Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) gazes adoringly at a nuclear weapon

While the media was obsessed with its favorite kidnapping story, they have failed to notice that Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) has been holding our security hostage by using partisan tactics to delay ratification of New START in exchange for $10 billion in ransom money for the nuclear weapons complex.

From the beginning, we knew that false claims about the need to “modernize” our nuclear arsenal (read: build new nuclear weapons) would enter into the debate around New START and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Despite scientific evidence that current programs in place can safely maintain our arsenal as we reduce its size, Jon Kyl and other members of Congress are trying to argue that the exorbitant amount of money the Obama administration is allocating to the nuclear weapons complex is insufficient.

The Prague Project compiled this hilarious chart in response to the über right-wing Heritage Foundation’s claims that “the list of experts [against New START] is large”:

One of the most egregious arguments peddled by New START proponents is that no reasonable arms control expert is opposed to New START. That is blatantly false. Americans deserve honesty in this debate…

The graph speaks for itself. They also offered this brief analysis:

Over Seventy former high-level government officials and senior military officers have come out in support of New START.  In addition, every administration official supported the treaty, from Hillary Clinton, to Bob Gates, and, representing the entire uniformed military, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Michael Mullen.

A major nuclear agreement between the US and Russia, called New START (The new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) is awaiting approval from the Russian Parliament and US Senate.

The treaty calls for reductions in the sizes of US and Russian nuclear arsenals, as well as an increase in information sharing between the two nations. The original START expired last December, along with the framework it provided for verifying that each nation was in keeping with the agreement. The new agreement will replace the expired one, and the verification measures have provided a backdrop of urgency in ensuring the treaty passes. Since December, there have been no “boots on the ground” inspecting Russian arsenals. Sen. Dick Lugar, a leading Republican in favor of the treaty, had this to say:

Friends,

After nearly a month of trying to keep up with activities at the 2010 NPT Review Conference I finally decided that I needed to watch TV, but not just any TV. I’ve discovered NPT TV, a Website designed and run by a team of students from Germany. They have been running brief video interviews with a wide variety of people involved with the 2010 NPT RevCon; people like John Burroughs, Executive Director of the Lawyer’s Committee on Nuclear Policy. Check out one of the interviews with him here as he “talks about different instruments to prohibit and ban the different kinds of Weapons of Mass Destruction.”

Prohibition of Weapons of Mass Destruction from NPT TV on Vimeo.

4/8/2010  (Lafayette Park, Washington DC) – The Walk Begins.

The newest phase of the Proposition One Campaign began on Thursday with a hike from Peace Park, DC, to Peace Park in Takoma Park, Maryland.

Above, Jay Marx and Ethan Genauer were interviewed at the White House by a Scripps Howard journalist, as they began the Walk for Nuclear Abolition to New York City.   There were several other journalists present, especially Japanese.  There will be a HUGE Japanese presence at the Non-proliferation Treaty events in New York, April 30 through the first week of May, including 100 Hibakusha (survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs).  We hope there will be an even huger US presence!