Nuclear Weapons – The Ultimate Evil
Back from the Brink
Critical Analysis, Resources, Updates
Last Updated: 12 September 2018
“We [the family of hibakusha] have stood in solidarity with those
harmed by the production and testing of these horrific weapons
around the world. People from places with long-forgotten names, like
Mururoa,
Ekker,
Semipalatinsk,
Maralinga,
Bikini.
People whose lands and seas were irradiated, whose bodies were
experimented upon, whose cultures were forever disrupted. We were
not content to be victims. We refused to wait for an immediate
fiery end or the slow poisoning of our world. We refused to sit
idly in terror as the so-called great powers took us past nuclear
dusk and brought us recklessly close to nuclear midnight. We
rose up. We shared our stories of survival. We said:
humanity
and nuclear weapons cannot coexist.”
on behalf of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons,
recipient of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize
“Man is stumbling blindly through a spiritual darkness
while toying with the precarious secrets of life and death.
The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power
without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and
ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about
peace, more about killing than we know about living.”
First Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1949-1953
Memorial Day address at Long Meadow, Massachusetts
Critical Analysis
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What are coastal nuclear power plants doing to address climate threats?
As shorelines creep inland and storms worsen, nuclear reactors around the world face new challenges.
by John Vidal, ensia, 8 Aug 2018
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“The Hiroshima
anniversary: 5 things you should know about nuclear weapons today,
Seventy-three years after the first use of the atomic bomb in wartime, commitment to arms control is fading,”
by Michael Krepon, Vox, 6 Aug 2018
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“War Department’s Addiction Crisis: Merchants of Death Peddling Reaching Endemic Proportions,”
by Eli Martin Schotz, M.D., 20 Feb 2018
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“DigBoston Joins Movement To Abolish Nuclear Weapons,”
by Jason Pramas, 30 Jan 2018
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“U.S. Nuclear Posture: Bringing Us Closer to the Brink,”
Leonard Elger, Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, 21 Jan 2018
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“Turning a Blind Eye Towards Armageddon — U.S. Leaders
Reject Nuclear Winter Studies,” by Steven Starr,
Federation of American Scientists /
Global Research, 9 January 2017
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Nagaski & Hiroshima: When Nuclear Weapons Were Used On People
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Nuclear Weapons - The Death Star of Life on Earth
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Life on Earth Hinges on Removing the Nuclear Sword of Damocles
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Expanding the lens – explore a wider field-of-view:
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The American Committee for East-West Accord
From its Mission Statement:
The Committee is new but not without a distinguished predecessor.
Its name derives from The American Committee on East-West Accord,
a pro-detente organization founded in 1974 by illustrious
Americans – among them, CEOs of multinational corporations,
political figures, educational leaders, and policy thinkers such
as George F. Kennan. That Committee, believing cold war had
ended, closed its doors in 1992, though not before being credited
with having contributed to the historic agreements reached by
Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. Bush, and Mikhail Gorbachev
in 1985-1991. Today’s need for something akin to a new
detente is no less imperative. And the new Committee for
East-West Accord, which expects to be joined soon by an affiliated
European branch in Brussels, strives for even more: A conclusive
end to cold war and its attendant dangers.
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Johnson’s Russian List
“the JRL,” has been a favored source of
Russia-related information since it was founded by
Editor-in-Chief David Johnson in 1996. The JRL is a project of
the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES)
at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of
International Affairs.
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Center for Citizen Initiatives
Our world has never faced a more challenging era than today. At
CCI, we experienced one other such dangerous period in 1980.
We flew in between the two enemy nations and dared to try to
understand the challenges on both sides. Our citizen-to-citizen
programs began to soften the environment between the two
Superpowers of that era. Other American groups also got involved.
War was averted and good relations began to grow in the 1990s.
Our vision is: When real people in large numbers get involved,
amazing changes begin to happen! If it happened in the 1980s, it
can happen again. Join us! Let’s help reduce the tensions
existing today between the two Superpowers. We begin our new
mission armed with the knowledge that our original efforts in
1983 produced magic and miracles beyond anything we could have
imagined—and with the belief that 99% of Americans and
Russians genuinely yearn for good relations between our two
nations. There is no problem between the peoples of our
countries. We only need to overcome our distrust and fears, and
rebuild the proper relationships to guarantee security for both
nations.
“[Nuclear deterrence] was our shield, and by extension our sword.
The nuclear priesthood extolled its virtues and bowed to its demands...
Appropriated from the lexicon of conventional warfare, this
simple prescription for adequate military preparedness became in
the nuclear age a formula for unmitigated catastrophe. It was
premised on a litany of unwanted assumptions, unprovable
assertions and logical contradictions.”
commander in chief, US Strategic Command, 1992-94
Address at the National Press Club, Washington D.C.
Resources
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From Symposium: The Dynamics of Possible Nuclear Extinction, New York Academy of Medicine, 28 Feb - 1 Mar 2015:
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“Atomic Energy: Origins Of The Fallacy In A Risk-Free Radiation Dose,”
David Ratcliffe, rat haus reality press, 8 Aug 2016
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“A Century from Now Concrete Will be Nothing But Rubble,” by Alice Friedemann, energyskeptic.com, 19 Jan 2014
“The problem is the iron and steel rebar reinforcement inside
[concrete]. Cracks in cement can be fixed, but when air, moisture,
and chemicals seep into reinforced concrete, the rebar rusts,
expanding in diameter up to seven-fold, which destroys the
surrounding concrete. This will eventually destroy nuclear reactors,
spent nuclear fuel pools, and nearby waste containers.”