Marylia Kelley / Alliance for Nuclear Accountability – 2006-06-20 23:14:58
PLEASE, READ, CALL CONGRESS AND PASS THIS ON….
Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) has introduced Amendment 4267 to the Defense Authorization Bill, which is designed to encourage the President to “unsign” the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
If the US should remove its signature from the CTBT, it would open the way to resume nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site and signal to other states that they should begin preparations to resume testing also.
This would send a message to the rest of the world that the Bush Administration’s foreign policy will continue to be one of going it alone, withdrawing from treaties, rejecting the positions of our strongest allies and planning to build new nuclear weapons. Action:
• Call your Democratic Senators and ask them to oppose the Kyl Amendment 4267. Express your strong objection to the amendment and urge them to speak out against it.
• Target is all Democratic Senators and only these Republicans:
Collins (R-ME),
Snowe (R-ME),
Chaffe (R-RI),
Gordon Smith (R-OR),
DeWine (R-OH),
Hagel (R-NE),
Warner (R-VA),
Lugar (R-IN),
Spector (R-OR)
(Californians — please call both
Senator Dianne Feinstein and
Senator Barbara Boxer)
• Capitol Switchboard: 202.224.3121
• Time Frame: Immediately and through June 23.
Background — with a few talking points:
Repudiation of the CTBT would have far-reaching and adverse effects on US relations with its allies, and its nuclear non-proliferation goals. Although the Senate refused to formally ratify the CTBT in 1999, US leaders have made a promise to our allies that, as a signatory to the CTBT, the United States will respect the treaty’s basic purpose.
The Kyl Amendment is another effort to break our promises to work with our allies to prevent nuclear proliferation and reduce nuclear weapons dangers. President Kennedy, September 25, 1961:
“Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us . . . The logical place to begin is a treaty assuring the end of nuclear tests of all kinds . . .”
Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, John M. Shalikashvili, said in 2001:
“The Test Ban Treaty is important to US security because it plays to our strengths: our superior conventional military forces; our wealth of knowledge from over a thousand nuclear tests, more than half the world’s total; our advantage in stockpile stewardship capabilities; and our leadership of like-minded nations seeking to prevent the further spread of nuclear weapons.
“Perhaps more than any other nation, the United States would be negatively affected by an erosion of the international consensus on the importance of nuclear non-proliferation, by the spread of nuclear weapons to additional countries or terrorist groups, or by a perception that nuclear weapons are instruments that could be readily used in regional conflicts.”
President Eisenhower declared on May 29, 1961:
“. . . [not achieving a nuclear test ban] would have to be classed as the greatest disappointment of any administration — of any decade — of any time and of any party…”
This alert was drafted by the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, a national network of organizations, including Tri-Valley CAREs, whose members live around Dept. of Energy nuclear weapons facilities and dump sites.
Marylia Kelley is Executive Director Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment) 2582 Old First Street Livermore, CA USA 94551. (925) 443-7148 – Fax: (925) 443-0177.
