OMNI
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
NUCLEAR ABOLITION NEWSLETTER # 20, October 29, 2016.
OMNI Building a Culture of PEACE, Justice, and Ecology. Compiled by Dick Bennett.
(See #1, June 14, 2007; #2, January 8, 2008; #3
May 16, 2008; #4 June 10; 2009, #5 July
23, 2009, ; #6 Sept. 21, 2009; #7 August 29, 2010; #8 April 11, 2011; #9 August
4, 2011; #10 Feb. 27, 2012; #11 April 4, 2012; #12 June 27, 2012; #13 July 27,
2012; #14 August 11, 2012; #15, Dec. 4, 2012; #16 July 20, 2013; #17 Dec. 17,
2014; #18 Feb. 8, 2014; $19, May 25, 2014)
Imagine a world free
of nuclear weapons, be committed to that goal, join OMNI to strive with others
for that goal. OMNI, a northwest
Arkansas advocacy organization, is part of the international peace, justice,
and ecology movement against the US NATIONAL SECURITY STATE: the CORPORATE-PENTAGON-CONGRESS-PRESIDENT-SECRECY-SURVEILLANCE-IMPERIAL-NUCLEAR Complex.
For eight years,
these 20 OMNI newsletters, related newsletters (Hiroshima/Nagasaki, etc.), the
OMNI Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology (founded in 2001); WAND in Little
Rock; and Little Rock’s Arkansas Center for Peace and Justice have been Arkansas’
sustained resistance to militarism and nuclear weapons, and advocates of the
Nuclear Abolition Movement.
See OMNI’s Related NEWSLETTERS:
Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
August 6/9
Nuclear Abolition Day
June 2.
International Day
against Nuclear Tests August 29.
OMNI NUCLEAR FREE AND INDEPENDENT
PACIFIC DAY AND MARSHALL
ISLANDS
OMNI’s NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL
DAYS PROJECT: Castle Bravo Explosion
60 Anniversary Feb. 28, 2015.
No. 19 at end of this newsletter.
Contents
Nuclear Weapons Abolition #20, 2016
Poem, “Silos”
by Gerald Sloan
Keep Informed
Nuclear Calendar
Organizations
ICAN
NAPF Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
Ground Zero Center vs. Tridents
Three Articles from Ground Zero
Newsletter
Global Zero, Nuclear Abolition
Marshall Islands Nuclear Zero Lawsuits
Council for a Livable World
Roots Action vs. Missile “Defense”
Ploughshares Fund
Critique
Koehler: Militarized,
Nuclear USA Needs a New Vision
Books by Joseph Cirincione
Civil Disobedience
Transform Now Ploughshares Actions
With Allies Like This: UK Nuclear
War Preparation
Call Your Congressmen and the President
Newsletter #19
SILOS
By Gerald Sloan
Some phallic
and shamelessly on display
while
others are secretly tucked away,
they
signify our national obsession
of
preservation versus obliteration.
It's
not like we're allowed to choose
which
silo we would prefer to use,
the
one to house our excess grain,
the other
to drown us in black rain,
as though such
a strange foreign policy
might
somehow resemble democracy.
Partly
nspired by the near-disaster at Damascus in central Arkansas when a Titan II missile
almost exploded, about which a book has been written, Command and Control, and a
new film produced. --Dick
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FEATURED
VIDEO
GROUND ZERO CENTER
GROUND
ZERO CENTER: STOP THE NEW TRIDENTS
SSBN-X
Program for New Trident Fleet Would Ensure a Dangerous World for the Next
Generation
Even though
there has been little coverage of it in the Sun, I am concerned about Navy
plans to continue to deploy nuclear missiles on board a new generation of
Trident submarines, designated SSBN-Xs. Apart from the billions of dollars
slated to be spent on the follow-on to the Trident subs, which take money from
other more worthy programs and needs, the SSBN-X program continues a legacy
whose time has gone. At a time when the United States is leading the way to
ensure that Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon, it is hypocritical of the
country to be forging ahead with a program that will allow it to deploy
first-strike nuclear weapons from hidden submarines for decades to come. At
this year’s NPT review conference, many nations, looking at programs such as
the SSBN-X, were rightfully alarmed and indignant at the U.S.’s blatant disregard for its legal obligation to achieve
nuclear disarmament. Replacing the existing Trident fleet with the SSBN-X
is a step in the wrong direction. As a father, I want to leave my daughter a
world that is better than the one I inherited when I was born at the height of
the Cold War. Which is a better world: one with nuclear-armed submarines ready to
rain fire and radiation indiscriminately at a moment’s notice, or a world in
which such weapons are part of history? I call on our congressional delegation to rethink the SSBN-X program, and to bring
the Trident program to an end.
