nuclear-news

Nuclear weapons may they rust in peace

 Deterrence is infinitely more obsolete on the basis that using nuclear weapons makes a military victory virtually impossible; they lead only to omnicide.

Something new and vital is germinating from our long winter of death-induced fear….
non-governmental organizations around the world are working for common values: Non-violent political structures, environmental sanity, gender equality, and universal human rights.

Someday soon this collective affirmation that we are one human family will thoroughly dissolve the perceived need for nuclear weapons. May they rust in peace.

Are We Dead? Nuclear Policy and the Zombie Apocalypse http://www.huntingtonnews.net/51649, December 15, 2012   BY WINSLOW MYERS “….. Why? Computer models suggest that the detonation of a remarkably small number of nuclear weapons from today’s arsenals—doesn’t matter whose—would raise enough toxic soot and ash into the atmosphere to shut down world agriculture for a decade.  In effect, such a detonation would be a death sentence for us all. All.

No less a pitiless realist than Henry Kissinger has stated that he tried to make foreign policy with these weapons and found it impossible. Henry Kissinger now works for abolition.

Even a “limited” nuclear war risks planetary annihilation. A one-sided nuclear attack risks a similar fate. If India and Pakistan get into a nuclear war and use their combined 210 nuclear bombs, we are all dead. If Israel uses a few too many of its weapons, we are dead.

Deterrence is already obsolete, in the sense that it will do nothing to stop a determined extremist from smuggling a nuclear weapon to ground zero of a target. Deterrence is infinitely more obsolete on the basis that using nuclear weapons makes a military victory virtually impossible; they lead only to omnicide.

So, why is the United States planning to waste up to $352 billion (!) in the next decade to renew its nuclear weapons program? Why are we
not leading the charge to abolish all nuclear weaponry, reciprocally
and gradually with other nations, by negotiation if possible,
unilaterally if necessary? Unilateral abolition to set an example,
build trust, because we realize it is in everyone’s best interest;
because there is no other logical, sane alternative.

Are we so dead in spirit that we are numbly, helplessly going to wait
for the mass physical death that will come when somebody,
somewhere—and eventually they will—makes a fatal mistake?  Or can we
citizens affirm life by nonviolent means—anything else is a
performative contradiction—by educating, by running candidates, by
petitioning, by demonstrating?

I want to hear, clearly, the justifications of the leaders, the
arguments, the case for the relationship between nuclear weapons and
increased security. No citizen, to my knowledge, asked either
presidential candidate why the U.S. and Russia still have any
ballistic missiles targeted at each other on high alert—25 years after
the end of the cold war—and why they retain some 18,000 of these
godforsaken weapons between them.  That did not seem like a neutral
omission; it seems more like an active symptom of psychic dysfunction.
We look down upon North Korea with pity, a nation and people in the
grip of mass militaristic psychosis. Time to take the beam out of our
own eye before we judge the mote in another’s.

Can we awaken from our trance? Can we admit to ourselves the radical
shift in our environment that has taken place, where the environmental
and military policies in one country determine the air quality in
another? What does that shift do to the concept of having an enemy? I
depend for my survival upon my enemy….  No wonder there is so much
fascination with zombies and vampires, the walking dead. Does their
half-deadness mirror something deep within us all?

Something new and vital is germinating from our long winter of
death-induced fear. As Paul Hawken has said, millions of
non-governmental organizations around the world are working for common
values: Non-violent political structures, environmental sanity, gender
equality, and universal human rights. Someday soon this collective
affirmation that we are one human family will thoroughly dissolve the
perceived need for nuclear weapons. May they rust in peace.
http://www.huntingtonnews.net/51649

December 17, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general