Gayle in MD
04-11-2010, 10:48 AM
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> Robert ScheerVeteran Journalist and Editor of Truthdig.com
Posted: April 7, 2010 04:13 AM
<span style='font-size: 26pt'>
At last, a believable sighting of that peace president many of us thought we had elected. Give Barack Obama credit, big time, for the startling progress he has made in tempering the threat of nuclear annihilation.</span>
The Obama administration's Nuclear Posture Review Report for the first time prohibits "first use" of nuclear weapons against nations complying with the nonproliferation treaty. It also pledges a halt to U.S. efforts to modernize such weapons, as had been proposed by then-President George W. Bush in his call for new nuclear "bunker busters."
Whereas his predecessor succeeded only in eliminating the nonexistent Iraqi nukes, this president has forged a treaty with the Russians that will reduce the world's supply of the devil's weapons by one-third. But it was essential to follow that up with a clear departure from the always-insane policy that the U.S. has a right to develop and use such weapons as conventional tools of war.
That is the right that Harry Truman acted on in perpetrating the most atrocious act of terrorism in world history when he annihilated the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That is what spawned the nuclear arms race that so troubles us today, especially regarding North Korea and Iran.
Yet until Tuesday no American president had renounced the immoral claim that our nation had some God-granted right to use those weapons again. While we consistently insisted it was morally repugnant for any other state to follow in our footsteps, we continued to build ever deadlier versions of these intrinsically heinous weapons.
But that madness ended when Obama on Tuesday affirmed an all-important distinction that Bush, more than any other president, had insisted on blurring--the distinction between nuclear and all other weapons, including the chemical and biological varieties. Lumping them together as weapons of mass destruction denies the global life-ending threat that nukes alone present.
Ironically, the most important section of Obama's strategy statement, instantly attacked by his knee-jerk critics, could help fulfill the penultimate goal of Ronald Reagan. Because of Obama's declaration that the "United States will not develop new nuclear warheads ... or provide for new [nuclear] military capabilities" there is now a plausible case to be made for anti-missile defense. Reagan always insisted that his Strategic Defense Initiative program was a means toward nuclear arms cuts and ultimately the abolition of these horrific implements of mass death. But SDI could be properly criticized as a cover for aggression unless we cut the arsenals as opposed to refining and expanding them.
In his historic meeting with then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Reagan embraced the goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons--just as Obama did in his April 2009 speech in Prague. It is a position that commends itself to all who honestly confront the threat these weapons pose to human existence. We have indulged the luxury of not confronting that ultimate horror because of the time that has passed since the explosion of those now relatively small nuclear bombs over Japan. As Henry Kissinger puts it in the documentary "Nuclear Tipping Point," which was screened at the White House on Tuesday night: "Once nuclear weapons are used, we will be driven to take global measures to prevent it. Why don't we do it now?"
The answer is that we have become inured to the danger and lulled into accepting these weapons as usable implements of war, an attitude reflected in Tuesday's reaction by Arizona Republican Sens. Jon Kyle and John McCain, who in a joint statement denounced Obama's policy as limiting the nuclear "option." They repeated the old canard that nuclear weapons are a legitimate choice in response to a non-nuclear threat.
That will be the line of those who oppose the Senate's ratification of the new START agreement with Russia and the long-overdue passage of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. If they win in that debate there is no serious possibility of progress in preventing the further proliferation of nuclear weapons and breaking the death wish of those who still toy with the idea that such weapons are legitimate. Those in the peace movement who think Obama should have gone further in his efforts to put the nuke genie back in the bottle should tread carefully here. Instead of demanding perfection, they should be gratified that we finally have a president who has at least laid down some important markers of progress.
After decades of both Republican and Democratic administrations indulging the absurdity that "nuclear war fighting" could have a humane outcome, Obama has reversed course. It took 150 meetings, including 30 at the White House, and the president's frequent direct intervention. The outcome is a bold statement of nuclear sanity, and for that President Obama should be applauded.