THREE ARTICLES
FROM GROUND ZERO
THREE ARTICLES FROM THE OCTOBER 2016 NUMBER OF GROUND ZERO (eight total).
SOUTH AFRICA AND KAZAKHSTAN ABOLISHED ITS NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Leonard Eiger. “No One
Should Have Their Finger on the Button: Kazakhstan Shows How Disarmament Can
Happen.” Ground Zero (October 2016).
That South Africa stands as the world's first case of nuclear rollback is well-known (google South Africa’s
nuclear weapons). But you might not
remember Kazakhstan’s remarkable rejection of its nuclear stockpile. On August 29, 1991, Kazakhstan-- the president, Nursultan
Nazarbayev--not only gave up its arsenal of nuclear weapons, but also closed
its nation’s nuclear test site. (For
close-up reporting on US nuclear activities this magazine is very helpful. Its headquarters is near the US Triton
submarines base: see the following
article.)
“There are…far too many nations today,”
Eiger writes, “including our own, that
continue to deploy nuclear weapons in a constant state of readiness, ready to
perpetrate genocide on an unimaginable and horrific scale.” Eiger might have added, and surely an
increasing number of world citizens will add, that this danger of nuclear
planetary, species genocide will soon be matched by the increasing climate catastrophe,
unless fossil fuels are henceforth kept in the ground and massive adaptation
investments are initiated.
Sue Ablao.
“What Else Could We Spend a Trillion Dollars On?” Ground
Zero (October 2016).
“In
the next 30 years, this government is set to spend one TRILLION dollars to replace, upgrade and
maintain these weapons of mass destruction.
In the meantime, our infrastructure is crumbling….” (long list
follows). “So what could one trillion
dollars get us today? Just one example:
Investing in the education sector would create 26.7 million jobs….”
What’s
this? “Over an 18-month period between December
2008 and mid-2010…two hundred cement trucks entered the base every two weeks.” (Hint: military-industrial complex, though not
very helpful given its voracious use of cement.)
Hans M. Kristensen. “Navy Quietly Builds New Underground Nuclear
Weapons Storage Facility.” Ground Zero (October 2016). At a cost of $294 million, the US Navy has
built a new underground nuclear weapons storage complex at Naval Base
Kitsap-Bangor near Seattle. Its estimated 1,300 nuclear warheads possess a
combined explosive power equivalent to more than 14,000 Hiroshima bombs.” The
weapons serve the Tridents submarine base there. Read for storage details. [One question: did the Navy really include “blast-resistant
doors”? 14,000 Hiroshima bombs? Shouldn’t they rather move Seattle to east
of the Rockies? Of course the answer is:
Abolish the Bombs.—Dick]
GLOBAL
ZERO
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MARSHALL ISLANDS NUCLEAR ZERO LAWSUITS
jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/.../nuclear-weapons-abolition-newslett...
Mar 13, 2015 - OMNI. NUCLEAR WEAPONS ABOLITION NEWSLETTER # 21, FOCUS ON MARSHALL ISLANDS LAWSUITS. March 13, 2015.
omnicenter.org/newsletters/2015/2015-03-01.pdf
Mar 1, 2015 - http://www.omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/ For a
knowledge-based peace, justice, ... Dick, Marshall Islands Nuclear Zero Lawsuits. Nuclear ...
www.freeweekly.com/.../morality-and-war-a-new-future-for-all-the-annu...
Aug 3, 2016 - (See OMNI's 2015
Hiroshima-Nagasaki Newsletter: ... With the Marshall Islands facing the rising ocean, U.S. nuclear and warming injury
to innocents ... On April 24, 2014, the RMI filed nine groundbreaking lawsuits at
www.freeweekly.com/.../to-mourn-and-resist-nagasaki-and-hiroshima/
Aug 6, 2015 - Sisters have attended our
Remembrance ever since OMNI began. ... and we publish newsletters and demonstrate
against wars and nuclear dangers. ... MARSHALL ISLANDS LAWSUITS AGAINST THE NUCLEAR NATIONS.
peace818.rssing.com/chan-10348407/latest.php
http://www.omnicenter.org/omni-newsletter-general-index/. Contents
of ... The Abolitionist. Nuclear Zero, Marshall Islands Lawsuits Update July 8, 2015.
