WILLIAM J. ASTORE – Together, it’s time to find an exit ramp from the wars and weaponry highway to hell that we’ve been on since 1953 and look for the on-ramp to President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s highway to peace.
Tag: START Treaty
We Need Another President Kennedy to Avert a Nuclear Catastrophe
DENNIS KUCINICH – President Kennedy held firm for a peaceful outcome in the Cuban Missile Crisis. As a result, Russia removed its missiles from Cuba. The U.S. removed its then-secret nuclear missile base from Turkey and made a commitment not to invade Cuba. Some believe that to fight is to show strength. America’s doctrine of ‘Peace through Strength’ is an invitation to war. Transformed, ‘Strength through Peace’ emphasizes restraint and inner fortitude, which Kennedy demonstrated at a moment of peril. We need another President Kennedy, with the grace, the inner strength and the intelligence to guide us from our contemporary dangerous encounter with potential nuclear catastrophe … to peace. America and the world are more at risk than ever from the threat of nuclear annihilation brought about through mentalities of greed and hubris.
The Pope Is Lining Up to Ban Nuclear Weapons
JOE CIRINCIONE and TOM Z. COLLINA – Under Pope Francis the Catholic church is moving away from Cold War nuclear acceptance faster than Congress and the Obama administration; some people are not going to like this key shift in church doctrine on nuclear weapons.
U.S. Still Preparing for Nuclear War
LAWRENCE S. WITTNER – Nearly a quarter century after the disappearance of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the U.S. government is still getting ready for nuclear war.
From Hiroshima to Fukushima: Approaching the Nuclear Tipping Point
DR. ROBERT DODGE – This week marks the 67th anniversary of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the combined initial death toll of approximately 200,000 and thousands more in the years that followed. As Albert Einstein famously said, “With the dawn of the nuclear age everything changed save [except] our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”
It’s Still the Same Old Story — from Guns to Nukes
LAWRENCE A. WITTNER – The discussion of the Tucson tragedy should be familiar, as we witness similar massacres in U.S. schools, shopping centers, and other public places played out periodically. Each time, the NRA and other gun apologists tell us that the easy accessibility of firearms, including assault weapons, had nothing to do with it. Indeed, they argue that the key to our safety is to obtain more guns. But does the fact that nearly 100,000 Americans are shot with guns and nearly 10,000 Americans are killed with them each year really have no connection to the remarkable availability of guns in the United States?
Will Senate Republicans Torpedo the New START Treaty?
BY LAWRENCE S. WITTNER – As the U.S. Senate prepares to vote this December on ratification of the New START Treaty, Republican legislators appear on the verge of producing an international disaster. From the standpoint of logic, there are excellent reasons to ratify the treaty. This agreement between the U.S. and Russian governments provides that each of the two nations would reduce the number of its deployed strategic nuclear warheads from 2,200 to 1,550.
Is START Really a Beginning?
LAWRENCE WITTNER: Does the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), signed by U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Prague on April 8, really provide a beginning toward a nuclear-free world? That’s what Obama implied in a statement two weeks earlier. Speaking to reporters at the White House, he described the treaty as an historic step toward “a world without nuclear weapons.”
Kremlin Source: New Arms Treaty Ready for Signing
LYNN BERRY: A senior Kremlin official says the United States and Russia have reached an agreement on “all documents” necessary to sign a new nuclear arms treaty.
Text of U.S.-Russia Nuclear Understanding
Here is the actual text of the understanding between the U.S. and Russia. As you can see, there is a lot to be worked out, which I hear is supposed to be done by December. There may be a temporary understanding between the time START expires and when the Senate ratifies in the first quarter of next year. — Paul Kawika Martin, Peace Action.