(Washington, DC – 1/16/08) – The Department of Energy has dedicated a 90 day comment period to the Bush Administration’s proposed nuclear weapons production facility formally known as Complex 2030.This comes despite Congressional action zeroing out funding for the reliable replacement warhead, a new nuclear weapon, associated with the $150 million nuclear complex.
Recent polls by World Public Opinion show 79% of the American people want to see the U.S. government do more to eliminate nuclear weapons.Peace Action is among 68 other groups engaging the public to use this comment period to support nuclear abolition and U.S. compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Across the nation, Peace Action Affiliates will hold community meetings to discuss the project and collect comments for the DOE.Peace Action supporters in California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas will present their opinions at DOE hearings in those states.The Peace Action online campaign is expected to reach over 100,000 nuclear abolition activists.
“Tens of thousands of Americans will write the Department of Energy in the next three months to tell them that they refuse to have nuclear weapons built in their backyard. Instead it is time to dismantle nuclear weapons rather than build new ones,” claimed Paul Kawika Martin, Peace Action’s political director.
The comment campaign will continue through the appointed 90 day period culminating in a final hearing in Washington, DC at which Peace Action’s national office will issue a statement on behalf of the network.The statement will call for the U.S. government to: stop the Complex Transformation project, increase dedication to nuclear abolition, and invest resources into nuclear cleanup and renewable energy programs.
BACKGROUND
The Nuclear Complex to be transformed is made up of facilities scattered across the country at 8 major locations with missions as diverse as laboratory work, explosives testing, and nuclear weapons component manufacturing.
Complex Transformation would include a major new facility—the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement (CMRR) at Los Alamos National Lab—to build 50-80 warhead cores (plutonium “pits”) per year, violating the spirit of U.S. commitments to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Article 6 which encourages disarmament.
The 2007 JASON pit lifetime study confirmed that existing pits could last 100 years or more making the Complex Transformation project an unnecessary expense for an indebted Federal Government.
Legislative and Executive branches of the U.S. government have yet to complete mandated nuclear policy reviews necessary to assess how the U.S. should move into the future regarding nuclear weapons.
Increased production of plutonium pits, through Complex Transformation, will lead to increased risk to national security, public health, and the environment.
Expanding our current nuclear weapons program sends the wrong message to other Nations, like North Korea, with whom we are negotiating over nuclear disarmament.
When we talk about “Real Security through International Cooperation and the Funding of Human Needs” it is sometimes hard to understand what that means in terms of our daily lives.
On my way home I often pass a family saying hello and usually exchanging brief pleasantries. Normally, the father and sometimes the mother sit on the front stoop watching the baby play.Last night, however, as I rounded the corner something was very different.All the contents of their house had been dumped haphazardly onto the sidewalk; they were not sitting on the porch but rather on the street near their clothes.They had been “put out of their house.”They could not make the rent for this month and so this family of three (with a toddler) was homeless, sitting in the dark and cold with no place to go.They had left that morning for work and daycare with a small sense of security, only to arrive that night vulnerable and in genuine danger.How is it, in the richest democracy in the world, we can put a family out?
My neighborhood is known for gang activity.I myself, have witnessed 3 shootings; none of which, thankfully, resulted in death or injury; but they were scary. I can’t imagine being a toddler on the street hearing those booming noises echo only feet away from me.I have lots of Libertarian friends who don’t believe the government could solve these problems even if it did have a billion dollars.I might agree if we ever had a chance to test the theory.The money spent on militarism represents more than 70% of our Federal budget.The money for social programs is less than 5%.Where are our priorities?Why have we, for decades, chosen bombs over people?
Again, I turn to my Libertarian friends who claim the ONLY function of a Federal government is the protection of national boarders from foreign invaders.I would like to see a more comprehensive idea of ‘foreign invaders.’ I think hunger and frost bite should be counted among the terrorists affecting our world.
