The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists says ”It is Now 5 Minutes to Midnight.”

It should come as no surprise that this respected organization has moved the clock (on January 10th) an inch closer to the witching hour.  It is black magic, indeed, that causes the clock to inch closer to midnight.  As described on their Website:

The Doomsday Clock conveys how close humanity is to catastrophic destruction–the figurative midnight–and monitors the means humankind could use to obliterate itself. First and foremost, these include nuclear weapons, but they also encompass climate-changing technologies and new developments in the life sciences that could inflict irrevocable harm.

Just two years ago The Bulletin spoke hopefully as it set the clock back one minute (away from Midnight) saying,”We are poised to bend the arc of history toward a world free of nuclear weapons.” That tempered enthusiasm was rooted in negotiations between Washington and Moscow for a follow-on agreement to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, along with ongoing negotiations for further reductions in the U.S. and Russian nuclear nuclear arsenals.  There were also “pockets of progress” addressing climate change.

Yet, in just two years those hopes quickly faded as it has become evident that nations, in particular the United States and Russia, are not only hesitant to disarm, but are re-arming at an alarming rate; not much of an example for the rest of the world. As for climate change, it is clearly evident that Nero fiddles even while Rome burns.  As The Bulletin summarizes the situation:

  The challenges to rid the world of nuclear weapons, harness nuclear power, and meet the nearly inexorable climate disruptions from global warming are complex and interconnected. In the face of such complex problems, it is difficult to see where the capacity lies to address these challenges.

The Bulletin’s Doomsday Clock is in a very real sense a prophetic voice, a clarion call to all who will listen.  And listen we must, or turn away at humanity’s peril.  The longer we put off facing these issues, the greater the probability that the clock will once again start ticking,moving closer to midnight. 

In 1953 the clock reached 2 minutes to midnight, the closest in its history, after the U.S. tested its first thermonuclear bomb.  In its 1953 statement The Bulletin said:

Only a few more swings of the pendulum, and, from Moscow to Chicago, atomic explosions will strike midnight for Western civilization.

Disarmament is obviously not forthcoming from the halls of The White House, Congress or the Pentagon (or the Kremlin for that matter).  It is up to We The People to rise up and demand good faith efforts toward disarmament, and of course simultaneous efforts to control global proliferation and move all nations toward a nuclear weapons free world.  It is time to re-energize the global movement toward that goal.

It is time to shout out in every capital city,

“Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Never Again!!!”

Peace,

Leonard

Read the announcements at The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists:

Doomsday Clock Moves 1 minute closer to midnight

Doomsday Clock moves to five minutes to midnight

Read the timeline of the Doomsday Clock: http://thebulletin.org/content/doomsday-clock/timeline

The front page of today’s Seattle Times is embazoned with the headline:

“Why are we doing this [building another Explosives Handling Wharf at Bangor]? We’re spending a whole lot of taxpayer money on a Cold War relic,” Rogers said in an interview. “All we are doing is making defense contractors rich.”

Nuclear power and nuclear weapons are inextricably linked in many ways. They both produce ionizing radiation that, when released into the environment, exposes people to a wide variety of radioactive isotopes. Some are extremely short-lived, while others exist for countless lifetimes. One thing they all share? When they enter the body they act at the cellular level, causing damage, potentially to the cell’s genetic material, and even at low exposure levels present some risk of a wide variety of effects.

Over a period of more than 66 years – through releases of radioisotopes to the environment from both nuclear power generation (routine operations and accidents) and nuclear weapons production and testing – vast quantities of radioisotopes have accumulated around the globe, creating a captive population of human guinea pigs.

However, “science” has not always been practiced as would be expected (of ethical scientists) throughout the nuclear age.  The U.S. government has pursued a policy of nuclear power and nuclear weapons at all costs, and for many decades has sought to pacify the public, convincing it that there are no measurable risks from the production of nuclear power.  Most recently we have been told (by people who obviously know better) that nuclear power is a “green” form of energy – aah, greenwashing at its best (or should I say worst).

