Former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry has written an OP-ED in today's New York Times: "Why it's Safe to Scrap America's ICBMs"
Perry makes a very reasoned case for dropping this archaic leg of our Unholy Nuclear Trinity/Triad.
The risk of error, he reminds us, is all too great. If the POTUS, in the less than 30 minutes he or she would have to decide to "use 'em or lose 'em" before an incoming strike takes them out, chooses to use them - Error or Not "once launched they cannot be recalled."
Perry warns: "These missiles are some of the most dangerous weapons in the world. They could even trigger an accidental nuclear war."
Think of trying to call back a bullet just fired from a gun!
Perry is being a bit coy in the essay, however, as he is dedicating the rest of his life to the Abolition of these Weapons and their threat to the world and posterity.That would include our possession of the Nuclear Arsenal of Bombers and Trident Subs he offers as reasons to eliminate the ICBMs.
But he realizes that - even as he has warned "Time is running out"- a crucial first step like the elimination of ICBMs is a START.
Perry concludes: "THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY TO WIN AN ARMS RACE: REFUSE TO RUN."
READ NYTS Article
SAVE THE DATE SEC PERRY is scheduled to speak in NYC in October.
ABOLITION IN OUR TIME
"NUCLEAR WAR IS OUR SINGLE GREATEST THREAT." "Nuclear weapons. Nuclear armaments."
"We should end it. Just get rid of it."
So, at first, we think: "Okay!" Finally, a Presidential Candidate, DONALD TRUMP, willing to say that this IS the biggest, most urgent problem facing the world and humanity. A position this Blog has been staking out since it started. Put the problem out there. Make the public aware. Necessary first steps.
Mr. Trump's above statements have done that. MORE: When asked by moderator Lester Holt about the US refusal to pledge a policy of "No First Use/No First Strike" :
"I certainly would NOT do a first strike. Once it happens it's over."
BUT:
"But I can't take anything off the table."
READ NEW YORK TIMES, Today's Article on this Subject
Candidate Trump has also mentioned during the campaign that perhaps South Korea and Japan should develop their own Nuclear Weapons!
Global Zero, one of the leading Nuclear Weapons Abolition organizations, sent out an e-mail to members prior to the debate asking them to ask Lester Holt to raise the Nuclear Threat issue.
Further, Global Zero has now committed itself to an "all out" campaign against Mr. Trump's candidacy, viewing him as "the greatest threat to a Nuclear Weapons Free Future that we have ever had."
Candidate HILLARY CLINTON points out that Mr. Trump's position on the Nuclear Arming of Japan and S Korea would be a violation of our decades-long position of Nuclear Weapons Non-Proliferation
which has been, she states, a cornerstone of US Nuclear Policy.
This, however, ignores the Nuclear Armed Nations' decades-long flouting of Article 6 of the NPT Treaty calling on these nations to dismantle and disarm their Nuclear Arsenals in exchange for all of the other nations of the world promising NOT to develop their own Nuclear Weapons.
A decision on the Defendant Nuclear Armed Nations' Motion to Dismiss the Marshall Islands' Lawsuit against them for violation of the Treaty is expected very soon. CLICK
Today's Blog Title is an appropriate reference to the TV film of 1983: The Day After. It is still the most-watched television film in history. Wikpedia
It depicted and dramatized the U.S. the day after a Nuclear War with the Soviet Union. We know now, thanks to his Diary, that Pres. Reagan was deeply affected by his viewing of this gut-wrenching film.
The film was fueled by and helped to fuel the Nuclear Freeze and Abolition Movements and led Reagan eventually to his historic summit with Gorbachev in Rejkavik with the intention of abolishing the Nuclear weapons threat once and for all.
We CAN still get there. And finish the job! IN OUR LIFETIMES. Precious Time is running through the hourglass of history.
This BLOG is non-partisan. Consistently viewing this Issue as too important and overwhelmingly urgent to be a political football.
The choice is yours. Be knowledgeable. Keep working at it. Never give up! The present and future of our, the world of our children and grandchildren, is at stake. There must be a World left to leave them....
Ask the candidates what their positions are. Press for details. We caught a glimpse of their positions last night. (as contradictory as they may have been)
And don't forget your Senators and House members. They work for us! Demand to know their positions on this burning, urgent issue.
And VOTE accordingly.
THE ONLY GOOD NUKE IS A DISMANTLED ONE
ABOLITION IN OUR TIME
Last night CBS aired a segment "The New Cold War" dealing with "the unthinkable" - "Who has the ultimate power to use NUCLEAR WEAPONS?"
Opening with a "teaser" video of the US SUB Kentucky described in the program as the "deadliest engine of destruction in our Nuclear Arsenal" with almost 200, yes 200! warheads atop its Trident Missiles, with more than 30 times the destructive power of the Hiroshima Bomb, according to its Captain. We watch the crew "practice" the most deadly game - a Launch of its Nuclear Missiles.