It strikes me that these terrorists are potently killing people all over the world on a daily basis – and U.S. investment in militarism only compounds the problem.I lived in Kosova for a time about a year ago.The people there are so grateful to the U.S. for ending the genocide perpetuated by Milosevic.They have a picture of Bill Clinton or Gen. Wesley Clark on nearly every street; including a giant mural on Bill Clinton bvld in downtown Prishtina.Of course there is another side to this gratitude.On Bill Clinton blvd there are still apartment buildings bombed out from U.S. strikes in 1999.People are still living in homes exposed to the elements with no water or electricity.The unemployment rate is staggering and the thousands of ‘missing’ are still unaccounted for.The political status of Kosova is still in flux between a Serbian territory and an independent state. Neither Europe nor the U.S. has invested enough money and time into the rebuilding of Kosova.We saved them from genocide and then condemned them to poverty through our inaction.
There is a similar story happening all over the world:in Ethiopia & Eutria; in Pakistan & Afghanistan; in Burma & S. Korea; in Sudan, in Sri Lanka, in Palestine, in Columbia, in Morocco, in every continent.Real security, internationally, means investing in the health and well being of all humans; knowing that persons whose security needs are met will never strap a bomb to their back and then board a train.
Terrorism, both the Islamic kind and the gang kind, can only be stopped by meeting our human needs as a global community.The U.S. is in a unique position to take leadership in this endeavor, and we have historically.Although now contentious, the IMF and World Bank served their original purpose after WWII.The funding provided by these international organizations rebuilt Europe after the devastation and renewed the historic cities to their former glory.We have lost the philanthropy which launched us into a global super power.Now we face our challenges with bombs and empty promises.Ours is a path of destruction and destitution.We must regain our conscious and expand our sense of community if we are ever to realize a peaceful world.
I don’t have a lot of time to make a proper analysis of the situation in Pakistan today but I wanted to take some space here to reflect on Democracy.How is it that our President claims to have invaded Iraq to unseat a military dictator who does not believe in Democracy AND YET will support Musharraf in his bid to overrun democracy in Pakistan.
Now the unpopular Pakistani strongman has imposed a state of emergency, disbanding the Supreme Court, shutting down the media and basic freedoms, and imprisoning democratic opposition leaders and activists. The ‘Emergency” is a cover to buy the time for backroom deals to ensure Musharraf’s political survival. All the while the populist former PM, Benazir Bhutto is blockaded into her home by the military and prevented from attending the opposition rally.
Peace Action is asking you to join with other peace activists:
Call the Pakistan Embassy (202.243.6500) and tell them the international community is watching and expects the rule of law to be restored;
Contact the State Department and say “Stop sending military and security funding to Pakistan until the constitution is restored and free, fair elections are ensured.” Call 202.647.6575 and press 1 to leave your comment.
Imagine you are a parent living in a war zone.A happy life is hardly a reality but you are surviving by keeping your head low and cooperating with no one and everyone.One day you venture out of your house for an hour to pick up flour for the next month.When you return your house, and the family you left there, you find it has been completely destroyed.Your children, your spouse, your life scattered around your land like rubble.You, and your family, have become victims of air strikes.
Whether in Kosova in the 90’s, or Afghanistan & Iraq today – air strikes are deadly to civilians and they have devastating effects on infrastructure for years to come.I’ve seen it.I’ve walked, ten years after the war, through the streets in Prishtina, Kosova where bombed hospitals sit empty and unused in an area where a mammography machine would save lives from breast cancer.I’ve lived in a house held up by makeshift beams and gutted on one side because a missal exploded 5 feet from the front door in 1999.
This month we’ve had new insight into the multinational forces (MNF) responsibility for civilian causalities in Iraq and Afghanistan. October was the deadliest month for civilians in Afghanistan and air strikes played a significant part.Last Sunday 60 minutes did a report on this very issue.They found a family who was suspected of harboring terrorists and bombed to death by multinational forces.The family was never confronted or warned to get out.The villagers claim those died never had anything to do with insurgents.MNF bombed without proof – they just bombed.President Karzai came out publicly in that program condemning air strikes.Bush touts Afghanistan as a victory and an explanation of what we are doing in Iraq.And yet, “while the enemy has killed hundreds of civilians this year, a similar number of civilians have been killed by American forces. With relatively few troops there, the U.S. and NATO rely on air power. The number of civilians killed in air strikes has doubled.”Where is the victory in that?
