The Greatest Terror is Nuclear Now More Than Ever

By: Douglas Mattern

While the American people remain focused on the horrific terrorist attack of September 11^th, along with Anthrax and the bombing in Afghanistan, President Bush is getting a free ride on legislation to the detriment of this country and the world.

This includes a new tax bill designed specifically for corporations and the rich, a pay back for their huge campaign contributions. Most damaging is Bush's decision to scrap the ABM Treaty and proceed with the son of "Star Wars" anti-ballistic missile system, officially named National Missile Defense (NMD). Without debate, Congress approved another $8 billion for this project.

Tony Benn, the progressive leader of the Labor Party in England, states:

"The main advocates of this mad scheme are the military industrial complex in the U.S. who fear peace would harm their profits and undermine their sale of weapons around the world."

The primary contractors and lobbyists for NMD are Lockheed-Martin and Boeing, NMD must be stopped because it could ignite a new nuclear arms race as even U.S. allies warn. And while the focus in on the brutal terrorist attack committed on the World Trade Center, the greatest terrorism in our world remains the threat of nuclear weapons.

A decade after the end of the Cold War, both the U.S. and Russia have thousands of nuclear warheads on a hair-trigger alert, ready to launch in a few minutes notice. This is utter madness, a monumental terrorism imposed on humanity by the nuclear powers.

In a recent meeting at the United Nations, Robert McNamara said this combination of launch-on-warning and human error make an inadvertent nuclear war a very real possibility as long as these weapons exist in their current deployment.

Another reason that NMD must be stopped is because it is the first step in the militarization of space. George Friedman, an intelligence consultant and author of The Future of War calls NMD a Trojan Horse, as the real issue is the coming weaponization of space. Here again the armament industry is the cheerleader, seeing weapons in space as the age of unending Pentagon contracts and immense profits.

The U.S. Space Command, which was created by the Pentagon in 1985, issued a document entitled "Vision 2020". This document states how the global economy will widen the gulf between the rich and poor over the coming years, and concludes that the U.S. will need the ability to control space from space in order to dominate the earth below.

In 1999, 173 nations voted to reaffirm the U.N. agreement banning all nations from deploying weapons in space. Only three nations refused: U.S., Israel, and Micronesia.

Surely we have enough sense to stop NMD before it is too late. The space above our planet must be the gateway to exploring space beyond. We must not allow humanity to be imprisoned under an umbrella of orbiting space weapons, perhaps the ultimate terrorism imposed on the world community other than a nuclear war.

The Bush Administration, however, has other plans regarding NMD and nuclear weapons. The president has requested U.S. nuclear scientists to determine how quickly they could restart nuclear testing under the Nevada desert.

This would be in violation of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), but it's clear this administration plans to ignore the CTBT just as it intends to scrap the ABM Treaty.

The U.S. boycotted the recent U.N. conference on speeding ratification of CTBT. In fact, the Bush team forced a vote in the U.N. Committee on Disarmament and Security to demonstrate its opposition to the test ban accord. The U.S. was the only nation to vote against the accord. Russia, China, Britain, France, India, and Pakistan all voted in its favor.

U.N. Secretary General Koffi Annan implored the nuclear powers to bring the CTBT into force, but this plea fell on deaf ears for the U.S. Rebecca Johnson of the Institute for Disarmament and Diplomacy said the American boycott reveals "U.S. contempt for its allies just one day after President Bush said he wanted the world to work together to stop terrorists getting these deadly weapons".

In an effort to get approval from Russia to proceed with the Star Wars project, President Bush is proposing a reduction in the number of strategic nuclear warheads by as much as two-thirds, bringing the level down to around 2,000 for the U.S. and Russia. While any reduction of nuclear weapons is to be supported, both countries would still have far more than enough of these monstrous weapons to destroy civilization many times over.

McGeorge Bundy, advisor to President Kennedy, wrote in 1969 that "In the real world even one hydrogen bomb on one city would be a catastrophe; ten bombs on ten cities would be a disaster beyond history". Just one U.S. Trident submarine can launch 192 nuclear warheads to separate targets.

There are 18 Trident submarines.

A more immediate contribution to the cause of nuclear sanity is to remove all nuclear warheads from the present hair-trigger alert status. This would greately reduce the possibility of a nuclear war starting by accident. However, the U.S. consistently refuses to accept this proposal, nor will the U.S. renounce a "first use" of nuclear weapons policy.

It is clear that the only acceptable goal for all peace, environment, and human rights organizations, and all progressive governments, is to demand the complete elimination of all nuclear weapons. Moreover, this goal must be achieved in the shortest possible time as the nuclear danger increases due to the addition of new nuclear powers (India, Pakistan, and Israel), other wannabe nations, and, of course, the possibility of terrorists acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Another reason for immediate action is the current state of Russia's nuclear arsenal. Russian expert Steven Cohen says we are moving into a "world more dangerous than ever before. For the first time in history, a fully nuclearized nation is in a process of collapse. The result is potentially catastrophic". Cohen reports that Russia's early warning system, along with its nuclear maintenance and control, is in a state of disintegration.

Ending terrorism, whether by groups of fanatics, or the larger terrorism of state warfare and the possession of nuclear weapons, requires a new commitment and cooperation between nations, including the involvement of peace organizations and other NGO's, and most important, a much stronger role for the United Nations.

We need to accept that the only security possibile in the world of the 21^st century is common global security system. The UN Security Council must be freed from the stranglehold of veto power, and provided with the authority and the ability to settle disputes between nations and peoples (and deal with terrorists) through the framework of world law.

As President Kennedy expressed in his speech before the UN General Assembly on September 25^th, 1961:

"To destroy arms is not enough. We must create even as we destroy... creating worldwide law and law enforcement as we outlaw worldwide war and weapons..."

President Eisenhower said the same:

"The world no longer has a choice between force and law, if civilization is to survive, it must choose the rule of law."

Mikhail Gorbachev recently stated:

"I believe the United Nations Security Council should take the lead in fighting terrorism and in dealing with other global problems... It's time to stop reviling the UN and get on with the work of adapting the institution to new tasks."

Our greatest challenge remains the elimination of nuclear weapons. The incentive and the will for this historic goal will not come from the nuclear powers due to all the political and economic implications that drive national policy. It must come from people, acting as responsibile Citizens of the World, and joining together in a global movement that grows to sufficient strength to force a our governments to end this madness. It is our world and our children's future - and we have no time to lose.