whereas the United States has used the Non-Proliferation Treaty as justification for a war against Iraq, creating huge death and refugee problems including the death of thousands of US service personnel,
and whereas, the US has withdrawn from the Joint Treaty with regard to Iran’s nuclear program, resulting in huge damage to their economic system and a possible preemptive war – again based on questionable facts – in support of Israel’s determination to keep its nuclear weapons superiority in the Middle East.
But, whereas the greatest threat to National and Human security is the Climate Crisis, requiring all levels of government, including the City of Colorado Springs, to immediately commit major resources to carbon emission reduction and to emergency expenses to repair damage and defend against destructive Climate Change Intensified disasters
and whereas the International Court of Justice has said that the possession, threat of use, and use of nuclear weapons is a crime against humanity,
and whereas the City of Colorado Springs supports our military residents –who should not be deployed in ill- conceived wars emanating from a foreign policy based on dominance in “defense” of “US interests”– rather than US commitment to the 1945 United Nations Charter, to work for a world without the “scourge of war” where justice and peace and human rights prevail through a rule of law.
And whereas International cooperative effort to address the Climate Crisis has the potential of uniting humanity and nations in a common cause providing real trust building towards a common peaceful and creative future,
Be it resolved that the Colorado Springs City Council Supports the UN Nuclear Ban Treaty, that our city opposes the renewed spending on the nuclear weapons complex, calls for that money budgeted to be redirected to support local programs that address the Climate Crisis and calls for our nation to rejoin the international community in efforts to reverse Global Warming.