In Iraq we have less information because the MNF refuse to be open about the civilian causalities.The United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq recently released a report which deals with civilian causalities. I’ll simply quote the highlights of page 9.“UNAMI recorded a number of incidents in which 88 civilians were reportedly killed during air strikes conducted by MNF forces.12 They included the following: nine civilians killed in five villages in the al-Anbakiya area near Ba’quba on 11 March; two civilians killed in Dulu’iya in Salahuddin Governorate on 15 March; 16 civilians killed in Sadr City in Baghdad on 30 March; 27 civilians killed in Khaldiya, Ramadi, on 3 April…..:”the list goes on for another 30 or so lines.
If we cannot stop this war let us at least stand up for the people who suffer from it on a daily basis.I urge you to contact your representatives and tell them to work with the UN to report these atrocities.We must bring the crimes of this war to light.The only weapon we have now is shame and the best way to shame our own government is to align ourselves with an international power.
As a self identified progressive and spiritual person I find myself constantly perplexed by the contradictions I see in the Christian neoconservative movement.I understand that because our views are different I will never fully understand their position on any issue but what has really gotten to me this week is the disconnect between their righteous indignation of sex and their tolerance of the current administration’s nuclear policy.
Let’s look at the argument for abstinence.They say there is no such thing as safe sex but they have no trouble proclaiming the safety of new nuclear weapons.Sex is never safe because condoms are only 99.9% effective in preventing pregnancy and the spread of HIV.RRW is safe despite the 100% likelihood that testing these nuclear weapons will put more cancer causing uranium into our water shed system depleting our earth and spreading disease.
What’s the likelihood these weapons will have to be tested?I say the chances are as good as they are that at least 10 teenagers will engage in sex before they graduate high school; in other words, very high changes indeed.New nuclear weapons will inevitably have to be tested because otherwise those who plan using them will have no idea how they work.If neoconservatives believe the risk of sex with condoms is so great, how can they not see the risk in new nuclear weapons?
Of course, we know that the abstinence only program is not about disease it’s about god’s will.God, apparently, does not think people should engage in sex unless it’s for procreation, the creation of life.They believe the lives of people are the most important thing to protect.They, neoconservatives, go so far as to say that a fetus is a life and must be protected by law.This fetus, which must be protected at all cost, is most at risk from nuclear fallout and uranium seeping into the water system.Look no further than birth defect rates in Ukraine for evidence.Infant mortality, debilitating birth defects, and increased infertility have left this country with a declining population after the nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl.Even with all the horrible things nuclear material does to babies in the womb, I never saw Jerri Fallwell at an anti-nukes rally.
Only talking about sex and babies is really missing the main point.Nuclear weapons, whether new or old, are designed to kill people; people who, according to the faithful, were put here by a god that loves them.Neoconservatives seem to believe that god has favorites:fetuses, Americans, and Christians.They will tout the importance of saving lives from abortion and then proclaim we should use our nuclear weapons to kill the brown people for having nuclear weapons (which they are not sure they have).
Do you see the disconnect here, or am I crazy?I work with all sorts of religious types whom I respect for their beliefs, even if I don’t hold them myself.My mother, the priest, believes that god put us on this earth to be in community with one another and in doing so we are in community with god.All religious fundamentalists seem to believe the opposite – their sole purpose is to break up communities by drawing arbitrary lines to suit their taste.Life is sacred – as long as it’s a life we agree with.God created the earth – but, it is not our responsibility to be stewards of that earth.Science goes against gods will – unless that science enables us to kill people who do not believe the same things as us.It’s infuriating and I challenge any fundamentalist out there to hit me back with some of your hate speech – tell me why you think war is so good and nuclear weapons are so necessary.Then tell me why god supports you.I’d love to demonstrate your ignorance live and in blog.
If this video tears at your insides as much as it does mine please consider taking action to stop this war. Take part in regional demonstrations happening in areas near you on Sat., OCTOBER 27th. Check out this website for more information.
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Bush Administration, Complex 2030, Complex Transformation, Global Activism, Nuclear Weapons, Peace, Peace Action, RRW, War, military, weapons proliferation | 
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