Department of Energy Calls for Public Comment on Complex Transformation SPEIS – Peace Action Responds with a call for Nuclear Abolition

(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.

 

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Iraq Toll

Those who died in Iraq from Oct 7 to 13:

Cpl Gilberto Meza  21  Oxnard CA

Cpl Zurab Choghosvili  26  (Soviet) Georgia

Cpl Benjamin Dillon  22  Rootstown OH

Cpl Jeremy Burris  22   Tacoma WA

Frank Cady III  20  Sacramento CA

Sgt Jason Lantieri  25  Killingworth CT

Sgt Lillian Clemens  35  Lawton OK

Spc Samuel Pearson  28  Westerville OH

Sgt Eric Duckworth  26  Plano TX

Sgt Donaid Munn II  22  St Clairs Shores MI

Pvt Nathan Thacker  18  Greenbrier AR

22 were seriously wounded and maimed.

56 wounded were returned to occupation.

328 Iraqi brothers and sisters were killed.

Cf:  www.icasualties.org

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Iraq Toll: 3808 brave U.S. citizens dead

Those who died in Iraq from Sep 23 to 29::

Cpl Anthony Bento 23 San Diego CA

Sgt Kevin Brown 38 Harrah OK

Sgt Zachary Tomczak 24 Huron SD

Sgt Randy Johnson 34 Washington DC

Sgt Donnie Dixon 37 Miami FL

Sgt Robert Ayres III 23 Los Angeles CA

Sgt James Doster 37 Pine Bluff AR

40 were seriously wounded and maimed.

33 were returned to occupation.

362 Iraqi brothers and sisters were killed.

Cf: www.icasualties.org

Creating a Digital Movement

“As technology advances, it reverses the characteristics of every situation again and again. The age of automation is going to be the age of ‘do it yourself.”
Marshall McLuhan

In The Medium is the Massage McLuhan suggests that our world is moving into a digital age.  Written in 1967 he made predictions of a ‘global village’ a place where people can come together, across geographical & cultural borders, to share ideas and experience media simultaneously.  He believed this would bring our world closer together and prelude a more harmonious existence on this earth.  Forty years later we are still embroiled in wars which, at their core, speak to the inability of the global village to overcome greed and hate.

We who believe in peace are the global majority.  And yet, our President is unresponsive and mainstream media  continue to trumpet his call to war.  How, without satellites and TV stations, can we make our voices heard above the gatekeepers?  The lessons from Media still apply:  we are in the age of automation, we must ‘do it ourselves’. 

The genius of the internet is the decentralization of power and information.  In other words, YOU have the power to share the information.  Every time you pass on an action alert to your network, every time you research a subject, every time you publish your opinion - you are unseating the status quo.  You are saying NO to watered down information ‘from the ground’ in Iraq.  You are saying NO to the lies perpetrated by the Bush administration. 

Instead, you are saying YES to the peace movement.  We will never have a satellite (or the money to rent one) so we depend on you to broadcast our message of peace to the global village.  I urge you to take on this challenge.  Go to our website, do your research and remember that every moment is a teaching moment.  Take action, online or otherwise, and tell people what you did encouraging them to join the movement.

You are frustrated by the lack of movement in a progressive direction – I understand.  We long for peace and justice while our world seems to become less and less oriented towards those goals.  There is no alternative than to ‘sound my (our) barbaric YAWP over the rooftops of the world.’ (Walt Whitman) demanding we be heard.  The Internet is the best way to unite our voices so they cannot ignore us. We have the power share our goals with the world and expand our knowledge of that world - use it.

Debunking RRW

The U.S. and Russia spent decades and billions of dollars building arsenals and fighting proxy wars to become THE hegemonic power of the world during the “Cold War”.   Finding Russia’s old and in many cases missing nuclear material is a top priority for our Representatives but it seems some in the Senate are still unsure what to do with our nuclear weapons.

If you read this blog you’ve heard of the reliable replacement warhead (RRW).  You know that Congress zeroed out funding.  That the Senate still needs to vote and there are some shaky suckers on the Senate who need a reality check.  Bush is touting RRW as a ‘security measure’ (like his friend Regan) saying we cannot have old nuclear weapons sitting around our country.  Bennett Ramberg, who served in the State Dept under George H. W. Bush, disagrees. 

In an article in the Baltimore Sin Bennett deconstructs Bush’s argument while outlining the hazardous consequences of this program.  Here’s a sampling.