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<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Hans BlixUN arms inspector for Iraq from 2000 to 2003
Posted: April 5, 2010 01:33 PM
STOCKHOLM -- The financial crisis and global warming have had the world's attention in recent years. Thanks to President Barack Obama's initiative, perhaps the season for nuclear disarmament has finally arrived.
On April 8, President Obama is scheduled to meet Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Prague to sign a nuclear arms control agreement between the U.S. and Russia that will reduce their arsenals by 30 percent.
The new U.S.-Russian treaty will be received positively. There will be praise for the Obama administration's attitude to arms control and disarmament and for Russia's readiness to join hands with the U.S.
However, welcome as it is and as a significant signal of future cooperation, the new treaty is a relatively modest disarmament measure.
Though not achieving the drastic cuts in nuclear arsenals and delivery vehicles that the world is longing for, the U.S.-Russian treaty is important and encouraging.
<span style='font-size: 26pt'>Coming after Bush administration policies that nearly sent the two states into a new Cold War, the new treaty constitutes the resetting of an important button. It preserves arrangements for confidence-building mutual inspections and sets the stage for negotiating more far-reaching cuts.</span>
We should be aware, however, that a next step of deeper reductions will hardly be attainable unless there is agreement on extensive cooperation on missile defense. Russia is deeply suspicious that the missile shield could enable the U.S. to launch an attack on any target in Russia while itself remaining immune to any such attacks. Further bilateral disarmament will also be impeded if Russia feels that the NATO alliance seeks to encircle it by expanding its military cooperation through membership or otherwise with more states neighboring Russia.
The April 8 signing will take place one year after President Obama's presentation in Prague of a detailed program for the revival of global nuclear arms control and disarmament. Later in April, he will be the host in Washington of a large summit meeting that will focus on nuclear security. In May, the operation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty will be the subject of review at a conference in New York in which nearly all governments in the world will take part. The review that took place in 2005 ended in acrimony and some predicted the end of the treaty. How will it turn out in May?
Through adherence to the NPT that was concluded in 1970, states have committed themselves to stay away from nuclear weapons or to move away from these weapons. If all states had joined and fulfilled their commitments, the treaty would have led by now to a world free of nuclear weapons. They have evidently not done so. The number of nuclear weapons peaked at more than 50,000 during the Cold War, and it is still over 20,000 -- most of them in the U.S. and Russia. The number of states with nuclear weapons has gone from five to nine since 1970.
There is also frustration at the lack of progress on many important items relevant to the treaty. For instance, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty has not entered into force because the U.S., China and a number of other states have not ratified it. The negotiation of a convention prohibiting the production of enriched uranium and plutonium for weapons remains blocked at the Geneva Disarmament Conference. The Additional Protocol of the IAEA for strengthened safeguards inspections remains unratified by a large number of states, including Iran.
Some items are bound to attract much attention in May. One is that 20 years after the end of the Cold War, the obligation of five nuclear weapon states parties under article VI of the NPT to negotiate toward nuclear disarmament has not led us anywhere near zero. Another grievance -- especially among Arab states -- is that Israel has refrained from adhering to the treaty and acquired nuclear weapons. A third is that the treaty was violated by several states. Although Iraq and Libya have been brought into compliance, North Korea has not and Iran and perhaps others might aim at ignoring the treaty.
As everyone knows, views on Iran's program for the enrichment of uranium have long been divided and they are likely to remain divided at the NPT conference.
There are many reasons for suspecting that the aim of Iran's enrichment program is the development of a nuclear weapon in breach of NPT obligations or, at least, to move close to the ability to make a weapon. This has already resulted in a dangerous increase of tension in the region.
Why has it not been possible so far to persuade Iran to abandon or suspend the enrichment program? While there is a right under the NPT for parties to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, there is certainly no obligation to use this right.
It is hard to avoid the impression that the approach to Iran has often been high-handed and clumsy. Iran has been told that negotiations about a variety of benefits would be open but only on the condition that the enrichment program first be suspended. Who gives up a trump card before the game? President Obama has had the good sense of authorizing direct talks without any precondition. These talks are now stuck but should be resumed.
