"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.
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
