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To mark the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, September 26, Veterans For Peace is publishing an Open Letter to President Biden: Just Say NO to Nuclear War! The letter calls on President Biden to step back from the brink of nuclear war by declaring and implementing a policy of No First Use and by taking nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert.
VFP also urges President Biden to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and to provide global leadership for the total elimination of nuclear weapons.
The full letter will be published on the VFP website and offered to mainstream newspapers and alternative news sites. A shorter version is being shared with VFP chapters and members who may wish to publish it in local newspapers, possibly as a letter-to-the-editor.
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Dear President Biden,
We are writing you on the occasion of the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, which has been declared by the United Nations General Assembly to be celebrated annually on September 26.
As veterans who have fought in multiple U.S. wars, we are concerned about the very real danger of a nuclear war that would kill millions of people and could possibly even destroy human civilization. Therefore we are asking to have input into the Nuclear Posture Review that your administration has recently initiated.
Exactly who is conducting this Nuclear Posture Review? Hopefully not the same think tanks that have lobbied for disastrous wars that have killed and wounded thousands of U.S. soldiers and hundreds of thousands of people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere. Hopefully not the same Cold Warriors who have militarized U.S. foreign policy. Or the retired generals who cheerlead for war on the cable networks. And we certainly hope not the defense industry itself, which makes obscene profits from war and war preparations, and which has a vested interest in the “modernization,” of nuclear weapons.
Actually, it is our fear that these are exactly the type of “experts” who are currently conducting the Nuclear Posture Review. Will they recommend that we continue to play “nuclear chicken” with Russia, China, North Korea and other nuclear-armed states? Will they recommend that the U.S. continues to spend billions of dollars building new and more destabilizing nuclear weapons and “missile defense” systems? Do they believe that a nuclear war can be won?
The U.S. public does not even know who is conducting the Nuclear Posture Review. There is apparently no transparency at all in a process which could determine the future of our nation and of our planet. We ask that you make public the names and affiliations of all those at the Nuclear Posture Review table. Furthermore, we request that Veterans For Peace and other peace and disarmament organizations be given a seat at the table. Our only vested interest is in achieving peace, and in avoiding a nuclear catastrophe.
When the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons came into force on January 22, 2021, you became the first President to face the consequential task of a Nuclear Posture Review in the face of International Law declaring nuclear weapons to be illegal. You now hold it within your power to demonstrate to the American people and to the world that you are committed to the goal of a nuclear-free world.
Veterans For Peace urges you to do the following:
- Adopt and announce a policy of “No First Use” of nuclear weapons and make that policy credible by publicly decommissioning U.S. ICBMs that can only be used in a first strike;
- Take U.S. nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert (Launch On Warning) and store warheads separately from delivery systems, thereby reducing the probability of an accidental, unauthorized, or unintentional nuclear exchange;
- Cancel plans to replace the entire US arsenal with enhanced weapons at a cost of more than $1 trillion over the next 30 years;
- Redirect the money thus saved into environmentally and socially sound programs, including the accelerated cleanup of highly toxic and radioactive waste left during eight decades of the nuclear cycle;
- End the sole, unchecked authority of any president (or his or her delegates and their delegates) to launch a nuclear attack and require Congressional approval of any use of nuclear weapons;
- Comply with our obligations under the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) by actively pursuing a verifiable agreement among nuclear-armed states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals;
- Sign and ratify the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons;
- Phase out nuclear energy, stop producing depleted uranium weapons, and stop uranium mining, processing and enrichment;
- Clean up radioactive sites from the nuclear cycle and develop an environmentally and socially sound nuclear waste disposal program; and
- Fund health care and compensation for victims of radiation.
It will be a real leap forward for transparency and for our democracy if representatives of peace and disarmament NGO’s are given access to this critically important process. We represent millions of people who want nothing more than to see the United States make a dramatic “Pivot to Peace.” What better place to start than to step back from the brink of nuclear war? The Billions of U.S. tax dollars saved could be applied to the very real national security threats of the Climate Crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic. What better legacy for the Biden Administration than to begin a process that could lead to worldwide nuclear disarmament!
Sincerely,
VETERANS FOR PEACE
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“Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War”
by Michel Chossudovsky
Available to order from Global Research!
ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102
Print Edition: $10.25 (+ shipping and handling)
PDF Edition: $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)
Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.
Reviews
“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
–John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University
“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations
Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
–Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute