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FOLLOW
US:
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Dear Dick,
It only
takes one nuclear weapon to inflict unfathomable destruction. 10 nuclear
weapons would inflict devastation never before seen in human history. 100
nuclear weapons would destroy global civilization.
But
today we have more than 15,000 nuclear weapons across the globe.
Together,
we can keep the world livable.
Sincerely,
John
Tierney, Executive Director
Member
of Congress (former) 2015
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Don't want to donate online? Mail a check made out to the
candidate of your choice to:
322 4th Street NE Washington, DC 20002 | Tel: (202) 543-4100
Council for A Livable World © 2016 All rights reserved. |
No to Missile "Defense"
Sites in Ohio, Mich., NY
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Ploughshares
Fund
www.ploughshares.org/about-us/.../joseph-cirincione
Ploughshares
Fund
Joseph Cirincione is president of
Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation. ... He is the author of the
new book Nuclear Nightmares:
Securing the World Before It ... He is the author of hundreds of articles
on nuclear
weapons issues,
the ...
CRITIQUE
USA , MILITARIZED, NUCLEAR-TARGETING,
GUN-SATURATED, NEEDS A NEW VISION
“Hair-Trigger Alert: On Bombs,
Guns, and the Failure of America” By Robert C. Koehler
'Washington,
we have a problem.' (Photo: Wendy/flickr/cc)
I
feel the finger on the trigger. I also feel it on the button.“Dear President Obama,” the letter begins. It goes on to remind him of something he said in his 2008 presidential campaign: “Keeping nuclear weapons ready to launch on a moment’s notice is a dangerous relic of the Cold War. Such policies increase the risk of catastrophic accidents or miscalculation.”
The letter, from the Union of Concerned Scientists, is signed by 90 scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates. It continues: “After your election, you called for taking ‘our nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert.’”
Presidential campaigns, mass killings, war . . . nuclear war. Washington, we have a problem.
The time has come for extraordinary change. Who we are — this monstrous, planet-destroying entity called America — needs to be decommissioned and reconstructed on a foundation more solid than the present myths of greatness, greed and entitlement. We need a new vision, a manifestation of the moral intelligence that is also part of who we are: a vision of how this nuclear-armed, gun-saturated nation can disarm itself and, in the process, become a force for real peace.
“We urge you,” the scientists write, “to take U.S. land-based missiles off hair-trigger alert and to remove from U.S. war plans the option of launching these weapons on warning. The United States should encourage Russia to follow suit, but it should not wait to act. Taking these steps would have profound security benefits for all Americans by reducing the risk of nuclear disaster.”
I think about this in the context of the Orlando murders and see a gruesome similarity between U.S. militarism and the violent forays of armed loners — and the “concentrated horror” both inflict. The main difference, as far as I can tell, is that the human carnage and environmental destruction resulting from U.S. militarism remain emotionally invisible, you might say, to the American public.
In a powerful essay at TomDispatch, William J. Astore, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, takes a harsh look at the wars we have waged from on high since World War II, noting that “for all its promise of devastating power delivered against enemies with remarkable precision and quick victories at low cost (at least to Americans), air power has failed to deliver, not just in the ongoing war on terror but for decades before it. If anything, by providing an illusion of results, it has helped keep the United States in unwinnable wars, while inflicting a heavy toll on innocent victims on our distant battlefields.”
He adds: “At the same time, the cult-like infatuation of American leaders, from the president on down, with the supposed ability of the U.S. military to deliver such results remains remarkably unchallenged in Washington.”
He points out that in the Korean War, in the early ’50s, the U.S. pounded North Korea with 635,000 tons of bombs and 32,557 tons of napalm. Cities were leveled, but the war ended in no better than a stalemate; more than half a century later, Korea remains a bitterly divided nation.
