OpEd: We Can Eliminate Nuclear Weapons Before They Eliminate US

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[Date]: The [organization] is [doing this action] in [place] on [time]. It’s part of the worldwide struggle to abolish all nuclear weapons from the face of the earth forever. We may yet eliminate these militarily obsolete weapons of mass extinction -- before they eliminate us.

 

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons now puts nuclear weapons in the same prohibited category as chemical and biological weapons. The world has spoken: 122 nations agreed the Treaty at the United Nations, 86 have already signed it, and 54 have ratified it. (Updates at www.icanw.org/signature_and_ratification_status) But the nine nuclear-armed nations (USA, Russia, UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea) haven’t joined the Treaty yet.

 

What’s a “rogue nation?” One that ignores international norms and puts everyone in danger. We’re doing all we can to get these nine rogue nations to sign the Treaty and set the wheels in motion for negotiations to figure out how to get the thousands of warheads off the missiles and safely dismantled, before it’s too late.

 

The profiteering corporations (and the politicians they finance) continually try to convince us that these mad machines keep us “safe.” But this Treaty expresses international rejection of “deterrence theory.” It stigmatizes nuclear weapons as a grave threat to all humanity. It lays the groundwork for sensible, fair multilateral disarmament to eliminate all nuclear weapons from all countries.

 

It’s never been legal to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against cities or civilian populations. But now it’s also illegal to develop, test, produce, manufacture, transfer, station, possess, or stockpile nuclear weapons. Significantly, under this treaty, it’s also illegal to “assist, encourage, or induce” anyone else to do any of those things. That may include financing them, and many investors, pension funds, and financial institutions are already divesting from the industry.

 

If the profiteers are smart, they’ll convert their scientists and facilities to green technologies that address climate change and other pressing social needs. There’s federal legislation pending that would do just that: H.R. 2850, the Nuclear Weapons Abolition and Economic and Energy Conversion Act.

 

Learn more at NuclearBan.US, TreatyAlignment.US, DontBankOnTheBomb.com, and ICANW.org.