LINK WIKPEDIA
The Captain assures us that these Death Dealers can be launched "only by the authority of one person", the President of the United States.
Actually, Not Accurate.
There is a difference worth noting between authority and ability.
Ability also resting with the Vice-President who is followed around by his own personal Nuclear Football Satchel.
And since we are told that much of this is "Top Secret" or "Above Top Secret" (whatever that may mean), we do not know what authority each individual Nuclear Sub Commander has to initiate Launch. For example, if communications fail or are cut off during a crisis or in a time of international tensions....
We are also introduced to "the most powerful man in the military", Admiral Cecil Haney,Commander of US Strategic Command (STRATCOM).
We are shown a digital "Time" board at STRATCOM counting down in minutes and seconds the "Safe Escape Time". The foolhardy notion that the Admiral and his staff have X amount of time to abandon ship, so to speak, in a Nuclear Attack and get themselves to "safety."
As the Admiral must know there is no such thing as safety in a Nuclear Conflict.
Get to "safety" where exactly? Even if he could, where would that leave the rest of us?
We know the answer. To be biblical: "Sackcloth and Ashes".
The Kentucky's Captain states that the Key to launch his World Wrecking Missiles is in a SAFE. In this case, he tells us, only the POTUS has the "combination" to open that safe allowing the Captain to insert the Key and launch massive death and destruction upon targeted nations and cities.
A STRATCOM Officer tries to convince us that "there are some very complex procedures" to be sure that STRATCOM "knows" that it is the POTUS they are talking to or communicating with and not some impostor, terrorist and/or hacker.
.
As computer forensic and security experts have told us and Congress - ANY SYSTEM CAN BE HACKED. So much for certainty.
This leads former Sec of Defense William J Perry to warn us that the President would have less than 10 minutes to decide if a Nuclear Missile launched from a Sub off one of our coasts was an actual attack or some sort of blip or computer error.
The Secretary advises that our Nuclear Weapons, "one thousand ready to go" and on "hair-trigger alert" and in "launch on warning posture", are "sufficient to destroy or obliterate ALL OF civilization."
The CBS correspondent asks Mr. Perry if this is true even now, so long after the Cold War, "STILL?"
"STILL", Perry replies.
LINK to Sec Perry's Website
We are told to tune in "next Sunday" when the segment continues and will deal with "the chance" the President will Launch Nuclear Weapons. The correspondent concludes: "greater than you might think."
What all of us need to grasp is that there may be No Next Sunday. The terrible fact of the existence and destructive capacity of Nuclear Weapons means that they can destroy us all and all future generations AT ANY TIME. They are with us every moment of every day and night. WAITING TO BE LAUNCHED.
Unless, we destroy them first!
ABOLITION IN OUR TIME!
THE ONLY GOOD NUCLEAR WEAPON IS A DISMANTLED ONE!
LINK to "60 Minutes"
Think of our daily lives. What can we do in 12 minutes?
At work, we're taking a coffee break. At school, the kids are eating lunch or enjoying recess.The mailman is delivering letters on our street.
We're running an errand to the store. Running some books over to the library. Putting gas in the car.
Checking our e-mail. Maybe making an on-line purchase.
Taking a nap.
In that same 12 minutes, the President of the United States can take the Nuclear Football with its computer code cards, unlock our "hair-trigger" Nuclear Warheads and launch the war that really will end it all.
WORLD WAR III.
No one will be left - not us, not any future generation - to ever start any war anywhere ever again on what would be left of this earth.
Like his shadow, the bulky satchel follows the President around. The Vice-President is trailed by his own, duplicate, shadow.
There have been so many "close call", "near misses"with the world's Nuclear Weapons Arsenals. Examples:
1979 - Full scale launch against Soviet Union averted at last minute when U.S. Nuclear Weapons operators realize that they are watching a training video and not an actual attack on the U.S.
1996 - Russian President Yeltsin and his military mistake a research rocket launch for U.S. missiles heading for their homeland.
Yeltsin is handed "the football" and is ready to launch when the "error" is discovered.
See Command and Control Book and Upcoming Documentary Film
Any of these "false alarms" could have triggered Nuclear War.
That war which President Ronald Reagan said "can never be won and must never be fought".
Why do we put up with this?!
We do not have to sit by and wait for the inevitable to happen.
But as former Secretary of Defense William J Perry has reminded us, we must take action soon for Time Is Not On Our Side here.
"The indefinite combination of human fallibility and Nuclear Weapons carries a high risk of a potential catastrophe." Secretary of Defense, Kennedy and Johnson administrations, Robert S. McNamara
We cannot continue to allow a small group of "experts" in the Nine Nuclear Armed Nations to make Life and Death Decisions for everyone now living and for future generations yet to be born.
This situation is immoral and unconscionable!