• Myth:  stockpiles from the Cold War are aging and hazardous.
  • Both are true, nuclear weapons are hazardous and these particular weapons are aged but still deadly.  In 1993 the Clinton administration put forth the stockpile stewardship program to “ensure the preservation of the core intellectual competencies of the U.S. in nuclear weapons, including weapons design, system integration, manufacturing, security, use control reliability assessment in certification.”  Part of this program includes a lab that virtually replicates tests on the current stockpile and suggests fixes in the event problems emerge.
• Myth:  These weapons are ‘unreliable’
  • “In 2006, government scientists concluded that the stockpile’s plutonium cores will last at least 100 years.”  Those found to be deteriorating were found and replaced.
• Myth:  These RRW is based on weapons from the 1980’s so will not need to be tested.  The U.S. will remain in compliance with the Test Ban Treaty.
  • The RRW is not an exact replica of this older weapon therefore it WILL need to be tested somewhere.  We discovered back in the 1950’s how hazardous nuclear testing is to our planet.  Ask anyone from the Marshall Islands how they feel about nuclear testing and you’ll get a full idea of the human cost.

Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) have introduced S.1914, a bill which stops funding the RRW until a new nuclear policy and posture review are completed.  This is the more sensible way to proceed than RRW.   Tell your Senator TODAY!

There Is No Light at the End of This Tunnel Either

From Our Affiliate:
The Rev. Robert Moore
Executive Director
Coalition for Peace Action

 

The recent testimony of General David Patreaus has strong parallels to the deceptions used to justify continued US troop deployments 40 years ago in Vietnam. The mantra then was “There is light at the end of this tunnel.”

 

History showed that there was no possibility of a democratic, pro-US government standing on its own in Vietnam, as is the case currently in Iraq. This is because the Vietnamese people themselves didn’t support the puppet governments in South Vietnam, as the current Iraqi government is also not supported by a huge majority of citizens there.

 

Yet, throughout the tragic history of the Vietnam War, the American people were urged to keep supporting massive US troop deployments. We now know, through the Pentagon Papers and other documents, that this amounted to intentional deception at the highest levels of government, which knew that military escalation was failing.

 

US public opinion turned against the Vietnam War by 1969. As in today’s Congress, there were efforts starting with the bipartisan Hatfield-McGovern bill in 1970 to stop the war and force withdrawal of US troops. Tragically, that effort failed, and more than half of the total 58,000 US soldiers and 2 million Southeast Asians who died in that war were killed subsequently.

 

By June 1974, Congress finally passed a binding cut-off of funding for the war that mandated a complete US withdrawal by August 1975. The last US personnel were actually withdrawn by April. The war advocates said there would be a blood bath and that the other nations in the region would fall to communism in a domino effect. While there was inevitable turmoil after the US withdrew, these apocalyptic predictions didn’t come true.

 

Given that General Patreaus wrote an op-ed six weeks before the 2004 elections saying that the Iraqi military and police were making “good progress” toward standing up on their own, I wonder if the deceptions are intentional or just myopic. It’s hard to say if it’s intentional, or simply the stubborn denial of facts.

 

What is clear to everyone by now is that the American people were neo-conned into the Iraq war in the first place, through deception and manipulation. There were no weapons of mass destruction, no connection between Iraq’s government and the attacks of September 11, 2001, no cakewalk to a stable and democratic post-invasion Iraq.

 

The Bush Administration is now trying to neo-con us into continuing to tolerate and support continuing US troop deployment to another civil war and quagmire. Much of the deception, as before, uses two means: cherry picking and manipulating the facts, and moving the goal posts.

 

An example of the first is the assertion that Iraqi casualties from sectarian violence are declining. That is only the case if large numbers of casualties are not counted, which the Bush Administration does by excluding victims shot in the front of the head instead of the back; and by excluding people killed in car bombings not considered to have sectarian motives. The most reliable independent count, by the Associated Press, shows the number of Iraqi casualties this summer to be the highest since the US invaded over four years ago.

 

In terms of moving the goal posts, Congress and the Bush Administration agreed that the “surge” (which should have truthfully been called the escalation) would be evaluated in mid-September by mutually agreed objective benchmarks. Independent analyses show that almost none of those benchmarks have been met, especially in terms of creating a viable unified national government or Iraqi troops and police replacing US troops to provide basic security.

 

So the Bush Administration has simply changed the goal to “local security,” which it “achieves” by making Faustian alliances with local insurgents against Al Qaida in Iraq. The only thing that is certain about this temporary “success” is that these militias will eventually use the weapons the US is supplying to them against our troops and the Iraqi government forces.

 

The truth is that there is no light at the end of the Iraq tunnel, as there was none at the end of Vietnam. The only moral and sensible steps to take are to withdraw US troops, renounce permanent US military bases in Iraq, and undertake a surge of diplomacy and Iraqi-controlled, internationally supervised rebuilding.