States developing nuclear weapons have mostly done so for perceived security reasons and for status. When Iran allegedly began its enrichment program in the 1980s, it might have rightly perceived Iraq as a future nuclear threat. With that threat gone, how wise has it been for the U.S. and Israel to float the idea of bombing Iran's enrichment facilities?
Would it not be wiser to offer diplomatic relations and guarantees against armed attacks/subversion as a part of a nuclear deal? This was done in the case of North Korea. Why not in the case of Iran?
The NPT review conference will hardly enter into these questions, but it will probably discuss how the concept of a Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction can be taken up for consideration. Such a zone could well be designed so as to facilitate ventures to use nuclear power for electricity generation or desalination of water, perhaps even on a regional basis.
However, to reduce tensions in the region, the concept needs to exclude from the whole zone not only nuclear weapons but also plants for the enrichment of uranium and reprocessing of plutonium.
In the last few years, the appeals have intensified for government policies aiming, as the NPT does, to free the world from nuclear weapons. In January 2007, former U.S. Secretaries of State George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry and former Sen. Sam Nunn published an article in which they reminded the U.S. and the world that the Cold War was over. They argued that if the U.S., Russia and others continued to see nuclear weapons as necessary for their security, others would see the same thing and proliferation would result. They urged that the U.S. and Russia should take the lead in a long process that would eventually result in a nuclear weapon free world.
Their plea has had a broad and strong response in the world. While focusing on many near-term measures, such as the current deal, Obama and Medvedev jointly espoused the long-term aim of full disarmament in a declaration in London in April 2009.
Is this long-term aim naive and utopian? Not necessarily. Between 1910 and 1945 the world experienced two world wars and a collapsed League of Nations. Much could happen between 2010 and 2045. Interdependence is rapidly accelerating and forcing states to show regard for each other's security interests. For the moment, however, there is only a hopeful start on a long journey.
Hans Blix headed the International Atomic Energy Agency from 1981 to 1997 and was the chief UN arms inspector for Iraq from 2000 to 2003. Since 2003, Blix has headed the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission and heads the advisory board on the nuclear program of the United Arab Emirates.
This post was crossposted with permission from the GLOBAL VIEWPOINT NETWORK.
</div></div>
Posted: April 7, 2010 04:13 AM
<span style='font-size: 26pt'>
At last, a believable sighting of that peace president many of us thought we had elected. Give Barack Obama credit, big time, for the startling progress he has made in tempering the threat of nuclear annihilation.</span>
The Obama administration's Nuclear Posture Review Report for the first time prohibits "first use" of nuclear weapons against nations complying with the nonproliferation treaty. It also pledges a halt to U.S. efforts to modernize such weapons, as had been proposed by then-President George W. Bush in his call for new nuclear "bunker busters."
Whereas his predecessor succeeded only in eliminating the nonexistent Iraqi nukes, this president has forged a treaty with the Russians that will reduce the world's supply of the devil's weapons by one-third. But it was essential to follow that up with a clear departure from the always-insane policy that the U.S. has a right to develop and use such weapons as conventional tools of war.
That is the right that Harry Truman acted on in perpetrating the most atrocious act of terrorism in world history when he annihilated the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That is what spawned the nuclear arms race that so troubles us today, especially regarding North Korea and Iran.
Yet until Tuesday no American president had renounced the immoral claim that our nation had some God-granted right to use those weapons again. While we consistently insisted it was morally repugnant for any other state to follow in our footsteps, we continued to build ever deadlier versions of these intrinsically heinous weapons.
But that madness ended when Obama on Tuesday affirmed an all-important distinction that Bush, more than any other president, had insisted on blurring--the distinction between nuclear and all other weapons, including the chemical and biological varieties. Lumping them together as weapons of mass destruction denies the global life-ending threat that nukes alone present.
Ironically, the most important section of Obama's strategy statement, instantly attacked by his knee-jerk critics, could help fulfill the penultimate goal of Ronald Reagan. Because of Obama's declaration that the "United States will not develop new nuclear warheads ... or provide for new [nuclear] military capabilities" there is now a plausible case to be made for anti-missile defense. Reagan always insisted that his Strategic Defense Initiative program was a means toward nuclear arms cuts and ultimately the abolition of these horrific implements of mass death. But SDI could be properly criticized as a cover for aggression unless we cut the arsenals as opposed to refining and expanding them.