For an excellent uncovering of the thin facade that perpetuates the myths of radiation safey, read  Science with a Skew: The Nuclear Power Industry After Chernobyl and Fukushima, by Gayle Greene, just published in The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 10, Issue 1 No 3, January 2, 2012.  Just as with Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, Greene pulls back the curtain to reveal the ugly truth behind the great facade of the nuclear power-weapons complex.

Even as the Fukushima disaster is already being largely forgotten by the mainstream news media, Greene reminds us of decades of deceit and obsfucation regarding the risks of radiation related to both nuclear power and nuclear weapons, focusing on a variety of subplots including the Chernobyl disaster, which has been mostly ignored by mainstream media, and has given barely a mention in news reports about Fukushima.  As Greene reminds us:

Chernobyl is a better predictor of the Fukushima consequences than Hiroshima, but we wouldn’t know that from mainstream media. Perhaps we would rather not know that 57% of Chernobyl contamination went outside the former USSR; that people as far away as Oregon were warned not to drink rainwater “for some time”; that thyroid cancer doubled in Connecticut in the six years following the accident; that 369 farms in Great Britain remained contaminated 23 years after the catastrophe; that the German government compensates hunters for wild boar meat too contaminated to be eaten – and it paid four times more in compensation in 2009 than in 2007. Perhaps we’d rather not consider the possibility that “the Chernobyl cancer toll is one of the soundest reasons for the ‘cancer epidemic’ that has been afflicting humankind since the end of the 20^th century.”

Skewed science is not science at all.  Rather, in the case of all things nuclear, it is simply a propaganda tool of a government narrowly focused on policies that, rather than serving humanity, serve the narrow interests of the nuclear industry and the national security state.  It is up to the people to speak out and challenge the lies, and material like Gayle Greene’s investigative reporting is extremely valuable in our task.  Future generations deserve a sustainable, nuclear-free world.

Toward a nuclear-free world,

Leonard

Note: source URL for Greene’s article: http://japanfocus.org/-Gayle-Greene/3672

Rose Gottemoeller, the chief negotiator of the treaty with Russia, has a post on The Hill today celebrating the anniversary and the major victory for arms control the Senate vote represents:

This great bipartisan effort is paying big dividends now in strengthening U.S. national security. … The New START Treaty entered into force on February 5th of this year and immediately entered implementation. It is going very well.

Our experience so far demonstrates that the New START Treaty is enhancing our national security by building predictability and stability between the United States and Russia, still the world’s two largest nuclear powers. We are also setting the stage for the future, since new nuclear reductions will build on the success of New START and the innovations we are putting in place as we implement it.

Earlier this fall, the State Department released the latest totals of the deployed nuclear warheads restricted by the treaty.


This is down 178 from the 1968 strategic warheads that the US had deployed in May of 2010, according to the Federation of American Scientists.

In less than a year the process has been moving pretty quickly, with US warheads already approaching the 1700 limit of New START. This is a great sign, and reinforces our position that the State Department should start another round of negotiations with Russia ASAP to lower the limits much sooner than the treaty’s current expiration date of 2021.

So, here’s one more thank you and congratulations from me to you, for everything you did to help us flip 13 Republicans and achieve a decisive victory for arms control and nuclear disarmament. Have a Happy Birthday, New START!

First – The U.S. has never conducted serious, open discussions and negotiations with Iran.  The political baggage from a long history of U.S. meddling (installing and supporting the Shah) followed by the 1979 overthrow of the Shah and the hostage crisis of the same year are too deeply embedded in our exceptionalist conscience to allow us to act objectively.  Instead, the U.S. continues to pursue an endless succession of sanctions, which only serve to strengthen Iran’s resolve.

Second – The media’s misreading of the IAEA’s report on Iran’s nuclear weapons activities along with its parroting of inflammatory statements coming from The White House only serve to fan the flames of what could become nuclear flames should Israel go nuclear at some point should war break out (if Israel were to attack alleged nuclear sites in Iran). 