Iraq Toll

Those who died in Iraq from Sep 2 to 8:

Sgt Kevin Gilbertson  24  Cedar Rapids IA

Spc Christopher Patton  21  Lawrenceville GA

Sgt Delmar White  37  Wallins KY

Pvt Randol Shelton  22  Schiller Park IL

Spc David Lane  20  Emporia KS

Sgt Joel Murray  26  Kansas City MO

Spc Rodney Johnson  20  Houston TX

Spc Keith Nurnberg  26  McHenry IL

Pvt Dane Balcon  19  Colorado Springs CO

Cpl William Warford  24  Temple TX

Sgt David Cooper Jr  36  State College PA

Sgt Eddie Collins      England

Sgt Michael Yarbrough  24  Malvern AR

Sgt John Stock  26  Longview TX

Cpl Brian Scripsick  22  Wayne OK

Cpl Christopher Poole Jr  22  Mount Dora FL

Sgt Lee Wilson  30  Chapel Hill NC

Spc Jason Hernandez  21  Streetsboro OH

Spc Thomas Hilbert  20  Venus TX

Cap Drew Jensen  27  Clackamas CA

Spc Marisol Heredia  19  El Monte CA

Cpl Ryan Woodward  22  Fort Wayne IN

47 were seriously wounded and maimed.

58 wounded were returned to occupation.

256 Iraqi sisters and brothers were killed.

Cf:   www.icasualties.org

Reflecting 6 Years Later

It is hard to believe how much in our world has changed since the events of September 11^th. I do not intend this post to paint a rosy picture of the world before the towers fell, only to mark how that day exacerbated the oppression and violence in our world by playing to our fears and prejudices. Bush and Bin Laden have created a world in their image though the violence they met out on our global community. They have created a world where we see a ‘culture clash’ instead of a chance to learn one another. They have created a world where our fears of ‘an imperialist west’ or ‘a terrorist threat’ command us to abdicate our rights and responsibilities as human beings. They created a world where the threat of nuclear destruction is at its highest levels ever.

On this fateful and devastating anniversary I ask that we come together to mourn the millions lost since to violence: in Afghanistan, England, Guantanamo, India, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Pakistan, Palestine, Spain, Sudan, United States & countless other locations.

• Afghanistan: After 9/11 the destruction of this country quelled Taliban power briefly while leaving millions without homes, jobs, or hope. They as a nation are still struggling with abject poverty, mounting violence, corruption, inequality, and oppression.
• England: On July 7^th London suffered a calculated attack to their transit system 52 people were killed and over 700 were injured. The horrors of that day were followed up by a less deadly attempt to destroy the Glasgow airport on June 30^th, 2007.
• Guantanamo: The camp has drawn strong criticism for its extrajudicial detention of captives and the possibility that captives held there were subjected to abusive interrogation techniques that constitute torture. The detainees held by the United States were classified as “enemy combatants” by executive order and without due process.
• India: On July 11, 2006 at least 200 people were killed when a train was bombed in an attack.
• Iraq: Too many deaths to count. Too much destruction to fathom. Too many soldiers used, abused, raped, manipulated, and martyred without one ounce of remorse from their Commander and Chief. Too many refugees scattered around the world. It makes me sick so I want you to check out this link for a realistic picture of the losses in Iraq.
• Israel & Lebanon: In July of 2006 Israel and Lebanon engaged in a deadly war. The violence began when Hezbollah forces crossed into Israel, killing three soldiers and abducting two others. After that cross-border raid, five more Israeli soldiers were killed, as well as two Israeli civilians. Two Lebanese soldiers and 45 Lebanese civilians were killed. Rocket fire to Israel was confined to the Haifa region while the air strikes on Lebanon destroyed the capital city of Beirut.
• Pakistan: On March 2, 2006 a car bomb killed 4 and injured 52 outside the Karachi Marriott – yards away from the U.S. consulate. In June 2002 a car bombing attack left 14 people dead, all Pakistanis outside the building, which lies in an upscale district of the sprawling city’s downtown.
• Palestine: Palestine, since 9/11, has deteriorated into wounded nation broken by rocket fire from Israel and sickened with civil war between 2 political parties. The violence mounts daily with civilians suffering the most.
• Spain: The 2004 train bombing in Madrid killed 191 people and wounded 2,050.
• Sudan: The genocide continues unabated while the world watches. Internationally, states make decisions about foreign priorities not based on resources but politics. The genocide continues because Africa is not priority in the war on terror.
• United States: On September 11, 2001 Al Qaeda orchestrated the most devastating attack on U.S. soil since Pearl Harbor. There were 2,974 fatalities, not including the 19 hijackers: 246 on the four planes (no one on board any of the hijacked aircraft survived), 2,603 in New York City in the towers and on the ground, and 125 at the Pentagon. Among the fatalities were 343 New York City Fire Department firefighters, 23 New York City Police Department officers, and 37 Port Authority Police Department officers. An additional 24 people remain listed as missing.

