NEWSNUCLEAR WEAPONS

Last week, two Libyan pilots were ordered to bomb civilian protesters by Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. They faced an unimaginable choice: bomb their countrymen or face likely execution if they returned without carrying out the attacks. Instead, they found a third option - flying their planes out of Libya and defecting to the nearby island nation of Malta. In doing so, they saved the lives of untold numbers of their fellow Libyans.

But ever since Malta's Refugee Commissioner Mario Guido Friggieri and other government officials have refused to say whether they will give these pilots asylum.

An international "Contact Group" of dozens of countries and global organizations has been created to support the shift from an Afghan war strategy to an Afghan peace strategy.

As previously reported on Change.org, this momentous event in the progress of peace in Afghanistan has already been diligently underway for months, but has left observers very confused.

No one is clear about what a "Contact Group" actually is or does, but among its members are United Nations, the European Union member-states and NATO. Having more countries and their resources invested in the peace process will hopefully help it along, but too many cooks in the kitchen can also become a hindrance.

There are a couple of surprise invitees in the group. One is the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), which rarely makes the Western press despite representing more than 50 nations and promoting Muslim solidarity worldwide. The OIC wasn't present at the first Contact Group meeting held in Rome last week.

The second invitee, however, was. That country is Iran.

It is one of the great ironies in the history of American domestic politics and foreign policy: the champion of the START (Strategic Arms Reduction) Treaty, which heralded the formal nuclear disarmament process between the US and the USSR, was none other than Republican President Ronald Reagan.

By the time the START Treaty was implemented late in 2001, over 80 percent of the nuclear weapons that existed when it was signed were eliminated. It remains the largest disarmament treaty ever put into effect, and for this reason alone Reagan deserves a special place in the history of peace, regardless of what his detractors or devotees think of him and his self-titled ideology. Recognizing and continuing the decades of work of anti-nuclear activists in the U.S. and abroad, without whose vigilance and pressure START wouldn't have been initiated, is also in order.

But we cannot give the same praise to Reagan's presidential or political party successors, and if nothing is done soon the world is likely to witness the end of the START Treaty - the single greatest instrument of nuclear disarmament in the world - and with it a golden opportunity to reduce the country's balloooning national deficit and high-strung international tensions.

The most consequential U.S. mid-term elections in recent memory will be held three weeks from today. As candidates from both parties and the occasional independent bombard you with negative ads against their rivals, and partisan commentators try to persuade you to swing or stay their way, there's a simple alternative you can turn to in making your informed choice if you care about the peace and prosperity of our country, and the world.

Peace Voter 2010 is this election year's installment of an initiative that has been ongoing since 1996, informing and mobilizing Americans to vote for candidates who support peace work domestically and globally as a key path to shared prosperity. Organized by one of the country's largest and most respected peace and disarmament groups, Peace Action, the grassroots campaign provides training to local activists and concerned citizens based on critical analysis of candidates' positions on peace and disarmament issues unavailable anywhere else.

Sixty billion dollars. Anyone who secures a deal for that much would go down in business hall of fame. But anyone who gets that much for selling weapons is an arms dealing warmonger of historic significance, worse than a gang member who sells another a revolver a few million times over. President Obama today authorized an arms deal for that much to Saudi Arabia, fueling an arms race with Iran and making Cold War arms races seem like a rotten appetizer to a poisonous main course that's still to come.

The secret negotiations for the record arms deal have apparently been ongoing since 2007, before Obama was President. However, this in no way excuses him for signing off on the weapons sale, which he has the authority to shut down immediately, aimed at shoring up Arab allies in the Persian Gulf against Russia-backed Iran. In its notification to Congress, the Obama Administration authorizes "the Saudis to buy as many as 84 new F-15 fighters, upgrade 70 more, and purchase three different types of helicopters – 70 Apaches, 72 Black Hawks and 36 Little Birds," the Wall Street Journal reported.  With Israeli nuclear subs already stationed in the region, it will be a miracle historians will debate for decades if World War III doesn't start there, and soon. Just what a Nobel Peace Prize winner should do, right?

President Obama still hasn't started the direct talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il that he controversially promised during his campaign two years ago. But that's not stopping a 13-year-old American from doing just that, solo and on his own initiative.

If ever there was meant to be a cause célèbre for the pursuit of peace with North Korea and delivering its people from their suffering under the evermore severe economic sanctions we are imposing, this is it. And it's a captivating and unique story worth spreading to inspire youth peacebuilding worldwide, still largely untapped. This, at a time when tensions between the nuclear-aspiring, China-aligned North Korea and U.S.-aligned South Korea are at a high, which many fear may make the Cold War's first proxy war in the 1950s make a nuclear comeback.

The teenager's name is Jonathan Lee, he lives in Mississippi but was born in South Korea. Yesterday, he left for the North Korean capital Pyongyang with his parents to deliver a simple but potent peace request to Kim Jong-il. They received the rare travel visas to the country the night before, despite the fact the U.S. still has no diplomatic relations with the country, and four Americans have been detained or imprisoned this year for trying to get into the country illegally.

