Nuclear Are Peace Foundation & WagingPeace.org – 2017-02-16 23:20:03
http://org2.salsalabs.com/o/6357/p/dia/action3/common/public/
ACTION ALERT: Trump: “I Want To Do
The Right Thing for the American People”
Nuclear Are Peace Foundation & WagingPeace.org
(February 16, 2017) — At a press conference today, President Donald Trump said, “I want to do the right thing for the American people, and to be honest, secondarily, I want to do the right thing for the world.” Trump said this in the context of US-Russian relations, and immediately referred to each country’s massive nuclear arsenal. He also stated, “Nuclear holocaust would be like no other.”
Nuclear weapons put civilization and the human species at risk of annihilation, which is why we published an open letter to Presidents Trump and Putin in The Hill about this very issue early this morning. The open letter calls on the two leaders to negotiate for the total elimination of nuclear weapons.
The letter was signed by:
NAPF President David Krieger,
NAPF Senior Vice President Richard Falk,
Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams,
MIT Professor Emeritus Noam Chomsky,
NAPF Distinguished Fellow Daniel Ellsberg,
Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire, and
CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin
The letter states in part:
“Your nuclear arsenals give each of you the power to end civilization. You also have the historic opportunity, should you choose, to become the leaders of the most momentous international collaboration of all time, dedicated to ending the nuclear weapons era over the course of a decade or so.
This great goal of Nuclear Zero can be achieved by negotiating, as a matter of priority, a treaty to ban and eliminate nuclear weapons.”
We think that President Trump should do “the right thing for the American people, and . . . for the world” – to negotiate for the complete abolition of all nuclear weapons worldwide. Will you join us in this important effort?
ACTION: Click here to add your name and join them.
THE LETTER
Open Letter to Presidents Trump and Putin
This may be the most dangerous time in human history.
In a dramatic recent decision, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has moved its iconic Doomsday Clock ahead from three minutes to only two-and-a-half minutes to midnight.
Humankind faces two existential challenges of global and potentially apocalyptic scope: nuclear weapons and climate change. Our focus here is on nuclear dangers, but we strongly encourage you, Presidents Trump and Putin, to undertake in a spirit of urgency all necessary steps to avert further global warming.
As the leaders of the United States and Russia, the two countries with the largest nuclear arsenals, you have the grave responsibility of assuring that nuclear weapons are not used — or their use overtly threatened — during your period of leadership.
The most certain and reliable way to fulfill this responsibility is to negotiate with each other, and the other governments of nuclear-armed states, for their total elimination.
The US and Russia are both obligated under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to engage in such negotiations in good faith for an end to the nuclear arms race and for complete nuclear disarmament. Your success in this endeavor would make you heroes of the Nuclear Age.
Initiating a nuclear war, any nuclear war, would be an act of insanity. Between nuclear weapons states, it would lead to the destruction of the attacking nation as well as the nation attacked. Between the US and Russia, it would also destroy civilization and threaten the survival of humanity.
There are still nearly 15,000 nuclear weapons in the world, of which the United States and Russia each possess some 7,000. Approximately 1,000 of these weapons in each country remain on hair-trigger alert — a catastrophe waiting to happen that could be prevented with the stroke of a pen.
If nuclear weapons are not used intentionally, they could be used inadvertently by accident or miscalculation. Nuclear weapons and human fallibility are an explosive combination, which could at any moment bring dire consequences to the US, Russia and the rest of humanity.
The world would be far safer by negotiating an end to policies of nuclear first-use, hair-trigger alert and launch-on-warning. Further, negotiations need to be commenced on the phased, verifiable and irreversible elimination of nuclear weapons.
Nuclear deterrence presupposes an unrealistic view of human behavior if projected over time. It depends on the willingness and ability of political leaders to act with total rationality in the most extreme circumstances of stress and provocation. It provides no guarantees of sustained security or physical protection. It could fail, spectacularly and tragically, at any moment.
The further development and modernization of nuclear weapons by the US, Russia and others, and the proliferation of nuclear weapons to other countries, would make for an even more dangerous world.
It is important for the sake of regional peace and the avoidance of future nuclear confrontations to uphold the international agreement that places appropriate limitations on Iran’s nuclear program, an agreement that has the support of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany.
Your nuclear arsenals give each of you the power to end civilization. You also have the historic opportunity, should you choose, to become the leaders of the most momentous international collaboration of all time, dedicated to ending the nuclear weapons era over the course of a decade or so.
This great goal of Nuclear Zero can be achieved by negotiating, as a matter of priority, a treaty to ban and eliminate nuclear weapons.
We, the undersigned, implore you to commence negotiations to reduce the dangers of a nuclear war, by mistake or malice, and immediately commit your respective governments to the realizable objective of a nuclear weapons-free world.
It would be the greatest possible gift to the whole of humanity and to all future generations, as well as of enduring benefit to the national and human security of Russia and the United States.