We CAN and MUST do something about it.
100 Scientists (20 Nobel Prize winners) recently sent a letter to Mr. Obama advocating an end to our harrowing "hair-trigger alert" Nuclear Weapons posture.CLICK
SEE Letter
As citizens we can organize demonstrations. See the "Nuclear Freeze" movement's Million Person Gathering in Central Park in 1982.CLICK
AND in this Election Year, with the debates coming up, we can ask the candidates to state their positions on this crucial issue.
AND know your Senators and Representatives positions.
AND then VOTE!
We can support and/or be involved in Legal Movements here and around the world:
The current Marshall Islands Lawsuits against the Nuclear Armed Nations.
The International Humanitarian Pledge Initiative now signed on to by 127 nations demanding a Legal Ban on Nuclear Weapons.
Please read our previous Posts and Links on this issue!
Be informed. Take a position. Act within the Law.
This is still a Democracy. We can make our voices heard. Our opinions count.
"Speak Truth To Power" is not a cliche. It really does work!
(See recent Textron Corp. decision to stop all production of Cluster Bombs).CLICK
It is our weapon of Self-Defense against the most deadly, devastating weapon in history.
ABOLITION IN OUR TIME!
THE ONLY GOOD NUKE IS A DISMANTLED ONE
"OBAMA UNLIKELY TO DROP OPTION OF FIRST STRIKE", "USE OF NUCLEAR ARMS" NYTS, Today, Sept 6, 2016.
Ending his presidential term which he began with a vision of "a world without Nuclear Weapons", Obama has now decided to do nothing at all to forward that hopeful vision!
Instead, he is pulling us backwards into the Cold War by committing our nation and its treasure to the rearmament and rejuvenation, euphemistically called "modernization", of our entire Nuclear Weapons Arsenal.
After consulting with his current crop of "experts" and "advisers", he has decided that he will NOT officially take the No First Use Pledge.
STRIKE ONE!
He had the opportunity to take our deadly, destructive arsenal off "Hair Trigger Alert" - the "de-alerting" option.
This would have reduced the now perilously high risk of mutual miscalculation, accident, malevolent hacking and other possible inadvertent "launches".
Making it likely for a conventional conflict to quickly escalate (see Ukraine/NATO) into a full-blown Nuclear War. US and NATO Nuclear Warheads and Bombs are stashed in Turkey, Italy, Netherlands and Germany.
STRIKE TWO!
Obama had the opportunity to allow the aging, scandal-ridden ICBM complexes buried "across the American West" to die a natural death in their silos, removing them from our unholy Triad Trinity of ICBMs, Trident Subs and Bombers. He will NOT do so.
STRIKE THREE!
He made these terribly misguided decisions after consulting with his "advisers". As noted here before, it has always been a small, unelected, unaccountable group of individuals who have made and are making Life and Death decisions like this for all of us.
There are many experts here and internationally who disagree with Obama's advisers.This includes his former top Nuclear Policy adviser former Gen James E. Cartwright who last month wrote an OP-ED in The Times staking out positions contrary to the President's current crop of advisers. CLICK
We should be morally outraged by these decisions... or rather no decisions since POTUS has left decades of now irrelevant Nuclear War policies in place.
The Times quotes Andrew Weber former Asst Sec of Defense for Atomic Programs under Obama: "The defense complex is doing a full court press."
Follow the $! There are Billions to be made from the "modernization" of our Nuclear Arsenal. Already, several military corporations and contractors are locked in fierce competition for the "new" ICBM contract! CLICK
But despite these setbacks, it is important to take heart and to continue the struggle to End These Weapons In Our Lifetimes.
Former Sec of Def William J Perry, quoted in the article:
"IT'S THE RIGHT TIME" for a "No First Use Pledge".
Perry is conducting a "Time Is Running Out" campaign for Nuclear Weapons Abolition.
The Marshall Islands Lawsuits vs. the Nuclear Armed Nations for violating the NPT, Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty, are still winding their way through the courts of the world.
There is now a Lawsuit vs. the US for providing military aid to a nation (Israel) in violation of the NPT Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty LINK
The "Humanitarian Initiative' has 127 nations aboard calling for an International Convention to Legally Ban Nuclear Weapons.
Since their start last May, these Blog Posts have encouraged "Millenials" to take serious note of what is happening.
It is, after all, the World... or lack of one...that you and your children will inherit.
YOU CAN TAKE ACTION! There are numerous Anti-Nuclear Weapons organizations which you can join including: GLOBAL ZERO and ICAN.
As President Obama stated at Hiroshima last May: "Persistent effort can roll back the possibility of a catastrophe."
His three decisions, if left unchallenged and unchanged, may well lead us from his "World Without Nuclear Weapons" to A World Destroyed By Them.
WE CANNOT LET THAT HAPPEN! ABOLITION IN OUR TIME
CLICK for the Times Front Page Story