At the 65^th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city of Hiroshima, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon became the first Secretary to attend an official memorial service in Japan, speaking about the urgency to “free [the world] of weapons of mass destruction.” Joining him were representatives from well over 70 countries, including — another first — the United States, along with a regular attendee of this annual ceremony: the governing body of the Catholic Church (a.k.a the Vatican).

For the last six-and-a-half decades, representatives of the 1.1 billion-member Catholic Church (which includes 22% of the U.S. population) have spoken consistently against the development of, use of, and threatening political posture regarding nuclear weapons. While not always singling out nuclear weapons, the Catholic Church’s position in modern times has consistently been the same for all weapons that pose a threat to civilians and society.

Before I continue, understand that this article is not meant as an apology, and I want to recognize that many may (fairly) ask, “Why should we care?” particularly the non-Catholic. To answer this, let us ‘take the religion out of the Church,’ and recognize that the sheer international influence that this organization (that outnumbers many countries in population) has — with regard toward its membership — should be reason enough. Secondly, let us recognize the power that this influence has on international political entities, being that the Church’s position on any number of topics does affect — or reflect — the opinion of many nations’ citizenry. If for these reasons alone, it makes sense to give due respect for the Church’s efforts, small or large, and hope that their efforts continue to bolster the anti-nuclear movement as a whole.

The first nuclear weapon used in an act of hostility happened 65 years ago on Friday, and the last one 65 years ago this coming Monday.

The Obama administration, among other world leaders, chose to send a delegate to the Hiroshima memorial service, which set off a flurry of apparent outrage in the United States. Consistent among the tweets, blogs and article commentary by the ‘pro-nuke’ crowd — expressed almost solely from conservative individuals and political groups — one would readily recognize the American narrative for President Truman’s decision to drop nuclear bombs on two major cities in Japan: they attacked us first, we had to end the war, and dropping ‘the bomb’ was the only way to make Japan truly surrender, which saved millions of American lives. This attack on urban centers with such a destructive weapon is even tied to being ‘a moral choice.'

Clearly at odds here is the perception of necessity in destroying the two cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the declassified reports or expressed sentiment by key leaders that demonstrate that neither the nuclear bombs, nor an invasion force, were necessary as Japan’s surrender was already possible. Their condition for surrender: that we allow their emperor to remain, which we agreed to anyway.

However, this is nothing new, and if one decides to challenge their misconception, it as simple as a trip to the library, a bookstore, or Google (for the time-constrained). Sure, I could go on lecturing about this, but I feel that holding this misconception is perhaps the least offense of the expressed ‘outrage,’ and that the real beast in our hearts is the devaluation of the lives destroyed in these attacks.

You may have played this game before: a glass jar is full of jelly beans, and you have to guess how many are in it to win the cash prize. Except this time, you guess how many nuclear weapons the U.S. still has, and your prize is becoming a person more knowledgeable about how government wastes money and resources during a Depression on weapons that aren't used, and can annihilate all life on our planet.

For the first time in U.S. history, the Obama administration has revealed just how many nuclear weapons our country has in its stockpile, once highly classified information. Cause to celebrate? Not so fast. Ironically, the announcement came at a recent UN conference on nuclear disarmament, the primary aim of which was to curb Iran's nuclear program. Talk about kicking the feet out from under any moral high ground. Has the suspense for the magic number been built up enough yet? I think not.

In an all-around despicable verbal dueling match, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tried to portray the other country's nuclear capabilities as a threat to international security. Both were right, of course, but the way they went about making their cases in the world's spotlight shows to what extent diplomacy between the two has been reduced to infantile bickering. So much for the direct talks President Obama promised, with more sanctions on Iran resulted. Note, too, that there are reports of a new Israeli-Saudi-German-U.S. nuclear strike plan on Iran in place.

Marking the 65th anniversary of the first atomic bomb explosion (at Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945), the Academy Award-winning producer of the mass awareness-raising megahit An Inconvenient Truth is coming out with a new and equally provocative documentary film.

Countdown to Zero, directed by Lucy Walker and produced by Lawrence Bender, premiered at the Sundance film festival to rave reviews, opened in select theaters this past weekend, and will be presented in theaters nationwide this coming Friday, July 23rd. What can you expect?

The same eye-opening-take-action-now response from some, "duh we know this already" from others, and "these guys are radicals who ought to be shot" from still others, as with An Inconvenient Truth. The diversity and intensity of responses are what separate good from great documentaries, and those who worked on these two are among the best in the industry, without question.

Seeing the movie is sure to be a transformative experience for all, and one can only hope that Countdown to Zero will have the same or even more galvanizing effect worldwide, creating as much buzz about and action on nuclear disarmament as An Inconvenience  Truth did on climate change. Here's the trailer, after the jump.