In his historic meeting with then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Reagan embraced the goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons--just as Obama did in his April 2009 speech in Prague. It is a position that commends itself to all who honestly confront the threat these weapons pose to human existence. We have indulged the luxury of not confronting that ultimate horror because of the time that has passed since the explosion of those now relatively small nuclear bombs over Japan. As Henry Kissinger puts it in the documentary "Nuclear Tipping Point," which was screened at the White House on Tuesday night: "Once nuclear weapons are used, we will be driven to take global measures to prevent it. Why don't we do it now?"
The answer is that we have become inured to the danger and lulled into accepting these weapons as usable implements of war, an attitude reflected in Tuesday's reaction by Arizona Republican Sens. Jon Kyle and John McCain, who in a joint statement denounced Obama's policy as limiting the nuclear "option." They repeated the old canard that nuclear weapons are a legitimate choice in response to a non-nuclear threat.
That will be the line of those who oppose the Senate's ratification of the new START agreement with Russia and the long-overdue passage of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. If they win in that debate there is no serious possibility of progress in preventing the further proliferation of nuclear weapons and breaking the death wish of those who still toy with the idea that such weapons are legitimate. Those in the peace movement who think Obama should have gone further in his efforts to put the nuke genie back in the bottle should tread carefully here. Instead of demanding perfection, they should be gratified that we finally have a president who has at least laid down some important markers of progress.
After decades of both Republican and Democratic administrations indulging the absurdity that "nuclear war fighting" could have a humane outcome, Obama has reversed course. It took 150 meetings, including 30 at the White House, and the president's frequent direct intervention. The outcome is a bold statement of nuclear sanity, and for that President Obama should be applauded.
</div></div>
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Hans BlixUN arms inspector for Iraq from 2000 to 2003
Posted: April 5, 2010 01:33 PM
STOCKHOLM -- The financial crisis and global warming have had the world's attention in recent years. Thanks to President Barack Obama's initiative, perhaps the season for nuclear disarmament has finally arrived.
On April 8, President Obama is scheduled to meet Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Prague to sign a nuclear arms control agreement between the U.S. and Russia that will reduce their arsenals by 30 percent.
The new U.S.-Russian treaty will be received positively. There will be praise for the Obama administration's attitude to arms control and disarmament and for Russia's readiness to join hands with the U.S.
However, welcome as it is and as a significant signal of future cooperation, the new treaty is a relatively modest disarmament measure.
Though not achieving the drastic cuts in nuclear arsenals and delivery vehicles that the world is longing for, the U.S.-Russian treaty is important and encouraging.
<span style='font-size: 26pt'>Coming after Bush administration policies that nearly sent the two states into a new Cold War, the new treaty constitutes the resetting of an important button. It preserves arrangements for confidence-building mutual inspections and sets the stage for negotiating more far-reaching cuts.</span>
We should be aware, however, that a next step of deeper reductions will hardly be attainable unless there is agreement on extensive cooperation on missile defense. Russia is deeply suspicious that the missile shield could enable the U.S. to launch an attack on any target in Russia while itself remaining immune to any such attacks. Further bilateral disarmament will also be impeded if Russia feels that the NATO alliance seeks to encircle it by expanding its military cooperation through membership or otherwise with more states neighboring Russia.
The April 8 signing will take place one year after President Obama's presentation in Prague of a detailed program for the revival of global nuclear arms control and disarmament. Later in April, he will be the host in Washington of a large summit meeting that will focus on nuclear security. In May, the operation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty will be the subject of review at a conference in New York in which nearly all governments in the world will take part. The review that took place in 2005 ended in acrimony and some predicted the end of the treaty. How will it turn out in May?
Through adherence to the NPT that was concluded in 1970, states have committed themselves to stay away from nuclear weapons or to move away from these weapons. If all states had joined and fulfilled their commitments, the treaty would have led by now to a world free of nuclear weapons. They have evidently not done so. The number of nuclear weapons peaked at more than 50,000 during the Cold War, and it is still over 20,000 -- most of them in the U.S. and Russia. The number of states with nuclear weapons has gone from five to nine since 1970.