Then came a decade of war in Southeast Asia. By the time this pointless war ended in dishonorable defeat, the U.S. had dropped, according to Astore, “a staggering seven million tons of bombs, the equivalent in explosive yield to more than 450 Hiroshimas,” on Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. We also poisoned the jungle with defoliants, having given ourselves free rein to commit environmental carnage with horrific consequences well into the unforeseeable future for absurdly limited tactical ends.
It took a decade and a half for the military-industrialists to overcome “Vietnam syndrome,” the public’s weariness of war, but eventually they were able to put Iraq in the crosshairs, devastating the country with bombs and missiles — including munitions made of depleted uranium — over the course of several decades, spreading immediate carnage and long-lasting genetic damage, all of course to no end except endless war.
And the War on Terror, which I call the War To Promote Terror, is still going on 15 years later, with no end in sight. The funding for it is unquestioned and seemingly limitless. The point of it is also unquestioned, except at the social and political margins. It certainly is unquestioned in the 2016 presidential race, especially the winnowed down version of it — Trump vs. Clinton — that’s left. The military-corporate branch of the American government remains well beyond public reach.
And so I think about the Orlando murders and the unending grief they have caused in the context of all the murders the U.S. and its allies and its enemies have committed in the name of war.
And I think about the congressional failure to enact any legislation in regard to the sale of assault weapons in the context of the letter 90 scientists associated with the Union of Concerned Scientists wrote to President Obama, reminding him that before he was president he expressed awareness of the danger of having nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert, and asking him to remove the 450 land-based nuclear missiles (but not the submarine-based missiles) from high alert.
And I wonder at my certainty that the request will be ignored. And I wonder what will happen next.
BOOKS BY JOSEPH CIRINCIONE
https://www.amazon.com/Bomb...Nuclear-Weapons/...
Amazon.com,
Inc.
Editorial Reviews. Review.
Invaluable... [Bomb Scare] ought to be read by everyone as a matter ...
Joseph Cirincione has written a 'must
read' book for students,
scholars, and policymakers alike. He has ... Strengthening the nuclear non-proliferation regime is identified
by Cirincione as the guiding
principle of any such policy.
cup.columbia.edu/book/nuclear.../9780231164047 Columbia University
Joseph Cirincione surveys the best
thinking and worst fears of experts specializing innuclear warfare and assesses the
efforts to reduce or eliminate these ...
books.google.com
› ... › Arms Control Google
Books
Mar 23, 2007 - A unique blend of history,
theory, and security analysis, Bomb Scare not ... the atomic discoveries of the 1930s, Joseph Cirincione unravels
the ...
Since their
inception, nuclear weapons have multiplied at analarming rate, ... JosephCirincione ... Try searching on
JSTOR for other items related to this book.
Rating: 3.5 - 100
votes
With clarity and
expertise, Joseph Cirincione presents an even-handed look at the history of ....
This book contains a useful
brief history of nuclear weapons.
www.ploughshares.org/.../eight-essential-poolside-bo... Ploughshares Fund
Jun 20, 2014 - Nuclear Nightmares: Securing
the World Before It Is Too Late, JosephCirincione. Last, but not least, a book by one of our own, the president
www.acappellabooks.com/.../books/...cirincione/bomb-scare-the-history-...
Item #151954 ISBN:
0231135114 Since their inception, nuclear weapons ... With clarity and expertise, Joseph Cirincione presents an
even-handed look at
www.atomicarchive.com
› Library › Book Reviews
Bomb Scare: The History
and Future of Nuclear Weapons. by Joseph Cirincione. Reviewed November 29, 2007. Book Cover Today's headlines
are filled with ...
CIVIL
DISOBEDIENCE
John LaForge. “U.S. Bows
Out after Plowshares Conviction Is Vacated.”