I strongly suggest reading the following article by Greg Thielmann and Benjamin Loehrke in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists that provides an objective perspective on the IAEA’s report on Iran’s nuclear program.  You can also read it below.  Chain reaction: How the media has misread the IAEA’s report on Iran, published November 23, 2011 in The Bulletin’s online edition.

When you are done reading the article, please forward it to the editor of your local newspaper, and then go to the Just Foreign Policy action page and tell President Obama to conduct real negotiations with Iran.  Let’s try nonviolent conflict resolution for a change (and for our future).

Peace,

Leonard

*****************
By Greg Thielmann and Benjamin Loehrke | 23 November 2011

When, earlier this month, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released a report on Iran’s nuclear program, several media agencies and politicians walked away with two messages: that the Vienna-based agency now refutes past estimates of the US intelligence community, and that Iran is now making a break for the bomb. Both representations are false. Yet these assertions have been repeated often enough to give them traction with the public and Congress.

Most analysts familiar with the report agree that there “is nothing in the report that was not previously known by the governments of the major powers” — a nuclear Iran is “neither imminent nor inevitable.” While it is clear that Iran’s continuing research on nuclear weapons is a serious concern for international security, there “has been no smoking gun when it comes to Iran’s nuclear weapons intentions.”

So why the conflicting analyses over a highly bureaucratic and technocratic paper?

Washington talks a lot, but does not read very much. That is the simplest way to explain why commentators overlook the consistency between the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran and the latest IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear program.

The 2007 NIE on Iran made the headline-grabbing, high-confidence assessment that, in fall 2003, Iran halted its nuclear weapons program (as distinct from its uranium enrichment and ballistic missile programs). Additionally, the NIE said:

We also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons. …

We judge with high confidence that the halt lasted at least several years. (Because of intelligence gaps discussed elsewhere in this Estimate, however, [the Energy Department and the National Intelligence Council] assess with only moderate confidence that the halt to those activities represents a halt to Iran’s entire nuclear weapons program.)

We assess with moderate confidence Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007, but we do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.

That is remarkably consistent with the IAEA’s latest report, which noted:

[Iran's nuclear weapons effort] … was stopped rather abruptly pursuant to a “halt order” instruction issued in late 2003 by senior Iranian officials. According to that information, however, staff remained in place to record and document the achievements of their respective projects. … The agency is concerned because some of the activities undertaken after 2003 would be highly relevant to a nuclear weapon programme.

The NIE left open the possibility that Iran could continue its weapons-relevant activities. With four years of additional perspective, the latest IAEA report gives greater detail on the weapons work that Iran did prior to 2003, then updates the available information on what lesser work occurred after 2003. The new activities included:
•Engaging in experimental research, after 2003, on hemispherical initiation of high explosives.
•Further validation, after 2006, of a neutron initiator design.
•Conducting modeling studies, in 2008 and 2009, that could determine the yield of a nuclear explosion.

Carrying on scattered research activities does not amount to a full-fledged restart of an integrated weapons program. That type of activity still appears to have halted in 2003. The activities since seem more like Iran is refining its previous understanding of nuclear weapons design — not breaking for a bomb.

Hence, in explaining the latest classified NIE on Iran released in March of this year, James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, told the Senate Armed Services Committee:

We continue to assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons in part by developing various nuclear capabilities that better position it to produce such weapons, should it choose to do so. We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.

Clapper’s testimony was in keeping with the recent IAEA report, which added considerable detail to the sanitized summary of the 2007 NIE.

The IAEA’s

Moreover, sharing the information with the public on the conclusions reached is vital to informing ongoing debate. The IAEA deserves credit both for the quality of its analysis and for sharing its expert opinions with the wider public on these critical issues — particularly since no summary of the latest NIE update has been released.

Pundits and politicians who use the latest IAEA report to attack the 2007 NIE are distorting the information, at best — and, at worst, are playing politics with national security.

Copyright © 2011 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. All Rights Reserved.
source URL (retrieved on 12/01/2011 – 09:49): http://www.thebulletin.org/node/8947