There is also frustration at the lack of progress on many important items relevant to the treaty. For instance, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty has not entered into force because the U.S., China and a number of other states have not ratified it. The negotiation of a convention prohibiting the production of enriched uranium and plutonium for weapons remains blocked at the Geneva Disarmament Conference. The Additional Protocol of the IAEA for strengthened safeguards inspections remains unratified by a large number of states, including Iran.
Some items are bound to attract much attention in May. One is that 20 years after the end of the Cold War, the obligation of five nuclear weapon states parties under article VI of the NPT to negotiate toward nuclear disarmament has not led us anywhere near zero. Another grievance -- especially among Arab states -- is that Israel has refrained from adhering to the treaty and acquired nuclear weapons. A third is that the treaty was violated by several states. Although Iraq and Libya have been brought into compliance, North Korea has not and Iran and perhaps others might aim at ignoring the treaty.
As everyone knows, views on Iran's program for the enrichment of uranium have long been divided and they are likely to remain divided at the NPT conference.
There are many reasons for suspecting that the aim of Iran's enrichment program is the development of a nuclear weapon in breach of NPT obligations or, at least, to move close to the ability to make a weapon. This has already resulted in a dangerous increase of tension in the region.
Why has it not been possible so far to persuade Iran to abandon or suspend the enrichment program? While there is a right under the NPT for parties to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, there is certainly no obligation to use this right.
It is hard to avoid the impression that the approach to Iran has often been high-handed and clumsy. Iran has been told that negotiations about a variety of benefits would be open but only on the condition that the enrichment program first be suspended. Who gives up a trump card before the game? President Obama has had the good sense of authorizing direct talks without any precondition. These talks are now stuck but should be resumed.
States developing nuclear weapons have mostly done so for perceived security reasons and for status. When Iran allegedly began its enrichment program in the 1980s, it might have rightly perceived Iraq as a future nuclear threat. With that threat gone, how wise has it been for the U.S. and Israel to float the idea of bombing Iran's enrichment facilities?
Would it not be wiser to offer diplomatic relations and guarantees against armed attacks/subversion as a part of a nuclear deal? This was done in the case of North Korea. Why not in the case of Iran?
The NPT review conference will hardly enter into these questions, but it will probably discuss how the concept of a Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction can be taken up for consideration. Such a zone could well be designed so as to facilitate ventures to use nuclear power for electricity generation or desalination of water, perhaps even on a regional basis.
However, to reduce tensions in the region, the concept needs to exclude from the whole zone not only nuclear weapons but also plants for the enrichment of uranium and reprocessing of plutonium.
In the last few years, the appeals have intensified for government policies aiming, as the NPT does, to free the world from nuclear weapons. In January 2007, former U.S. Secretaries of State George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry and former Sen. Sam Nunn published an article in which they reminded the U.S. and the world that the Cold War was over. They argued that if the U.S., Russia and others continued to see nuclear weapons as necessary for their security, others would see the same thing and proliferation would result. They urged that the U.S. and Russia should take the lead in a long process that would eventually result in a nuclear weapon free world.
Their plea has had a broad and strong response in the world. While focusing on many near-term measures, such as the current deal, Obama and Medvedev jointly espoused the long-term aim of full disarmament in a declaration in London in April 2009.
Is this long-term aim naive and utopian? Not necessarily. Between 1910 and 1945 the world experienced two world wars and a collapsed League of Nations. Much could happen between 2010 and 2045. Interdependence is rapidly accelerating and forcing states to show regard for each other's security interests. For the moment, however, there is only a hopeful start on a long journey.
Hans Blix headed the International Atomic Energy Agency from 1981 to 1997 and was the chief UN arms inspector for Iraq from 2000 to 2003. Since 2003, Blix has headed the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission and heads the advisory board on the nuclear program of the United Arab Emirates.
This post was crossposted with permission from the GLOBAL VIEWPOINT NETWORK.
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