The Free Weekly (Fayetteville,
AR), 8-27-15. An appeals court
released the three Transform Now Plowshares protesters who poured blood on the
Enriched Uranium facility in Oak ridge, TN, the court throwing out the sabotage
convictions. A negative aspect of the ruling is the exposure of the ignorance
of the court in its distinction between missile and research facility protest:
missile protest is sabotage because it endangers US security. But the US possesses such a plethora of
missiles in its 3 tiers of weapons (450 Minuteman III missiles, dozens of
nuclear-armed B-52 and B-2 bombers, and 14 Trident subs, each armed with 24
missiles, each of which carry five to eight nuclear war heads that can fly
6,000 miles) that the shutdown of one of these components would not diminish
the ability of the US to “incinerate every major city on earth.” John
LaForge is on the
staff of Nukewatch, a nuclear watchdog group based at the Plowshares Land Trust
in Wisconsin, and edits its Quarterly. --Dick
BRITISH NUCLEAR WAR PREPARATION
UK LIBERAL AND LABOR PARTIES BACK AWAY FROM
NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT
Lib Dem conference: Activists reject
'scrap Trident' call
·
21 September 2015
·
From the sectionUK Politics
Image copyrightPAImage captionThe UK currently has four Trident submarines,
which can carry nuclear missiles
Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron has survived a challenge over
defence policy, after the party voted against scrapping Britain's nuclear
weapons.
Some activists at the party conference had called for Trident to
be axed, saying it was expensive and unnecessary.
But Mr Farron urged them not to back the motion, calling instead
for a review to identify alternatives.
His position was endorsed by 579 votes to 447. Mr Farron said he
was "very pleased with the result".
The vote - which was an early test of Mr Farron's leadership -
means the party will vote against the like-for-like replacement of the Trident
system but not endorse unilateral disarmament.
The article I read also by Lawless was about the Labor Party’s
similar hesitation: Jill Lawless, “British Party Drops Bid to Scrap Nukes,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Sept. 28,
2015). Jeremy Corbyn, the new leader of the Labor
Party, who opposes atomic weapons, was defeated in the policy vote especially
by trade union rejection of Corbyn’s proposal because of fear of losing
jobs. Corbyn had said “Britain should
get rid of its ‘ weapon of mass destruction’ and scrap the Trident nuclear
program.”
Contents
Nuclear Weapons Abolition #19, May 25, 2014
Anti-Nuclear
Organizations
Nuclear Abolition Movement, ICAN
WAND in Action
Council for a Livable World
Latest No. of Nukewatch Quarterly
Catholic Opposition to Nuclear Weapons
Transform Now Ploughshares
John Laforge (Nukewatch) on
TNP Protesters’ Release and Ignorance of
Court
Court
The Catholic Worker (May
2014)
Pax Christi
Articles
on Nuclear Weapons, Dr. Strangelove, Radiation
Experiments, and Radioactive Wastes
Marshall Islands Nuclear Zero Lawsuits, http://nuclearzero.org/learn
Wellen on Masco, Nuclear Weapons Scientists
Schlosser, The New Yorker, a
Recent Assessment of Dr. Strangelove
Glenn Alcalay, Radiation Experiments in Pacific , Marshall Islands
Robert Alvarez, US Military Radioactive Wastes
Call Your Congressmen and tell them you want them to work to abolish
nuclear weapons, our only possible safety.
None of the senators or representatives publishes his e-mail
address, but each can be contacted by filling in forms offered through his
website.
Senator John Boozman: (202)224-4843
Website Email: http://www.boozman.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/e-mail-me
Senator Tom Cotton: (202)224-2353
Website Email: http://www.cotton.senate.gov/content/contact-tom
Rep. Rick
Crawford, 1st District: (202)225-4076
Website Email: http://crawford.house.gov/contact/
Rep.
French Hill, 2nd District: (202)225-2506
Website Email: https://hill.house.gov/contact/email
Rep.
Steve Womack, 3rd District: (202)225-4301
Website Email: http://womack.house.gov/contact/
1119 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Washington, DC 20515
3333 Pinnacle Hills, Suite 120
Rogers, Arkansas 72758
Rogers, Arkansas 72758
Rep.
Bruce Westerman, 4th District: (202) 225-3772
President Barack Obama: Comments: 202-456-1111, Switchboard: 202-456-1414
The
White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
For research
purposes, specific subjects can be located in the following alphabetized index,
and searched on the blog using the search box. The search box is located
in the upper left corner of the webpage.
Newsletter Index: http://omnicenter.org/dick-bennetts-peace-justice-and-ecology-newsletters/dicks-newsletter-index/
Newsletter Index: http://omnicenter.org/dick-bennetts-peace-justice-and-ecology-newsletters/dicks-newsletter-index/
END NUCLEAR WEAPONS ABOLITION
NEWSLETTER #20,