On this, the day as we recall the horrors of violence in our borders let us not forget the violence meted out since. We have a choice in this. We must learn to address violence with justice or we will always be fighting the terror campaigns raged by state and non-state actors. We must invest in humanity by rebuilding New Orleans, by investing in healthcare, by stopping atrocity with diplomacy. We have a choice; to unquestioningly follow our leaders to a new war with Iran or to say NO before the war starts. It is beyond time to take our democracy back and make progressive priorities American policy. Only peace and justice can end terror.

Military Families Speak Out

I write to honor the service of those humans lost to war.

JJ,

I am so glad you brought up my ongoing attention to the human toll we pay for this unjust war.  I thank you for your service and respectfully ask that you not assume you know my feelings.  I am appalled that these women and men have died and no one is giving them proper dedication for their service.  In Viet Nam the remains of soldiers were brought back with the respect and mourning.  Their flag draped coffins reminded us daily of how much we lose to war.  Bush, in a disrespectful shun of their service, chooses to hide their remains from our eyes so we do not know how many people have been lost.  This was a decision he and Cheney made long before the war even began.

If you asked me, each soldier who dies on foreign soil should have a quarter page memorial dedicated to them in the Washington Post, New York Times, and USA Today.  I don’t understand how the lives of the 30 people killed at Virginia Tech, who did receive such dedications, are more important that of our soldiers. So, if you see naming the dead as disrespectful because of our political affiliation, I am sorry but I will not stop.  I have too much respect for their sacrifice not to name them.  I am almost brought to tears when I think of the families of these people; of the thoughts and feelings that went through their heads before they left this earth; of the futures they will never have because they made the ultimate sacrifice for my future under false pretenses. 

I talk to Vets who share my feelings about the war on a daily basis.  Some are upset about the Stop-loss program that forces enlisted people to re-enlist for cash, be sent back to war under duress, or go to the brig.  They describe it as a backdoor draft.  One solider whom I am very close to broke into tears when he told me how sad he has been since returning.  He said he went to war and lost friends because he was told it was necessary.  He trusted in the system of the military and in the wisdom of his commander and chief.  Having returned and heard that commander and chief manipulating the truth and abandoning the original mission of the war (this soldier believed he was going to stop the spread of WMD’s) – he became much disenfranchised.  He is still a successful officer but suffers greatly with emotional issues and alcoholism.  I only wish I could list the number of our soldiers who return from war and we leave alone to self destruct.  They will be the true test of our VA system.

I know I cannot convince many of you the total and raw pain I feel writing about this war.  Not just the loss of soldiers but the loss of Iraqi’s, the loss of a peaceful future for the next generation, the loss of our international reputation that will, for generations, have a negative affect on our stability and prosperity.  But JJ, I feel it.  I feel raw pain because I know there are millions upon millions of people in so much more pain than me resultant of this war.  I cannot have this venue and not use it to expose that pain in its most raw form:  names.

I am sorry I have not abbreviated the ranks correctly — please be kind enough to correct my mistake.  Below is the latest Iraq toll:

Those who died in Iraq from Aug 19 to 25:

Cap Michael Fielder  35  Holly Springs NC

Pvt Donovan Witham  20  Malvern AR

Sgt Sandy Britt  30  Apopka FL

Cpl Nathan Hubbard  21  Clovis CA

Cpl Joshua Harmon  20  Mentor OH

Spc Michael Hook  25  Altona PA

Cpl Philip Brodnick  25  New Lenox IL

Spc Jessy Pollard  22  Springfield MO

Sgt Garrett McLead  23  Rockport TX

Sgt Jason Paton  25  Poway CA

Cap Derek Dobogal  26  Fond du Lac WI

Spc Tyler Seideman  20  Lincoln AR

Cpl Jeremy Bouffard  21  Middlefield MA

Spc Rickey Bell  21  Caruthersville MO

Cap Corry Tyler  29  Georgia

CWO Paul Flynn  28  Whitsett NC

Sgt Matthew Tallman  30  Groveland CA

Pvt Omar Torre  20  Chicago IL

Pvt Edgar Cardenas  34  Lilburn GA

Sgt Adrian Elizalde  30  North Bend IN

Sgt Michael Tully  33  Falls Creek PA

Sgt Henry Heringes  36  Tampa FL

Cpl Matthew Medlicott  21  Houston TX

 

43 were seriously wounded and maimed.

54 wounded were returned to occupation.

360 Iraqis brothers and sisters were killed.